Brace Your Wallet: iPhone 18 Pro Models Could See a $200 Price Bump
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At this point there’s effectively zero doubt that we’ll be paying more for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max when they debut next week. Everyone agrees that there’s going to be a price hike — the only remaining question is how steep it will be.
After all, Apple already issued a round of massive price hikes in June. That was an unprecedented move for a company that’s traditionally treated prices as a marketing point. However, the reality of the supply chain crunch on RAM and flash storage left the company with no choice.
Then-CEO Tim Cook called it a “hundred-year flood,” adding that he’s “never seen anything like it in any area” in the forty-plus years he’s been working in the electronics supply chain.
While those price hikes hit nearly every product Apple makes, there were three categories conspicuously left out: the iPhone, the Apple Watch, and the AirPods. While the AirPods may have been spared simply because they don’t rely on memory chips, the consensus is that price increases are coming for the iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple is merely waiting for next week’s event to announce them alongside the new models.
It’s an open question whether those increases will also hit the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17e — the smart money says yes, although Apple could surprise us — but there’s little doubt the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are going to cost more than their predecessors.
Meanwhile, we don’t expect to see the standard iPhone 18 until early next spring, as Apple has decided to split its release cycle to make room for the new foldable iPhone that’s also expected to debut next week with an even heftier price tag.
Over the summer, some analysts painted a worst-case picture of iPhone prices skyrocketing by up to $400 or more. However, most believe that Apple will do what it can to absorb the costs, as it’s always done to some degree.
The company is also sharpening its pencil in other areas, using its leverage to demand lower prices for components like OLED panels where it still has enough influence over the market. It’s also been lobbying the Trump administration to bless its plans to purchase cheaper Chinese RAM — albeit with limited success.
Now, less than a week before the new iPhone models are set to debut, market research firm TrendForce has shared a report on what its analysts believe will be driving higher iPhone prices.
The report doesn’t speculate on what Apple will actually sell the new iPhone models for, merely how much more it’s likely to be paying for the components that are going inside.
For the 256GB Pro model, memory costs in 3Q26 are expected to be nearly 400% higher than a year earlier. Despite Apple’s efforts to negotiate lower prices for other components, these savings are unlikely to offset the resulting pressure on overall BOM costs. An increase in retail prices appears increasingly unavoidable while hardware costs remain elevated.
TrendForce
That’s because the analysts acknowledge the reality that Apple is still likely to eat some of this cost increase to avoid giving customers “sticker shock.” It’s the classic balancing act between volume sales versus individual unit profitability.
That’s especially true because memory prices aren’t the only thing getting more expensive in today’s economy — they’re just one of the largest. Consumers are tightening their belts as the price of everything else goes up, which is going to make a lot of folks think twice about purchasing a new iPhone even if prices were to remain identical to last year’s models.
So what’s the bottom line here? TrendForce estimates that Apple will likely raise the price of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max by $150 to $200 each while keeping the starting storage configuration at 256 GB.
If accurate, this would put the starting price for an iPhone 18 Pro somewhere between $1,249 and $1,299, while an iPhone 18 Pro Max would sell for $1,349 to $1,399. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see what Apple actually does when the dust settles, as it ultimately comes down to how much of a hit the company is willing to take on its profit margins.
Maybe Apple will even give us an early Christmas miracle and keep the prices the same — but we wouldn’t recommend holding your breath on that one, as John Ternus looks nothing like Santa Claus.
Meanwhile, the foldable iPhone — the so-called “iPhone Ultra” or “iPhone Fold” — has long been expected to debut for at least $2,000, and TrendForce’s analysts concur with that, suggesting the entry-level model could come in at $2,099, with the highest storage option breaking the $3K mark.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
