There is a real difference between a company that takes your old IT and one that buys it, and most websites blur the two on purpose. We run an IT recovery company in Medley and buy this equipment for a living, so we have an obvious interest here — which is exactly why this page tells you where we're the wrong call.
The important question is never “do they collect?” — everyone collects. It's whether money comes back, and whether you get paperwork proving the data is gone.
Charities, county drop-off events and municipal programs that accept electronics at no charge. The fastest way to make a pile disappear.
They weigh the load and pay by the pound for the metals inside.
They buy or auction the contents of an office — IT alongside furniture, fixtures and anything else.
Mail-in services that quote online, you ship, they pay. Fine for consumer gear and small volumes.
Dell, HP, Lenovo and Apple all run trade-in schemes, usually tied to buying replacements.
IT asset disposition: we collect, wipe or shred every drive to the NIST SP 800-88 standard, test and resell what works, recycle the rest responsibly, and pay you per device against a report listing each serial number.
| Free recycler | Scrap yard | Liquidator | ITAD company | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you get paid | Nothing | By weight | One lot price | Per device, on resale value |
| Data destruction | Rarely | No | Varies | Included, NIST 800-88 |
| Paperwork for an auditor | Drop-off receipt | Weight ticket | Usually none | Certificate, every serial listed |
| Who moves it | You | You | They do | They do, free in South Florida |
| Handles racked servers | Sometimes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Best when you have | Dead, worthless gear | Pure scrap | A whole office | A batch, or anything with data |
Every company in this market says “secure” and “certified” on its homepage. These four questions separate them quickly, and you can ask them on the phone in about two minutes.
1. “Do you pay me, or do I pay you?” Ask it that bluntly. Plenty of firms that appear in a search for selling equipment are recycling operations that charge for collection. There's nothing wrong with that service — it's just not the one you were searching for.
2. “What do I get in writing when it's gone?” The answer you want is a certificate of destruction listing every drive by serial number. “We'll email you a confirmation” is not the same thing. See what a certificate should contain.
3. “Is the quote final, or does it change after inspection?” Any honest answer involves some conditionality — nobody can price a server sight-unseen. What matters is whether they tell you the basis up front or spring the revision on you after your equipment is on their truck.
4. “Which certifications do you actually hold, and can I see the certificate?” Worth asking us too. We'll tell you plainly: we are not R2v3, e-Stewards or NAID AAA certified. We work to NIST SP 800-88 and document every drive, and for some regulated buyers that isn't enough — which is a real answer rather than a dodge. Here's what each certification means.
Several kinds of company will take them, but fewer will pay. ITAD (IT asset disposition) companies buy business equipment in batches, pay per device based on resale value, and include data destruction with a certificate. Online buyback sites pay for small volumes of newer machines if you ship them. Scrap recyclers pay by weight, which is a fraction of resale value. Free e-waste recyclers and county drop-offs take equipment but pay nothing. SF IT Recovery buys business IT and picks up free across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.
Yes. ITAD companies normally collect free when there is enough resale value in the load to cover the trip, which usually means around ten devices or more, or any servers. SF IT Recovery picks up free anywhere in South Florida and travels statewide for larger jobs. If the equipment is genuinely worthless, some companies charge a collection fee instead, so ask before booking.
It depends entirely on what is on the pallet. Business laptops and workstations from the last five years, servers, and network equipment carry real resale value. Machines older than about six or seven years are often worth little beyond responsible recycling. Age, model, specification, condition and quantity all matter. Send a list of models and you should get a clear offer within one business day.
You don't have to if you use a company that includes certified data destruction, which is the point of hiring one. You should still remove them from your device management or domain, cancel any software licences tied to them, and tell the vendor which machines held sensitive data. If you plan to sell them yourself instead, wiping the drives properly is your responsibility and a factory reset alone is not enough.
A recycler's job is to dispose of the material responsibly. An ITAD company's job is to recover value first and dispose of the remainder responsibly, with the data destruction documented. The practical difference is that a recycler takes equipment away, while an ITAD company takes it away and pays you for whatever still has resale value.
Yes, and you should insist on it. A proper certificate of data destruction lists each drive by serial number, the method used, the standard applied, the date and an authorised signature. A generic letter saying your equipment was processed is not useful if a regulator or an auditor asks what happened to a specific drive.
Send a rough list of what you have and get a clear offer within one business day. Free pickup across South Florida.