How much should I pay my employer for a 2018 macbook pro?

September 29, 2020 4:06 PM

I'm being laid off and one option with the laptop is to buy it from the company. The policy around this isn't very well documented. Yanml or accountant but I've worn the IT person down to where they are asking me what I want to pay for my laptop and the question I'd like to get help on is how much is fair.

The laptop is a 2018 macbook pro 15 inch with 32 gb ram and 256 (whatever) ssd. It also has applecare. The company paid 3,935.80 for the laptop in 2019 when I started. The company policy is that laptops within the engineering org are in circulation for 3 years. I've been trying to calculate the depreciation versus market value but my math send to be wildly different than what the company thinks is a fair price.

There are a few things - first they tried to tack on the cost of the monitor and laptop accessories which aren't returned to the company when an employee leaves (so I'm nettled having that as part of the bv). It also inflated the original value they listed but the company and I are in agreement with the original value being 3.9k. They listed the book value of the laptop at 2750 (that includes the monitor and accessories) and offered the laptop for 2.2k (which again, this figure takes the ancillary devices into account). My hangup is that this model laptop seems to retail between 1.7k and 2k refurbished so I'm really unsure how to come up with a fair figure for what to pay my (soon to be former) company for this laptop.

posted by toomanycurls to Work & Money (22 answers total)

Best answer: I assume you have the macbook in your possession, and therefore the serial number? Go to apple.com, and find out what apple would give you as credit if you were to trade it in when buying a new laptop. Offer that. This is the lower than market / resell value if you were to try and sell it on ebay or something, but if apple considers it fair your company would have to argue against it.
posted by cgg at 4:19 PM on September 29, 2020 [15 favorites]

You could look at what it’s going for on Gazelle and Swappa. Or even what it’s selling for on eBay (selling, not asking). If they won’t give it to you for less than that, then you should probably just buy one with the same specs from Gazelle or Swappa.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 4:22 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

I feel like I’m missing something here. You can buy it for less at a retailer of refurbished laptops. So tell them that? They just fired you! What’s “fair” doesn’t come into it. And if they say no then go ahead and buy it somewhere else.
posted by caek at 4:27 PM on September 29, 2020 [4 favorites]

It sounds like it's possible they don't care and would accept whatever. Offer $100 and consider the difference between that and fair value your severance.
posted by cacao at 4:27 PM on September 29, 2020

(not that you should not accept any other actual severance offered)
posted by cacao at 4:28 PM on September 29, 2020

Best answer: The 2018 MacBook Pro has a questionable keyboard, the CPU will be changed out with something incompatible and you may have OS support issues. And maybe the things that make it expensive aren't the things you care about. You're losing your job during a bad time. Unless the monitor and accessories are really nice, they're not worth much. And if it's a lay off, what's the plan for it, but to put it in a cabinet and let it depreciate as a spare.

Unless you really need this particular laptop, do a low ball offer like the Apple trade in price and if they don't like it, buy something yourself and have them send you a voucher to ship this one back.
posted by wotsac at 4:30 PM on September 29, 2020 [10 favorites]

Measured a different way, you could work out how your company depreciates equipment and may it's depreciated value. Perhaps 1/3 of list if they have a three year lifespan.

But no offer is either fair or unfair. I would probably try it on with $100 (why wouldn't you) and use the Apple value after that since it has a justification behind it (even if that justification is not terribly relevant). I'm not sure I would go up to 2nd hand market price - you're doing them a favour by getting rid of specialised equipment, in a sense; this isn't a one way transaction.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 4:32 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have a work-provided laptop with exactly the same specs. I would not offer more than $500 for it, $2.2K is outrageous. Send it back and buy a refurbished model.
posted by phliar at 4:41 PM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

Offer what it's worth to you (which should be informed by the used market). It's not a matter of "fair" to the company, it's what you will or won't pay while unemployed in a economic slump. If they really want to chew up someone's time trying to extract every cent of value from it on Craigslist, let them.
posted by Candleman at 4:51 PM on September 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

I think anything over $200 is excessive. $150 seems about right in these circumstances. I wouldn't be surprised if they just want a symbolic offer, and don't actually care much about the actual amount as much being able to say they didn't just 'give' an employee a laptop.
posted by thegreatfleecircus at 4:59 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

When my husband purchased his laptop from his employer when he left their employ, they used the depreciated amount they would claim for it on their taxes that year. That seemed fair to us.
posted by summerstorm at 5:19 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

the CPU will be changed out with something incompatible

I don’t have any internal information about how long the Apple Silicon transition will take to complete, but if it’s just as long as the “32bit to 64bit” situation, you have another 10-12 years before you will no longer be able to run macOS on Intel based hardware.
posted by sideshow at 5:51 PM on September 29, 2020 [3 favorites]

Just chiming in to say that, from the perspective of the company, selling to you is by far the easiest and simplest way to deal with this laptop, and it should be priced accordingly. You might want to look at how much it would cost to buy a laptop with the same specs on a resale site, but remember that to get that amount, your erstwhile employer would have to pay for two shipments (one from you back to the company, one from the company to the buyer) plus a few hours of some employee's time to manage the listing, sale, and shipment. So, unless there's some reason you would really like to keep this specific laptop, I would consider those prices to be an absolute ceiling, not a starting place for negotiation.

At my last job, when I left (quit to take another job, rather than being laid off) they gave me my laptop (admittedly an older and lower-specced model) for free, only making me sign an agreement to delete all client work off of it. By taking this laptop off their hands and paying for the privilege, you are almost certainly doing them a favor.
posted by firechicago at 9:16 PM on September 29, 2020 [3 favorites]

Similar thing happened to me a little while ago. I offered $150. I thought that was worth it.
posted by konaStFr at 5:01 AM on September 30, 2020

Echoing everyone above about offering the Apple trade in price and going from there.
Realistically, they don't really care either way - they have procedures in place to either give it to another employee or to recycle it. This sounds like a good will gesture to exiting employees.
If you need/want a 2018 Macbook pro, then it's worth exploring offering something lower than what purchasing that model would cost you on the open market. If not, offering $100 seems like a good gamble, but you probably won't get it for that cheap. If, for some reason you NEED that particular Macbook... well then, you'll need to figure out what's fair to you and cross your fingers.
posted by niteHawk at 6:18 AM on September 30, 2020

I've gotten my laptop free when leaving a company twice. These weren't lay-offs, just me giving my notice.

Used laptops are of almost zero value to the company. Think of how much they will pay to have everything shipped back. If they have any bit of empathy, you should be able to get it for free or very close. Just the accounting of you buying a depreciated asset is more work than it's worth.

I wouldn't pay above $250. You don't owe these people anything.
posted by dripdripdrop at 9:17 AM on September 30, 2020

Response by poster: I went in with the trade in value ($1230) and the IT person said they couldn't go below $2k. That's closer to the market value of the laptop but I still genuinely do not understand how this process works. For me, the value in this laptop is not having to buy another one. This has been my only laptop for a few years. If I were to buy another personal laptop it would be a brand new top of the line laptop, not a 2 year old refurb.
posted by toomanycurls at 10:30 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

The upcoming MacBook Pro processor switch to ARM, set to begin in October, is driving huge discounts on current MBP models. I've been watching these deals because I have some professional development money to spend by December, and will probably use it to purchase one. Amazon's currently selling the current-gen 16" MBP with twice the storage than you have (but half the RAM) for $2150, so the idea of paying your former employer $150 less that for a two year old machine is pretty laughable. And I say that as someone who has held onto a refurbished 2015 MBP that I've valued above its market price because it's just a super dependable build.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:59 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

For the stats you’re mentioning 2k$ is laughable and your offer was more than fair market given the circumstances. I wouldn’t waste time on this any further.

Would propose if there’s the intangible value is having everything setup as-is maybe check with a local Mac repair store to help you handle the transfer and transition. That cost is much less than getting an equivalent Or refurbished model right now.
posted by artificialard at 11:07 AM on September 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Just say no! Go get a tricked out brand-new MacBook Air for less. (I was in this exact situation a few years ago and got the laptop for about 1/3 of it’s original purchase price - I think likewise they were assuming a 3 year lifespan).
posted by amaire at 1:43 PM on September 30, 2020

I'd offer $350 and go up to $600. The IT person doesn't really care and establishing low price point might allow him personally to buy laptops at an affordable price point as more people leave.
posted by zeikka at 2:40 PM on September 30, 2020

Best answer: Explain how you got to your number using the apple site. Ask him why he thinks its worth more than it is. If they wont give it to you for the trade in value, walk away. 2k is a joke - you can get a brand new i7 air (albeit 13” and only 16gb ram but larger SSD, and i will bet dollars to donuts you don't actually need 32gb) for $2180. And anything you buy today wont have that horrible bound-to-fail-eventually keyboard.
posted by cgg at 8:54 PM on October 1, 2020