iPhone 18 Price Increase: Apple Saved the Worst for Last

Apple has already put its prices up once this year. In June it raised them across Macs, iPads, Apple TV, HomePod and Vision Pro in a single move, and the iPhone walked away untouched. That was never going to hold. The iPhone 18 price increase now looks like the second half of a plan Apple has been signalling since the spring, and it is the half that will actually be felt, because the iPhone is the product most people in this country actually buy.

Apple's June price rise was only half the story

The June increases landed hard and landed everywhere at once. Macs, iPads, Apple TV, HomePod and Vision Pro all got more expensive on the same day, which I covered in detail in Apple Price Increase 2026: Every Mac and iPad Affected.

Tim Cook had warned it was coming, blaming the memory shortage that has been squeezing the entire industry. Knowing in advance did not make the scale of it any less jarring.

Three flagship lines escaped: iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods. At the time Apple hinted that further increases were on the way, and analysts read the omission for exactly what it was. Not mercy. Timing.

Why the iPhone 18 price increase is the one that bites

A Mac price rise annoys a few hundred thousand people. An iPhone price rise touches almost everyone, because the iPhone is the device sitting in the pocket of the person who has never once thought about RAM pricing.

It also resets the anchor. Whatever the iPhone 18 Pro costs in September becomes the number every subsequent generation gets measured against, and Apple almost never walks a price back once it has taken it.

The numbers being rumoured

Reports put the iPhone 18 Pro starting somewhere in the $1,299 to $1,399 range, against $1,099 for the iPhone 17 Pro. Treat that as a leak rather than a fact, because it is one, but the direction of travel is not in dispute.

Even at the bottom of that range, it is a $200 jump on the entry Pro. At the top it is $300, which would be the largest single-generation increase Apple has ever put on a Pro iPhone.

What that could look like in pounds

The iPhone 17 Pro starts at £1,099 in the UK. Apple does not convert its dollar pricing directly, so nobody can give you a firm sterling figure yet.

If Apple applies a proportionally similar increase here, and that is my arithmetic rather than anything leaked, the iPhone 18 Pro would land somewhere between £1,299 and £1,399. On Apple's 0% finance that moves the entry Pro from roughly £36.63 a month to something closer to £43 or £47 over 30 months.

Apple Watch and AirPods are on the same list

The Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 are strong candidates for a rise, because the memory crunch driving Mac and iPad pricing hits Watch components too. That stings more than usual given neither model is getting the redesign people have been waiting for, as I wrote in Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Series 12: The Redesign Isn't Coming.

Paying more for a watch that looks identical to the one already on your wrist is a hard sell, and Apple knows it.

AirPods are the least likely of the three. They lean far less on memory and storage than anything else in the lineup, so the cost pressure simply is not there in the same way. If AirPods do go up, it tells you Apple has decided to move the whole lineup rather than only the products it can justify.

The usual discount on last year's iPhone may not happen

Here is the part that has had the least attention and deserves the most.

When a new iPhone arrives, Apple normally cuts the price of the outgoing models and shuffles them down the range. That is the quiet escape hatch for anyone who does not need the newest thing, and it is how a lot of people end up on a perfectly good iPhone for sensible money.

This year the expectation is that older models either hold their current price or creep up slightly. If that happens, the cheap route through the lineup closes at the same moment the expensive route gets more expensive. There is no soft landing anywhere in the range.

A price rise in the same week Apple changes chief executive

Cook leaves the CEO role on 31 August. John Ternus takes over on 1 September, days before the iPhone 18 event.

So the man who warned everyone about price rises will be watching from the executive chairman's seat while his successor stands on stage and delivers the bill. Ternus is a hardware engineer by background, and his first major public act as chief executive will be asking people to pay meaningfully more for hardware.

That is a rough opening hand. It is also not really his doing, and the memory shortage is genuinely industry-wide rather than an Apple invention. But first impressions are not fair, and the number on the slide is what people will remember.

What I would actually do about it

• Buy now if you were already buying. If an iPhone 17 Pro or a current Apple Watch was on your list for this year, the case for waiting has largely evaporated. There is no version of September where things get cheaper.
• Look at refurbished properly. Apple's own refurbished store is the most underrated part of the range, and it becomes more compelling every time list prices climb.
• Read the financing terms carefully. Higher list prices push more people towards monthly plans, and not all of them leave you owning anything. I went through the differences in Apple Upgrade vs iPhone Upgrade Program.
• Don't rush the Watch. Series 12 and Ultra 4 are iterative. A Series 10 or Ultra 2 bought sensibly will serve you for years.

My take

I do not think Apple is being opportunistic here, and I have seen enough of the memory market this year to accept the cost pressure is real. What bothers me is the removal of the cheap end. Losing the traditional discount on last year's phone hits the people with the least room to absorb it, and it happens quietly, without a slide or a press release.

If you have been putting off an upgrade, the next four weeks are the last stretch of the current pricing. After that, the floor moves and it does not come back down.

Frequently asked questions

Will the iPhone 18 definitely cost more?

Nothing is confirmed until Apple announces it. Every credible report points that way, Apple has openly flagged further increases, and the memory shortage behind the June rises has not eased. A rise is likely rather than certain.

How much more will the iPhone 18 Pro cost in the UK?

No UK figures have leaked. Applying the rumoured US increase to the current £1,099 iPhone 17 Pro gives a rough range of £1,299 to £1,399, but that is an estimate rather than a leak, and Apple sets sterling pricing separately.

Should I buy an iPhone 17 Pro before September?

If you were going to buy this year regardless, yes. Waiting has historically been rewarded with a price cut on the outgoing model, and this is the year that is expected not to happen.

Source: These Apple products are likely getting more expensive next month, 9to5Mac