Apple's Mac mini Price Hike: The £599 Model Is Gone

The £599 Mac mini is no more. Apple has quietly retired the entry-level model and pushed the new starting point to £799 - effectively a £200 Mac mini price increase for the cheapest desktop the company sells. If you've been waiting for a sign to pull the trigger, this is probably it.

The change happened less than 24 hours after Apple's most recent earnings call, where Tim Cook flagged supply chain pressure on the Mac mini line. As reported by TechRadar and first spotted by MacRumors, the 256GB model with 16GB of RAM has been pulled from Apple's online store entirely. What used to cost £599 isn't on offer at any price. It's just gone.

What the Mac mini Price Increase Actually Means

Here's the simple version. Until this week, the Mac mini lineup looked like this:

• £599: M4, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD
• £799: M4, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
• Higher tiers with M4 Pro and bigger storage

Now it looks like this:

• £799: M4, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD (new entry point)
• Higher tiers with M4 Pro and bigger storage

The previous mid-tier model is now the cheapest Mac mini you can buy from Apple. Same chip, same RAM, same storage as the old £799 unit. The only real change is that the cheap option below it doesn't exist any more. Internationally it's the same story: $799 in the US, AU$1,299 in Australia, all up from the previous floor.

Worth noting that delivery times haven't shifted with the price. Order one today and Apple is quoting a window between 9 and 16 June for the UK, which lands right after WWDC 2026 kicks off. So you're paying more and waiting longer, not exactly the combination most buyers are after.

The RAM Crisis Is the Real Story

This isn't Apple deciding the Mac mini is suddenly worth more. On the earnings call, Cook was explicit that memory costs are climbing fast and that the Mac mini and Mac Studio could take "several months" to balance supply with demand. RAM and SSD pricing has been moving in the wrong direction for a few months now, driven by AI infrastructure buildouts soaking up DRAM and NAND across the industry.

The Mac mini was always going to feel that pressure first, because it's the one Apple machine where the margin is genuinely tight. At £599, Apple was charging close to what the parts cost in a market where memory prices were stable. The moment those prices moved, that maths stopped working.

So rather than pass on a £100 or £150 increase to the £599 model and dilute it, Apple has cut it off entirely and let the £799 model carry the entry-level role. That's a cleaner story for the supply chain team. Fewer SKUs to manage, less pressure on the most constrained component, and a higher average selling price across the line. Apple has been making similar calls across the desktop range, including the decision to retire the Mac Pro outright, so trimming the bottom of the Mac mini stack fits the pattern.

The Mac mini Was the Best Mac Value. Now It's Just Good.

The £599 Mac mini was special because it punched well above its price tag. M4 silicon, 16GB of unified memory and a real desktop computer for the kind of money that gets you a decent iPad. It's why the recommendation for "I need a Mac, what should I buy" became reflexive for a year.

At £799, that easy answer isn't quite as easy. You're getting double the storage, which matters more than people give it credit for. 256GB fills up fast once you've got macOS, a few apps, a Photos library and some local files. But the value framing changes. £799 is no longer a no-brainer entry to the Mac ecosystem. It's a reasonable price for a capable mini desktop, but it's competing with itself against an iPad Pro, a refurbished MacBook Air, or stepping up to the MacBook Neo.

If I were buying one today purely as a desktop machine for general work, I'd still take the £799 Mac mini over almost anything else in that price bracket. The 512GB of storage genuinely earns its keep, and the M4 chip is going to feel current for years. But the recommendation needs more qualifiers now than it did last week.

Where the MacBook Neo Fits In

Apple's £599 entry point hasn't actually disappeared. It's just moved. The MacBook Neo launched at exactly that price, with an A18 Pro chip and a portable form factor. It's a different machine for a different use case, but it absorbs the budget Mac slot the Mac mini used to occupy.

That's almost certainly not an accident. Apple needs an entry-level Mac at £599 for the brand story, and the Neo gives them one with a chip that's cheaper to source than the M4 and a smaller memory configuration. The Neo has been selling so well that supply has buckled, but at least the price point exists somewhere in the lineup.

For someone who had been eyeing the cheap Mac mini, the question is now whether you actually need a desktop. If you don't, the Neo is the obvious shift. If you do, you're paying £200 more or looking at the refurbished store.

Should You Buy a Mac mini Right Now?

Honestly, I'd wait if you can. Three reasons.

First, WWDC 2026 is in early June. Apple isn't going to announce a new Mac mini there, but the macOS direction shown at WWDC tends to give you a clearer read on whether the current chip is going to age well. The M4 is in great shape, but it doesn't hurt to see what's coming.

Second, the supply situation could improve. Cook said "several months" on the earnings call, which is vague enough to mean anything from August to next year, but if RAM pricing eases at all, Apple could quietly walk the entry price back down. Bigger if than I'd normally count on, but possible.

Third, delivery is already pushed out to mid-June. If you're going to wait that long anyway, you might as well wait another fortnight to see if anything shifts.

If you genuinely need one now, get the £799 model and don't bother with custom configurations. Those will only stretch the wait further. The base 512GB option is the one Apple is actually building in volume, so it's the fastest to ship.

FAQ

Why is the Mac mini more expensive now?

Apple has discontinued the £599 entry-level model and made the £799 model the new starting point. The hardware in the new entry-level Mac mini hasn't changed. It's the same 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD configuration that was previously the mid-tier option. The change is driven by rising memory and storage costs, which Tim Cook flagged on Apple's most recent earnings call.

Is the £599 Mac mini still available anywhere?

Not from Apple directly. Some third-party retailers may still have stock at the old price for a while, and the refurbished store is worth checking if you want the 256GB model specifically. But Apple's own store no longer lists it.

Should I get a Mac mini or a MacBook Neo?

The Mac mini makes sense if you have a monitor, keyboard and mouse already and you want a stationary desktop. The MacBook Neo makes more sense if you want a portable Mac, you don't have peripherals already, or £599 is your hard limit. Both run macOS well. They just suit different setups.

Source: TechRadar - Apple's Mac mini now has a higher starting price, reporting by Jacob Krol. First spotted by MacRumors.