Best Buy takes up to 3 items per household per day at no charge, and where the screen fee applies it is $29.99 per TV or monitor. Other counters take more. All of them count what you carry in, and the number changes by store. If you have a pile, or a drive you never wiped, a curbside pickup takes all of it in one stop for $79 for the first item and $19 for each one after.
Where to take them for free
Best Buy is the reliable one. Towers, laptops, printers, keyboards and cables go at no charge, up to 3 items per household per day. Screens have their own rules: TVs and monitors are capped at 2 per day, screens up to and including 50 inches are accepted and anything larger is refused, and where the fee applies it is $29.99 per TV or monitor, waived in some states. Those numbers were verified August 2026, and policies are set per store and change — call ahead.
Other counters take more per day than that. Staples takes electronics at a lot of stores, and the daily limit is set by location. Office supply chains, Micro Center, county e-waste days and some Goodwill and Habitat locations all take electronics, usually at no charge, but what they accept and what they charge is decided locally.
Here is the part worth reading twice. These programs change without telling anyone, and the person who decides is the person at the counter. Item limits move. Screen rules move. Whole programs get retired. Dell Reconnect ran at Goodwill stores for years and has since wound down, and there are guides still sending people to it.
So call the store you are driving to. Ask what they take today, how many, and whether screens cost anything. Ten minutes on the phone beats loading a car and getting turned around in the parking lot.
If you have one or two machines, a car with a folding seat, and a store on your way somewhere, do that. Free is free. There is no reason to pay us $79 for a laptop and a keyboard.
Why the pile is still in the corner
Two things hold it there, and neither one is laziness.
The first is the count. A tower, two monitors, a printer and a box of cables is five things. At three a day, that is two trips. The second trip is the one nobody makes, which is how four items become a permanent corner.
The second is the drive. You know it is still in there. Wiping four machines is a Saturday, and the Saturday keeps not happening, so the whole pile waits on a task nobody wants to start.
Then there is what else is in that corner. Almost nobody has only computers. There is the desk it sat on, the chair, a filing cabinet, a bin of cables and dead keyboards. Free electronics counters take the electronics and stop. The rest of the corner stays exactly where it is.
That is the real math. The pile is not one job. It is two drives, a sort, and a thing you have to be awake enough to do correctly.
One pickup takes the whole pile
A curbside pickup does not count items. There is no cap per day and no limit per trip. You put every piece of it on one booking, the price is the sum of the items, and it all leaves in one stop.
There is also no sorting. The desktop, the monitors, the printer, the bin of cables, the chair and the desk are all just items on the same list. Nothing gets separated into electronics and not-electronics, and nothing gets refused at the counter, because the counter is your driveway.
You book first. The pile does not have to be outside yet. Price is set when you book and it does not change at the curb.
The whole corner, gone from the curb. A desktop computer is $79, and a monitor, a printer, a bin of cables and keyboards, or an office chair are $79 on their own and $19 each once something else is leading — so a desktop, a monitor and a printer is $117, and adding the cables and the chair makes it $155. There is no cap on how many items go on one booking and nothing gets sorted out; it all leaves in one stop. Book by 2 PM and a local hauler comes today where same-day is running, seven days a week, in all 50 states. You get a text with the ETA before they arrive and photos once it is gone. You book first — the pile does not have to be outside yet, and nobody comes into the house.
See the price for the whole pileWiping the drive before it goes
Sign out of your accounts first. Email, browser, iCloud or Microsoft account, Adobe, anything with a device limit. Then reset.
- •Windows: Settings, System, Recovery, Reset this PC, Remove everything. Pick the cloud or local reinstall and let it run.
- •Mac with Apple silicon or a T2 chip: System Settings, General, Transfer or Reset, Erase All Content and Settings.
Either one is enough on its own. Modern drives are encrypted while they sit there, so destroying the key makes what is left unreadable.
Older towers are the exception. A spinning drive from a 2011 machine may not be encrypted at all. If that is what you have and you want to stop thinking about it, open the case, unscrew the drive, and put it in a drawer. Four screws and a cable.
The machine recycles fine without it. Every option on this page takes it that way, including us. And if it will not boot, you cannot reset it, so pull the drive.
Handing a stranger your computers
People hesitate before giving away a machine that has their bank logins on it. That is the right instinct. Here is someone who felt the same way.
"I was concerned this wasn't a legit company, but they absolutely are and I'm so glad I found them as I was quoted $1500 by another company in the St. Louis area. I was provided with photos from the pickup to validate that the items had been removed." — Melissa Mader, Google
5.0 on Google, 150+ reviews · 4.9 on Trustpilot, 125+ reviews · 1,000+ items picked up every month.
What the rest of the corner costs
Every piece is priced on its own, and only the first one is $79. After that they are $19 each.
- •Desktop computer: $79
- •Computer monitor, flat panel or tube: $79
- •Printer: $79
- •Bin of cables, keyboards and old routers: $79
- •Office chair: $79
- •Filing cabinet: $79, or $29 once something else is leading
- •Executive desk: $109
- •Full office copier: $159
A desktop, a monitor and a printer is $117. Add the bin of cables and the chair and it is $155. That is the whole price for the corner, and it is set before anyone drives out.
Is an old computer worth anything
Usually not, and knowing that quickly is what unsticks the pile.
Anything from the last five years that still boots has real resale value. Apple and Dell both quote you online before you ship anything, and that is worth twenty minutes, though trade-in terms and eligibility change, so check the current offer before you count on a number.
Older than that, the honest answer is close to zero. Parts money, and the listing, the messages and the no-shows cost more than they return. RAM and graphics cards are the exception, if you already know how to pull them.
Working machines under about five years old are also the only ones charities want, and every charity sets its own acceptance rules, so call before you load the car. A dead tower is not a donation. It is a recycling job, and treating it like a donation is how it sits for another year.