There are two answers to this question and they are quite far apart. One is what a PS5 is listed for. The other is what a PS5 is paid for. The gap between them is where most of the frustration in second-hand console selling lives.
This is an attempt at the honest version, from the people buying them every day.
The short answer
It depends on four things, in this order: which model it is, whether the disc drive works, whether it runs cool, and what condition the shell is in. A Slim is worth more than a launch model, a Pro is worth considerably more than both, and a PS5 that will not power on is still worth well over a thousand rand.
For what your PS5 is worth today, working or faulty, the calculator gives you an offer in about a minute.
A private sale will usually beat our offer by a few hundred rand, sometimes more. It will also take longer, involve strangers, and carry a real chance of not happening at all. Whether that trade is worth it is a genuine judgement call and depends mostly on how much you value your own time.
Why listed prices are misleading
Go and look at PS5 listings on any local marketplace and you will see asking prices well above what we pay. This is not because those sellers know something you do not. It is because a listing price is an opening position, and anyone can ask for anything.
The useful exercise is to look at how long those listings have been up. A PS5 listed at an ambitious price three weeks ago is not evidence of value, it is evidence of an ambitious price. The listings that vanish quickly are the ones priced realistically, and by definition those are the ones you cannot see any more.
What affects the price
In rough order of how much they matter for a PS5 specifically:
- Which model it is. Slim beats original, and Pro beats everything, by a wide margin.
- Whether the disc drive works. A dead drive turns a disc console into a digital one, which costs a few hundred rand, not a few thousand.
- Whether it powers on and holds a stable temperature. Overheating is the single most common serious PS5 fault we see.
- Controllers. A working DualSense adds meaningfully, a drifting one adds less but still adds.
- The original box. Boxed consoles sell faster, so they are worth more to a buyer who resells them.
- Cosmetic condition. It matters, but far less than people expect. Scuffs cost less than a dead drive.
What does not change it as much as you think
Games. Unless you have something genuinely scarce, a stack of discs adds a modest amount. Sell the good ones separately if you care about maximising it.
Storage expansion. An extra SSD helps, but it is worth what an SSD is worth, not what you paid for it in a rush before a launch.
How much you originally paid. This is the hardest one to let go of, and the most important. What a console cost in 2021 has no bearing on what anyone will pay for it in 2026. Depreciation is not an insult, it is just arithmetic.
The timing question
Console resale prices move in one direction between generations, and they step down noticeably each time a revision or a successor lands. The PS5 has already had a Slim and a Pro land on top of it.
So the practical advice is unglamorous: if you are fairly sure you are done with it, the best month to sell it was last month, and the second best is this one. Waiting to see if prices recover is a strategy that has never once worked in this category.
The short version
Model, disc drive and thermals affect the price most, and even a PS5 that will not power on is worth a great deal more than nothing. The calculator gives you today's offer in about a minute. The prices only go down from here, so the real question is not what it is worth, it is whether you are actually going to play it again.