$50K Mac Pro is worth less than an iPhone on Apple’s trade-in site

Trading your current Apple device on the company’s website for a new one usually isn’t a good option if you want to get the best value. But David Imel, MKBHD’s researcher, showed that one of the most expensive Apple products available could be worth almost nothing after a little less than four years since it launched.

Imel tweeted that he “tried pricing out our $52,199 Mac Pro’s at the office for trade-in, which you can still buy from Apple, $52,199.” Apple never pays top dollar for trade-ins, but he – and everybody else – was shocked with how little the company offered for this $50,000+ computer: $970.

He joked, “What else has dropped 50x in value in 3 years… besides crypto?”

What’s interesting is that Apple still sells the Mac Pro for the same price MKBHD paid four years ago. And yet it offers less than 2% of that price for a trade-in despite the maxed-out configuration.

For comparison’s sake, if you trade in an iPhone 13 Pro Max at Apple, you can get up to $650 – which is half the price it once cost. Interestingly enough, Apple says it can give up to $1,250 for a Mac Pro, so it’s unclear what happened to a more than $50K product being worth less than the maximum Apple could give, as the company values more a good-condition machine rather than its internal specs.

So, if you have a maxed-out Mac Pro at home, you should keep using it or sell it to a friend or another store.

It’s also worth noting that after Apple unveiled the new MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, the company has yet to announce the new Apple silicon Mac Pro, which will likely launch this year.

Although it was expected to feature a redesign, an “Extreme” processor, and user-upgradeable RAM, it seems this Mac Pro will feature the same design, up to the M2 Ultra chip, and two SSD storage slots for graphics, media, and networking cards.

Trading your current Apple device on the company’s website for a new one usually isn’t a good option if you want to get the best value. But David Imel, MKBHD’s researcher, showed that one of the most expensive Apple products available could be worth almost nothing after a little less than four years since it launched.

Imel tweeted that he “tried pricing out our $52,199 Mac Pro’s at the office for trade-in, which you can still buy from Apple, $52,199.” Apple never pays top dollar for trade-ins, but he – and everybody else – was shocked with how little the company offered for this $50,000+ computer: $970.

He joked, “What else has dropped 50x in value in 3 years… besides crypto?”

What’s interesting is that Apple still sells the Mac Pro for the same price MKBHD paid four years ago. And yet it offers less than 2% of that price for a trade-in despite the maxed-out configuration.

For comparison’s sake, if you trade in an iPhone 13 Pro Max at Apple, you can get up to $650 – which is half the price it once cost. Interestingly enough, Apple says it can give up to $1,250 for a Mac Pro, so it’s unclear what happened to a more than $50K product being worth less than the maximum Apple could give, as the company values more a good-condition machine rather than its internal specs.

So, if you have a maxed-out Mac Pro at home, you should keep using it or sell it to a friend or another store.

It’s also worth noting that after Apple unveiled the new MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, the company has yet to announce the new Apple silicon Mac Pro, which will likely launch this year.

Although it was expected to feature a redesign, an “Extreme” processor, and user-upgradeable RAM, it seems this Mac Pro will feature the same design, up to the M2 Ultra chip, and two SSD storage slots for graphics, media, and networking cards.