chegg worth it

Selling textbooks on Chegg is one way to declutter your shelves and earn extra cash. Chegg is a leading platform in the education industry that offers textbook rentals and study resources, as well as a way to sell your used books. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the selling process, learn about GoTextbooks (Chegg’s buyback website), and go through the textbook selling process with you. While it’s not the most profitable book-selling opportunity, you can still keep Chegg in mind.

What Is Chegg?

Chegg Inc. is an American education technology company that specializes in online tutoring, eBook and physical textbook rentals, and other student services. Founded in 2005, Chegg has become a huge online education platform that provides various services to support students’ learning process.

  • Its primary service is textbook rentals, both in physical and digital formats. You can rent books and save cash instead of buying expensive books every semester. 
  • In addition to textbook rentals, they have a service called Chegg Study. This service provides step-by-step solutions to problems in over 9,000 textbooks, which can be useful if you need extra help understanding your coursework. You can even ask up to 20 new questions each month, which will be answered by experts on the site.
  • Chegg Writing is a tool that assists students in crafting their essays and research papers. It offers plagiarism checking, grammar correction, and citation help to ensure that students submit high-quality, academically honest work.
  • If you’re struggling with math, Chegg Math Solver provides step-by-step solutions.
  • In recent years, Chegg has also focused on career services, offering internship and job search assistance. 
  • Chegg’s services are accessible through a monthly subscription model, making them more affordable for many students than traditional tutoring or textbook purchase costs.

We’ve already made a comprehensive overview of Chegg our Slader (Quizlet Explanations) vs. Chegg Study vs. Course Hero—Textbook Answers Comparison blog post as well as highlighted their textbook rental services in the Top 7 Websites to Rent Books in 2023—you may also want to check these materials.

Chegg Book Buyback Update

Chegg used to have its own textbook buyback program. On the website, the page where you can read about the buyback process is still active. However, it looks like Chegg doesn’t do this anymore. 

What Is GoTextbooks?

Once you click on the Get started button, you’re redirected to GoTextbooks. 

On the GoTextbooks website, there’s an answer to whether you’ll be selling your books to Chegg, “No, all textbooks are purchased by GoTextbooks. An independent buyer separate from Chegg.” 

Looks like it’s one of the Chegg-owned companies that will be fulfilling and managing textbook inventory for them. So technically, the process of selling textbooks will stay the same for the users; they will simply be doing it on a different website, “GoTextbooks announced in June it will serve as Chegg Inc.’s new textbook fulfillment and operations provider.”

GoTextbooks has a comprehensive FAQ list; however, if you have any other questions, you can email them to support@gotextbooks.com.

sell back your books for more

Selling Textbooks on Chegg/GoTextbooks

To sell your textbooks on GoTextbooks and see the price offer, enter the ISBN into the search field.

What Textbooks Can You Sell on Chegg?

For some reason, GoTextbooks doesn’t accept just any textbook. We’ve tried a dozen ISBNs in the most popular categories and got the following results for almost every search: “Sorry, ISBN(s) 9780134396026 is not available in our system or we are not currently buying it back. Please double check if the ISBN is correct.”

 In fact, the only textbooks we got offers for were:

  • The Feynman Lectures on Physics, boxed set: The New Millennium Edition (ISBN: 0465023827)
  • Color Atlas of Veterinary Histology3rd edition (ISBN-13: 9780470958513)

We assume that your best bet is to look for offers in the Science, Technology, or Economics categories. Probably, Chegg/GoTextbooks can’t store more textbooks, or they simply don’t need new books. So our advice is to check the websites from time to time.

How to Sell Books on Chegg/GoTextbooks

Next, if you’re ok with the sell-back price offers, click Continue and proceed to your cart.

Note that the GoTextbooks’ “minimum sellback order is $18,” which means you wouldn’t be able to sell the Color Atlas of Veterinary Histology alone for $9.68.

Another important note is that “GoTextbooks does not buy back books with broken covers, water damage, or excessive highlighting.” Here’s a broader list of what they do not accept: 

  • Severe damage to the cover, pages, or binding
  • Pages that are torn or missing
  • Damage from water exposure
  • Excessive highlighting or writing
  • ISBN that has been tampered with or differs from the quoted ISBN
  • Suspected counterfeit items

Therefore, ensure your books are in very good condition without stickers covering a book’s ISBN.

In the next step, you’ll be asked to sign in or sign up before continuing. Once you do it, you fill in your details, get and print a free shipping label, and drop your textbooks off at a local UPS store.

Once GoTextbooks receive your textbooks, you get paid. They offer two payment options: by Check (within 7–14 business days or via PayPal (within 2–14 business days).

Other Ways to Sell Your Textbooks

Now that you know how to sell textbooks to Chegg/GoTextbooks, you can see the limitations of this method. Most likely, you be selling your books for little money and only those that Chegg is currently willing to accept.

Therefore, we suggest checking BookScouter. It’s an excellent option for students to sell their textbooks for cash. Though not a direct vendor, the platform makes the price comparison process from several book buyers fast and easy. You can scan a book’s barcode or ISBN to immediately get the prices from multiple buyers (there’re about 30+ vendors on BookScouter). You can then pick the best offer and proceed to sell your book without hassle. Here’s what you can get for your copy of Color Atlas of Veterinary Histology3rd edition when you look it up on BookScouter:

As you can see, many book buyers at BookScouter can offer you better prices than Chegg. The best part about the platform is that you can use its price comparison tool to find great deals on any used books, not just textbooks. 

If you’re interested in learning more about selling used textbooks, we have more helpful articles. Check them out!

To sum it up, selling textbooks to platforms like Chegg has pros and cons.

On the plus side, these platforms offer a simple and potentially profitable way to get back some of the money you spent on textbooks.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind. The prices offered by these platforms may not be as high as you would hope, considering the true value of your textbooks. Additionally, as you may recall, Chegg/GoTextbooks won’t accept just any book, which can make selling your textbooks to them a bit inconvenient.

On the other hand, there are platforms like BookScouter that provide you with more options regarding what you can sell, better prices, and better terms. All in all, it’s important to review each selling option carefully and understand the details before making a decision.