Cheapest used generators on eBay, live right now.

Best value by cost per watt

Every model ranked by price per starting watt, using today's cheapest live listing. Starting watts are the number the maker puts in the model name, so an EU2200i is 2,200 and a GP6500 is 6,500. Running watts, the figure you actually size a load against, are usually 80 to 90 percent of that. Lower is more power for your money, but read the next sentence before you act on it: inverter generators cost far more per watt on purpose. They are quieter, lighter and produce power clean enough for a laptop, which is why a Honda sits near the bottom of this table and a big conventional frame sits near the top. Cheapest per watt is the right answer for a building site and the wrong one for a suburban outage. Tap a model to see its listings.

See this beside every other category we rank by value, cheapest per TB, per bay, per serving and more →

How to buy a used generator

Stale fuel is what kills them, and it is the first thing to ask about. Petrol left in a carburettor turns to varnish in a few months and blocks the jets, which is why so many generators are sold as "ran when parked". A carburettor clean is cheap on an open-frame machine and awkward on a sealed inverter, so ask whether it was drained before storage and whether it starts now, not whether it started last year.

Ask for run hours, not age. A ten year old standby unit used for four outages has done almost nothing; a two year old jobsite machine has run every working day. Many inverters have an hour meter, and if there is not one the oil tells the story: clean oil in a machine the seller claims is barely used should match a clean air filter, and if it does not, one of those things has just been changed to make a sale.

Inverter or open frame decides what you can plug in. An inverter produces a clean sine wave and can safely run a laptop, a modern fridge or anything with a circuit board. An open-frame generator is louder, heavier, usually cheaper per watt, and fine for tools and heaters. Buying the wrong one for the job is the most common regret on this page, and it is not a fault you can see.

Check it starts and then runs under load. Plenty of tired generators will idle happily and then sag or stall the moment anything is drawn from them, which points at the carburettor, the fuel pump or worn rings. If a seller will only demonstrate it running with nothing plugged in, treat that as the answer.

Low-oil shutdown is a feature and a warning. Almost all of these will refuse to start when oil is low, so a machine that will not start may simply be a quart down. It also means a generator that HAS been run dry will usually have shut itself off before serious damage, which is why a cheap non-starter is sometimes worth the gamble on this category and rarely on others.

Value. Honda holds its money like almost nothing else in small engines, and a used EU2200i often costs close to a new budget inverter. That is not irrational: they start reliably after storage and parts are everywhere. Predator, Champion and Wen depreciate hard, which makes them the better buy secondhand if you accept a shorter tail of parts availability.

Common questions

Cheapest by model, at a glance

A daily snapshot of the lowest genuine eBay price for every model we track, and how good that price is right now versus its usual level, updated automatically. Prices last refreshed 7 August 2026 . Tap a price to see that model's cheapest listings on eBay, or tap a model name for the full live list here.

Under each model is the actual listing that price came from, so you can see whether it is the thing you want or a bundle, a variant, or an accessory that happens to share the name.

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