Every smartphone contains a small amount of gold. According to industry data from precious metals dealer APMEX, a typical phone holds somewhere between 0.007 and 0.034 grams of gold, mostly plated onto the circuit board and internal connectors.
That is not much. At current gold prices of roughly $130 per gram, one phone’s gold content is worth somewhere between $0.91 and $4.42. On its own, that number may not be worth selling as scrap metal.
But businesses rarely deal with one phone. Repair shops, pawnbrokers, and IT departments accumulate retired devices by the dozens or hundreds. At that scale, the math changes, and so does the opportunity.
Where the Gold Actually Is
Gold shows up in a few specific places inside a smartphone:
The Circuit Board (motherboard)
This is the primary location. Gold is plated onto contacts and connectors because it resists corrosion and conducts electricity reliably over years of use.
Bonding Wires
Thin gold wires connect semiconductor chips to the surrounding circuitry. Gold’s conductivity and durability make it the standard choice here.
The SIM Card
Contains a small amount of gold, typically around 8 milligrams.
Battery and Camera Connectors
Gold-plated for the same corrosion-resistance reasons as the rest of the board.
Manufacturers use gold because it is more reliable than cheaper conductors like copper or silver, not because a phone needs much of it. The layer is often just a few microns thick, thin enough to keep costs down while still doing the job.
Gold Isn’t the Only Metal Worth Recovering
Smartphones contain other metal that add to their scrap value:
Silver
Most phones contain about 90 milligrams, used in the circuit board alongside gold.
Palladium
Used in capacitors in smaller quantities.
Copper
Used extensively in wiring, though copper is not a metal Manhattan Gold & Silver purchases.
Silver and palladium follow the same logic as gold. Individually negligible. Collectively, worth accounting for once volume enters the picture.
Why Volume Changes the Math
Here is the calculation that matters for a business, not a consumer:
1,000 retired smartphones contain roughly 7 to 34 grams of gold, plus a proportional amount of silver and palladium. At today’s prices, that is a real number, not a rounding error.
This is the gap between “my old phone” and “the box of phones sitting in the back office.” A single device is not worth the trip to a refiner. A few hundred devices, collected over months of trade-ins, repairs, or upgrades, are.
You can check current gold, silver, platinum, and palladium prices on our Current Precious Metal Prices page, updated daily against the London Fixing.
Who This Actually Applies To
If you run a business that accumulates old phones as a byproduct of what you do, this applies to you:
- Pawnbrokers who take in used electronics as collateral or trade-ins
- Repair shops with a backlog of dead boards and cracked-screen devices not worth fixing
- Businesses upgrading company phones and retiring the old ones
None of these businesses need a separate process to do something with that material. Precious metal recovered from electronics scrap gets tested and valued the same way MGS handles any other precious metal lot.
How Manhattan Gold & Silver Tests and Values Electronics Scrap
Once your scrap reaches MGS, it goes through the same testing process used for any precious metal lot:
- XRF testing identifies the metal content of a lot quickly and without damaging the material, which works well for circuit-board-level scrap.
- Fire assay may be used for larger or mixed-metal lots where maximum accuracy matters.
You get a fair payout based on the actual metal content, not a guess.
Turning Accumulated Devices Into Revenue
If you have been holding onto retired phones because you were not sure they were worth the trip, here is how to find out:
- Get an estimate. Use our payout estimator in the Business Portal to get a sense of value before you commit to anything.
- Send us your lot. Bring it to our Manhattan headquarters or ship it using our Sell Your Lot process.
- Get paid. Most lots are tested and paid out the same day they arrive, by wire transfer or check.
For more on what qualifies and how the process works from start to finish, see our What We Buy page.
Start with a Free Business Portal Account
If your business regularly accumulates electronics, jewelry scrap, or other precious metal byproducts, a free Business Portal account gives you ongoing access to live pricing, payout estimates, and shipping tools, so you are never guessing whether something is worth sending in.
