Apple iPhone 18 Pro for $1,399: Analysts expect drastic price increase

Apple-CEO Tim Cook recently confirmed that iPhones, iPads, and Macs will become more expensive in the future, a trend that Apple attributes to rising DRAM and NAND costs – even though Apple continues to charge memory and SSD prices that are well above market prices. While Tim Cook has not yet provided any details on just how drastic these price increases will be, the Wall Street Journal shared an estimate from TechInsights analysts based on internal analyses and price trends.

According to this estimate, the cheapest Apple iPhone 18 Pro is expected to cost between $1,299 and $1,399, with the upper end of this range being more likely. For comparison: The iPhone 17 Pro ($1,109 on Amazon) with 256 GB of storage costs $1,099 in the U.S. If this estimate is accurate, models with more storage, as well as the iPhone 18 Pro Max and the iPhone Ultra, are likely to be even more expensive.

According to TechInsights, this estimate is based on the assumption that Apple still aims to maintain a gross margin of 47 percent, which, given the increased production costs, would result in a retail price of $1,371 – excluding the significantly more expensive camera hardware . Surprisingly, DigiTimes assumes that the base model of the iPhone 18 series will launch in spring of 2027 at the same price, meaning that Apple may have to settle for a smaller margin on select models.