Sole Elliptical Buying Guide: E25 vs E35 vs E95 Used Prices and Model Years

A used Sole elliptical sells for a median of about $925, and the spread runs from roughly $525 for a tidy E25 up to $1,925 for a late E95. New, those same machines start near $1,300 and run past $2,500. That gap is the whole reason this post exists. Sole builds heavy, plain, over-engineered cardio equipment with no subscription attached, which makes a used Sole elliptical one of the better dollar-per-year buys in home fitness, as long as you pick the right model and check the right five things.

I move used fitness equipment for a living. Ellipticals are a steady part of that, and Sole shows up constantly, usually from someone who bought it during a burst of motivation and now wants the basement back. I’ve watched a lot of these get loaded onto trucks, which means I’ve seen which parts are worn out at year six and which ones still look new. Here’s how the E25, E35, and E95 actually differ, which one to buy secondhand, and what to inspect before you pay.

What a Sole Elliptical Actually Is

Sole is a value brand that spends its money on the frame instead of the screen. That single sentence explains most of what you need to know.

Where a NordicTrack or a ProForm puts a large touchscreen up front and ties it to a monthly subscription, Sole builds a heavier steel frame, a bigger flywheel, and a console that mostly just shows numbers. Nothing about a Sole is exciting. Everything about it is durable. The machines are rear-drive, which means the flywheel sits behind you and the pedal arms ride on a long rail, and rear-drive ellipticals tend to have a longer, flatter, more natural stride than the front-drive machines you see at big-box stores.

The upside for a used buyer is enormous. There is no subscription to inherit, no account to transfer, no screen that gets orphaned when the manufacturer sunsets an app. A ten year old Sole works exactly the same as it did on day one. Try that with a connected machine whose software stopped shipping updates in 2021.

Sole E25 vs E35 vs E95: The Real Differences

All three share the same 20 inch stride length across most model years, so the difference is not how the machine feels underfoot. The difference is flywheel weight, incline, console, and how much machine is bolted together.

	Sole E25	Sole E35	Sole E95
Position	Entry	Mid, the volume seller	Top of the standard line
Stride	20 in	20 in	20 in
Flywheel	Lightest of the three	Heavier	Heaviest
Power incline ramp	Historically no	Yes	Yes
Console	Small, basic readout	Larger, more programs	Largest, most features
Machine weight	~190 lb	~215 lb	~235 lb
User weight capacity	~375 lb	~375 lb	~400 lb
New price, recent years	$1,200 to $1,500	$1,700 to $2,200	$2,300 to $3,000

Specs drift between model years, so confirm the incline and console on the specific unit rather than trusting a spec sheet you found online. The pattern holds though: heavier flywheel and heavier frame as you go up the line.

What that means in practice. The heavier flywheel on the E35 and E95 produces a smoother, less choppy pedal feel at low resistance, and the difference is genuinely noticeable if you’re a taller or heavier rider. The power incline on the E35 and E95 is the feature I’d actually pay for, because changing the ramp angle changes which muscles do the work and is the main way an elliptical workout stays interesting past month three. The console difference matters least of all, since most people end up watching their own tablet anyway.

Which Sole Elliptical Is Worth Buying Used?

Buy the E35. It is the correct answer for probably 80 percent of buyers, and it isn’t close.

The E35 gives you the power incline and the heavier flywheel, which are the two things that separate a machine you use from a machine you hang laundry on. It sells used for a fraction of what the E95 does, and the gap in real-world experience between the two is small. There are also more E35s in circulation than either sibling, so you have more listings to choose from and more room to negotiate.

Buy the E95 if you find one under $900 and you’re a heavier user, or if two people of very different sizes will share the machine. The extra frame mass and higher weight capacity earn their keep there.

Buy the E25 only if it’s genuinely cheap, meaning $250 to $400. It’s a perfectly honest machine and better built than most entry-level ellipticals, but without a powered incline you’re getting flat pedaling at varying resistance, and that gets old. At $600 an E25 makes no sense when a used E35 sits at $700.

Skip any Sole where the seller can’t power it on. More on that below.

Are Sole Ellipticals Reliable Long Term?

Sole ellipticals are among the most durable home cardio machines you can buy used, and the reason is that there’s very little on them to fail.

The drive system is a belt over a weighted flywheel with magnetic resistance. Magnetic resistance has no pads, no friction surfaces, and nothing that wears against anything. The frame is heavy welded steel that does not flex or fatigue in a home setting. There’s no motor doing the hard work like there is on a treadmill, which is why ellipticals in general outlive treadmills by a wide margin. If you’re weighing the two, our treadmill vs elliptical breakdown covers where a treadmill still wins.

What does fail, in order:

Pedal arm and roller bearings. The rollers that ride the rear rail wear flat spots over thousands of hours, and worn bearings in the pedal arm pivots produce a rhythmic click or a side-to-side wobble in the pedals. This is the most common complaint on high-mileage units. Parts are available and the repair is mechanical, not electronic.

The console. Displays go dim, segments drop out, and the heart rate grips stop reading. Consoles are the most likely part to be dead on an old unit and the most annoying to source once a model is a decade out of production.

The incline motor. On the E35 and E95, the ramp adjustment is a small motor. When it goes, you’re stuck at whatever angle it died at. Test every incline level, not just one.

The resistance cable or servo. If resistance doesn’t change when you press the buttons, the servo motor that moves the magnets has usually failed. Fixable, but negotiate hard.

Notice that the frame, the flywheel, and the drive belt basically never appear on that list. That’s the whole argument for buying one of these secondhand.

Sole Elliptical Model Years and Names: E25, E35, E55, E95, E95S

You cannot date a Sole elliptical from the model name, and that trips up almost every used buyer.

Sole has run the same model numbers for well over a decade. An E35 sold in 2013 and an E35 sold in 2023 carry the same badge, and they are not the same machine. The frame got revised, the console changed more than once, the pedal articulation was updated, and the resistance hardware moved on. So when a listing says "Sole E35" it has told you roughly nothing about what you are buying.

Three ways to actually date one, in order of how much I trust them:

1. The serial number sticker on the frame. Usually on the rear shroud housing or the underside of the main frame rail near the flywheel. This is the only answer that does not depend on somebody's memory.
2. The console face. The older machines use a plain segmented LCD with a grid of small round buttons. The newer ones use a wider blue-backlit display with a device shelf above it and Bluetooth. If there is a device shelf, you are looking at a later machine.
3. What the seller says they paid and when. Useful as a cross-check, useless on its own. People misremember by years, and the person selling it is often not the person who bought it.

One more naming trap. "Sole Fitness E35" and "Sole E35" are the same machine, the brand just shows up both ways in listings. But the E95 and the E95S are genuinely different variants, and the S trades about $350 higher used. Check the badge and the sticker rather than the listing title, because sellers copy whatever the last listing said.

My rule on age: the older machines are fine. This is a welded steel frame with a magnetic brake on it, and neither of those things has a service life that matters in a home. Buy the ten year old machine with clean pedal rails over the four year old one that lived in a damp garage. If you want the model-level detail on the most common one, we broke the E35 down on its own in our used Sole E35 guide.

What to Check on a Used Sole Elliptical

Never buy an elliptical you haven’t pedaled for five straight minutes. Photos tell you nothing about the two failures that matter, which are bearing wear and a dead resistance servo.

Run this list:

1. Power it on and cycle the full resistance range. Go from level 1 to the top and back down. You should feel a clear, progressive change. If resistance doesn’t move, walk away or expect a repair.
2. Run the incline through every level. Listen for grinding from the ramp motor and confirm it stops cleanly at both ends of travel.
3. Pedal hard for five minutes and listen. A rhythmic click, clunk, or squeak that keeps time with your stride means bearings. A faint whir is normal.
4. Grab the pedals and push them side to side. Some play is normal. Noticeable lateral wobble means worn pivot bushings.
5. Inspect the rear rail and rollers. The rail should be smooth and evenly worn. Flat spots on the rollers or a gouged rail mean a real repair, not a cleanup.
6. Check every console function. Backlight, all display segments, program buttons, fan, heart rate grips. Dim or missing segments are your best clue that the machine is older than the seller says.
7. Look at the pedal decking and the sweat zone. Corrosion on the frame directly under the console tells you it lived somewhere humid and was never wiped down. That’s the machine whose bearings went early.

One more note. Sole’s factory warranty is generous, often lifetime on the frame with multi-year coverage on parts, but like nearly all fitness warranties it’s written for the original purchaser. Assume it doesn’t come with the machine.

What Used Sole Ellipticals Sell For in 2026

A used Sole elliptical typically sells for 35 to 55 percent of its original price, and condition matters more than age past the five year mark.

Here is what the models actually trade for, taken from machines that have moved through our platform rather than from asking prices on classifieds:

Model	Used price range	Typical	My read
Sole E25	$525 to $1,360	$725	The entry machine. Anything under $600 in clean condition is a good buy. Over $900 you should be shopping an E35 instead.
Sole E35	$545 to $1,225	$675	The band to know, and the best value in the lineup. A clean three year old E35 at $675 is a genuinely good purchase.
Sole E55	around $545	$545	Sits between the E25 and E35 and gets overlooked, which is exactly why it's cheap. Worth a look if one shows up.
Sole E95	$825 to $1,925	$1,170	The heavy one. Worth stretching for if you're over about 250 pounds or you want the biggest frame available.
Sole E95S	around $1,525	$1,525	The variant, and it holds value better than the standard E95. Confirm which one you're looking at before you agree a price.
Any model, dead console or dead resistance	$150 or less	$150	Only if you're comfortable ordering parts and waiting on them.

Two patterns worth naming. Price drops fast in the first three years and then flattens out hard, which is the same shape we see across cardio generally and the same curve documented in our look at how used treadmills hold their value. The practical takeaway is that a five year old machine and an eight year old machine of the same model are often worth the same money, so buy on condition, not on the year.

The second pattern is that the E35 is frequently cheaper than the E25 on the used market, which makes no sense until you realise there are simply more E35s in circulation. When a better machine costs less than a worse one, take the better machine.

Compared to a NordicTrack or a ProForm of the same vintage, a Sole usually holds a little more value, because there's no dead subscription hanging off it. If you're cross-shopping, our NordicTrack listings are a useful reality check on what the connected machines actually go for once the free trial is long gone.

Moving a Sole Elliptical Is the Hard Part

A Sole elliptical weighs 190 to 240 pounds assembled and does not come apart easily. This is the step that ruins otherwise good deals.

The weight sits low and rearward around the flywheel housing, so the machine is awkward rather than merely heavy. It does not roll well on carpet, the transport wheels are small, and the pedal arms swing while you carry it. Two strong people and a set of stairs is where things go wrong, either for the machine or for the drywall. Partial disassembly is possible on most models, but you’re pulling shrouds and disconnecting console wiring, and that reassembly is where people crack plastic.

This is the part of the used market most buyers underestimate. The listing says $600 and the actual cost is $600 plus a rented van plus a friend who owes you a favor plus a Saturday.

It’s the reason we built the delivery side of Commonplace the way we did. Our drivers handle the pickup and the de-install at the seller’s house, run a 30 to 50 point inspection on the spot, and text the buyer photos and a working video before the machine ever leaves. Then they deliver it to your room of choice. Buyers and sellers never meet, sellers get paid the moment the machine is loaded, and everything carries a free 60 day warranty. Delivery typically runs about a fifth of what a moving company charges for the same job. The full walkthrough is on our how it works page.

Where to Find a Used Sole Elliptical Near You

The problem with buying an elliptical locally is not finding one. It is the ninety minutes after you agree on a price.

A Sole E35 weighs north of 200 pounds assembled, it is awkward in exactly the way heavy things should not be, and it almost always lives in a basement. Every private sale I have watched go wrong went wrong at that step. Somebody borrowed a pickup, somebody's back gave out on the stairs, somebody discovered the machine does not come apart the way they assumed, and the seller ended up refunding a stranger in a driveway.

So the practical order of operations looks like this:

1. Search by model, not by brand. "Sole E35" surfaces the machine. "Elliptical" surfaces four hundred things you do not want.
2. Insist on seeing it plugged in and moving. Resistance up, incline through its full travel, console reading. Five minutes, and it catches almost everything.
3. Settle the move before you settle the price. Ask who is carrying it up the stairs. If the answer is you, price that in.
4. Check the rails and the pedal arms. That is where a hard life shows first, well before the console does.

That third step is the one our own setup exists to remove. Browse the Sole ellipticals currently listed and the machine gets inspected at pickup, photographed and filmed before it moves, carried in by our drivers, and backed by a 60 day warranty. You pay when it is in the room, not before. Worth reading how it works if you have only ever bought this stuff off classifieds.

And if a Sole is not quite right, it is worth knowing what else is in the same money. An elliptical is the machine most often recommended for sore knees, which we covered in our guide to the best elliptical for bad knees, and the treadmill versus elliptical question is worth settling before you spend anything. Check with your doctor before starting something new if you are coming back from an injury.

Sole Elliptical FAQ

What’s the difference between the Sole E25, E35, and E95?

Frame weight, flywheel weight, incline, and console. All three use the same 20 inch stride, so they feel similar underfoot. The E35 and E95 add a powered incline ramp and a heavier flywheel, which is what makes the pedal motion smoother and the workouts more varied.

Is a used Sole elliptical worth buying?

Usually yes, and it’s one of the safer used fitness buys out there. Magnetic resistance and a welded steel frame mean there’s very little to wear out, and there’s no subscription attached that can expire on you. Just confirm the resistance and incline both respond before you pay.

How long do Sole ellipticals last?

Fifteen years or more of home use is normal, and the frame will outlast everything bolted to it. Bearings and consoles are the parts that age. Neither one totals the machine.

Which Sole elliptical is best for a home gym?

The E35. It has the features that keep you using it and it costs meaningfully less than an E95 secondhand. Step up to the E95 only if you’re over about 250 pounds or you want the biggest frame you can get. Both fit comfortably alongside the rest of a used home gym setup.

Are Sole ellipticals better than NordicTrack?

Better built, worse entertainment. Sole wins on frame quality, ride feel, and long-term durability. NordicTrack wins on screens, trainer-led classes, and interactive programming, which you pay for monthly. On the used market that tradeoff swings hard toward Sole.

How much does it cost to move an elliptical?

A moving company will quote a few hundred dollars for a single machine and will usually want it disassembled first. Platform delivery is typically far cheaper because the route is shared and the crew does this every day.

What is a Sole elliptical?

A Sole elliptical is a rear-drive home cardio machine built around a welded steel frame, a heavy flywheel, and magnetic resistance, with a basic console instead of a streaming screen. Sole spends its budget on the mechanical side and charges nothing monthly, which is precisely why the machines age well and why they are worth buying secondhand.

How do I tell what year my Sole elliptical is?

Find the serial number sticker on the frame, usually on the rear shroud housing or the underside of the main rail. The model name will not tell you, because Sole has sold an E25, E35, and E95 under the same names for more than a decade.

Is the Sole E95S different from the E95?

They're different variants, and the market treats them that way. An E95S trades around $1,525 used against roughly $1,170 for a standard E95. Confirm which one is in front of you from the badge and the serial sticker, not from the listing title.

Where can I find a used Sole elliptical near me?

Our Sole elliptical listings are the straightforward answer, because delivery is part of the transaction rather than your problem. If you'd rather buy privately, the rule is simple: see it run before you pay, and sort out who is carrying it up the stairs before you agree on a number.

What should I sell my old Sole elliptical for?

Somewhere between $525 and $1,200 depending on model and condition, with most landing near $700. We walked through the pricing and the process in where to sell an elliptical.

If you have a Sole sitting unused, it’s worth real money and it takes about five minutes to list. We handle the pickup, the inspection, and the delivery, and you get paid when the machine is loaded, not after a stranger’s payment app clears. The process is identical to selling a treadmill, which is the closest cousin to an elliptical in both weight and hassle.

Buying instead? Look for a clean E35, insist on seeing it run, and let someone else carry it down the stairs.