Evening Latte

Summary

I upgrade my phone every year for a pretty simple reason: it’s cheaper than upgrading less frequently (with some caveats). I long ago hit the critical mass of people asking for details, but I’ve been lazy and playing a lot of video games.

Why

It comes down to the depreciation rate of phones. Because of the current state of the phone market (more on that later), the values of phones can stay high enough for long enough to allow a person to roll that value forward via frequent upgrades in a way that ends up costing less than other upgrade schedules. See the How section for specific examples (or if you’re already sold on the idea and don’t care about the “why”).

In addition to a lower out of pocket cost over time, the resulting average device age is much lower. Here’s an example of the ages of devices during two upgrade cycles: every four years and annual.

	End Year 1	End Year 2	End Year 3	End Year 4	Average	Max
Upgrade Every 4 years	1	2	3	4	2	4
Annual Upgrade	1	1	1	1	0.5	1

This puts numbers to what’s intuitively obvious: upgrading every year results in using an overall much newer device during any period longer than a year. This has a few benefits:

• The current device will always have security updates released for it
• The current device will always support the latest version of the operating system and associated features
• The current device will always have the latest hardware features. Some examples: better base specs (processor, RAM), better cameras, USB-C ports, waterproof casings, better and more durable screens, more efficient Bluetooth versions, larger batteries, wireless charging, and 5G capabilities.
• The current device will always support the latest version/features of all apps
• The current device will likely have a quicker user interface experience

How

First, some caveats:

• I can only personally confirm this works for Pixel devices because they’re all I’ve owned recently, but you can try applying the same general principles to devices from Samsung, Apple, or other manufacturers. Some of the stuff I describe (like Google Store promotions) obviously won’t be available, but their associated stores may have similar features.
• If you currently have an older (2+ year old) device, you’ll probably have a relatively large initial cash outlay to start the first cycle since your trade-in value will be less than more recent models.
• It normally takes 2-4 weeks after the old phone is dropped off for the trade-in credit to be applied to the original payment method, so you’ll need to be able to float that amount (usually $300-500).

General Requirements

There are four parts that make this plan feasible:

1. Trading in old devices while their value is still relatively high
2. Timing upgrades to align with sales on new devices
3. Timing upgrades to align with elevated trade-in values
4. Getting cash back, store credit, or both from purchases.

This is a bit oversimplified, but years ago, it was assumed that people would mostly buy new phones from a handful of options. Carriers heavily discounted new ones in return for locking customers into multi-year contracts, making up the initial hardware loss with service fees over time. This all meant that by the time people were ready to trade in, their old phones weren’t very valuable (why buy a two year old phone when you can get a brand new one for $15/mo spread over two years?).

But in recent years, the subsidized contract model has waned, partially because there are now many more phone options with a much wider price spectrum. Used/older model phones have become a popular budget option, and manufacturers and phone insurance companies need a steady stream of parts from older models to fulfill claims. Secondhand market demand has risen along with carrier-unlocked models becoming the norm and the near-elimination of contracts (giving consumers the flexibility to trade in at whatever pace they want).

Sales and elevated trade-in values are closely related, so I’ll cover them together. Everyone is familiar with retailers marking down the price of items to entice customers to buy, but equally important for this process is doing upgrades during times that also feature elevated trade-in values for old phones. The largest combined benefits are normally offered during two windows:

1. The launch of new models
   • For flagship Pixel models, this is usually late August or early September.
   • For “a” Pixel models, this is usually April or May.
2. The week of Thanksgiving and the two weeks after

I check a handful of deal sites a day year-round, and good Pixel sales are usually shared on at least one. But if you only care about this specific process, I recommend checking at least once a week during 1) the two weeks preceding the launch of the model you want and 2) the week of Thanksgiving and two weeks after.

Lastly, purchasing from a store that allows cash back or store credit is key since the trade-in very rarely fully covers the discounted price of a new device.

Google Store

I’ve done my last four upgrades through the Google Store because they sell unlocked models (compatible with all US carriers), and I think they have the best combination of the features listed above: significant discounts on new devices, consistently high trade-in values (especially during promotions), and opportunities to earn a significant amount of store credit. Two main ways to earn store credit:

Subscribing to Google One. The Standard plan (currently $3/mo) automatically earns 3% credit on all Google Store purchases, and Premium (currently $10/mo) earns the maximum 10%. I maintain a Premium subscription because I need the Drive storage (currently using 500GB+), but the store credit benefit activates immediately after subscription. As a result, you can sign up just before you plan to buy and cancel after the credit is issued. Since the store credit is earned based on the subtotal before trade-in, it’s common to receive $40-60 in return for one $10 monthly fee.

Promotions. Sometimes a model-specific amount of promotional store credit (usually $50-150) will be stacked with a sale. This doesn’t happen every year, but when it does, it’s usually the week after Thanksgiving, presumably to tempt people who didn’t bite on the Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

Earned store credit can then be held to put toward the next upgrade. Important: Google Store credit expires 365 days after issuance, so if you upgrade early in the cycle (like late August for a flagship model), you have two options:

1. Buy and keep something else from the store during the year with the credit. This will likely result in a higher out of pocket cost during your next phone upgrade.
2. “Convert” the credit by purchasing an item from the store and returning it. Credit applied to your account for returned purchase has no expiration date.

The trade-in process is pretty straightforward: an estimated value for the old phone is generated during the new phone purchase process, and a prepaid return box and instructions are delivered with the new phone. After the old phone is reset, packaged, and dropped off at a UPS store, there is a 2-4 week delay while it’s shipped and inspected. The approved credit is then applied to the original method of payment. The estimates provided during purchase have always been honored during my upgrades. It’s admittedly less convenient to have to float that amount for weeks, but it means significantly more Google One store credit because that’s based on the subtotal before the trade-in.

One last thing for the Google Store: there is a Pixel Referral program that lets people generate and share one-time use codes. The people who use the codes get 10% off their purchases, and the people who share the codes get a $50 store credit (up to 11 redemptions). Not everyone can generate codes; click the Refer friends now button on the page linked above to see if you’re eligible. If you are, find friends who also use Pixels and set up a sharing system. If you need a code and don’t know anyone who can generate one, people freely post them on Reddit hoping random people will essentially give them $50 store credit. Each account is supposedly limited to one referral code use in its lifetime, but I’ll test that next year.

Upgrade Examples

These are the numbers from my four most recent upgrades:

2022 (Pixel 7 128GB)	2023 (Pixel 8 128GB)	2024 (Pixel 9 128GB)	2025 (Pixel 10 256GB)
$599 retail price -100 sale -479 trade-in (P6) $20 out of pocket 100 promo credit	$699 retail price -279.60 sale -280 trade-in (P7) -100 store credit $39.40 out of pocket 41.94 GO credit	$799 retail price -490 trade-in (P8) -41.94 store credit $276.06 out of pocket 100 promo credit 76.72 GO credit	$899 retail price -200 sale -350 trade-in (P9) -89.90 referral code -133.89 store credit $125.21 out of pocket 47.93 GO credit

• In 2024, I got impatient and upgraded during the first promotion. I also only had minimal credit from the last purchase, so my out of pocket cost for that year’s upgrade was much higher than usual.
• I made a non-phone purchase in 2024, so not all my store credit was available for my 2025 upgrade.
• My 2025 out of pocket seems high until you realize I upgraded to a 256GB model, which is $100 more than the 128GB models I’d been using. So the comparative cost for previous years was $25.21.

This means the net cost of my phone purchases during that four-year period was $461.21 (again, including the more expensive 256GB model in 2025). That’s less than the sale costs of all but the Pixel 8 ($419.40). Those numbers suggest it would generally cost me more to buy a phone on sale every four years than to upgrade every year using the means described above.

Nothing I’ve talked about is limited to me: I’ve “recruited” two friends by sharing the info in this post, and both have done multiple upgrades, sometimes paying less than me. One used bundle offers to get significant discounts on multiple generations of Pixel Watch.

Other Stuff

• Credit score allowing, everyone should have a good rewards credit card to earn cash back, miles, or some other value. I personally use the Citi Double Cash card, so I get 2% cash back from all purchases.
• Google will infrequently offer Store promotions via the Play Store (that was the $280 discount on my 2023 upgrade). These are normally account-specific and are only offered to members with at least Gold status. You can maintain Gold status by making purchases in the Play store (including a Google One subscription) and/or doing weekly check-ins in the Play app.
• Credit cards may also run promotions giving extra rewards for Google Store purchases. Check your card’s rewards section when you’re ready to buy.
• If you use cash back sites like Rakuten or RetailMeNot, check those for baseline or promotional cash back offers when you’re ready to buy.
• If both credit card and cash back site promotions are available, you’ll likely have to choose between them since only one click-through offer can be used per purchase.
• Check PayPal and Venmo for Google Store promotions and general large-purchase offers. As of the writing of this article, PayPal is running an offer for 20% off all purchases made using their Pay Later method (splitting a purchase into four payments with no interest).
• Make sure any offers won’t be invalidated by the payment method receiving the trade-in credit.