Apple Upgrade makes getting a new iPhone or Mac look surprisingly affordable. You select your preferred device, lease term and then pay for it in monthly installments. At the end of the lease, you can buy the device outright or upgrade to a newer model.
But is Apple Upgrade really worth leasing your next iPhone or Mac? I did the math to find out.
Apple Upgrade math
Lease programs are old news in the automotive world but are relatively new in consumer electronics. Several third-party companies offer leases, but until now, few manufacturers did. But as the cost of devices and components rise, allowing customers to spread payments over time makes sense.
Apple offers 12- and 24-month leases for the iPhone and Apple Watch through the Apple Upgrade program. Mac and iPad leases run for 24 or 36 months. At the end of the term, you return the device, start another lease or pay the remaining balance to own it.
Comparing the lease payment with the full retail price makes Apple Upgrade look like an obvious bargain — the price is the same, and there’s no big upfront payment. However, someone who buys an iPhone owns an asset they can sell or trade in later. The fairer comparison is the total cost of using the phone for the same period.
For my calculations, I used the current resale values for iPhone 16 Pro to estimate the resale value of an iPhone 17 Pro after one year (it’s currently about 10 months old). I used iPhone 15 Pro resale prices for the two-year calculation. All figures exclude tax, AppleCare, marketplace charges and shipping.
A one-year iPhone lease carries a sizable convenience premium
An unlocked iPhone 17 Pro costs $1,099 in the US without taxes. If you lease it from Apple and Klarna for a year, you pay $45.99 per month. That’s $551.88 for the entire year before taxes and AppleCare+.
You can typically sell a year-old 256GB Pro iPhone for about $700. So, if you purchased the iPhone outright for $1,099 and sold it a year later for $700, it would have effectively cost $398 for a year of use.
That makes the one-year Apple Upgrade lease $153.38 more expensive. You are essentially paying almost $13 extra every month to avoid finding a buyer, negotiating a price and shipping the phone.
Even if you sell the phone on a marketplace like eBay, accounting for its fees and time, you should still come out ahead. In this scenario, you’re paying a sizable premium for convenience and lower monthly payments.
The two-year lease changes the calculation
If you lease the same iPhone — the iPhone 17 Pro — for two years, you pay $31.99 per month, or $767.76 over two years.
A comparable two-year-old 256GB iPhone Pro sells for about $530 to $550. So, if you buy the phone for $1,099 and sell it after two years, it would effectively cost you somewhere between $549 and $569.
Again, the lease comes out more expensive — by about $199 to $219. But spread across two years, that convenience premium drops to roughly $100 to $109 per year, or $8.28 to $9.12 per month. Using the midpoint resale value, you would pay approximately $104 more per year, or $8.70 per month, to lease.
While still more expensive than buying and reselling the phone, the two-year lease is easier to justify.
Buying and reselling wins at every storage capacity
Higher-capacity iPhones cost more to buy and lease. They also tend to command higher resale prices. Based on current average resale values, buying and selling privately remains the more cost-effective option across all storage capacities.
| Storage | One-year lease premium | Two-year lease premium | Two-year premium per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 256GB | $153.88 | $205.76 | $102.88 |
| 512GB | $136.32 | $203.68 | $101.84 |
| 1TB | $144.76 | $155.36 | $77.68 |
As you opt for the higher storage capacities though, the convenience premium for leasing drops. With the 1TB iPhone 17 Pro, the total leasing cost comes to $1,047.36 for two years. That’s only about $155-$160 more than buying the phone and selling it two years later.
Do note that these numbers do not include taxes, AppleCare+, Marketplace fees, and shipping. Your phone’s condition will also affect its resale value.
Apple Trade In makes leasing look much better
If you typically trade in your old iPhone with Apple, the Apple Upgrade lease becomes much more competitive.
Apple currently offers up to $560 for an iPhone 16 Pro. Subtracting that from the iPhone 17 Pro’s $1,099 purchase price produces an effective one-year ownership cost of $539. By comparison, leasing the iPhone 17 Pro for one year costs $551.88, making the lease just $12.88 more expensive.
Over two years, a trade-in value of around $410 produces an effective ownership cost of $689. The 24-month lease costs $78.76 more in total, which works out to only $39.38 per year.
Apple Upgrade also lets you trade in an eligible device you already own when you first enroll, reducing your initial lease payments. However, that is separate from the comparison above. You could apply the same device toward an outright purchase. It’s not possible to trade in the leased iPhone when you upgrade; you must return it to Apple.
Apple’s trade-in values also do not fully reflect the premium paid for additional storage. As a result, leasing can become more attractive if you typically buy a 512GB or 1TB iPhone and then trade it back to Apple.
Mac leasing makes more sense over three years
Image: Apple/Cult of Mac
Apple Upgrade Program looks especially attractive if you want to buy an expensive Mac. On a three-year lease, the $1,999 14-inch MacBook Pro costs $38.99 per month. There’s a two-year lease term also available, but it is not as good.
The 24-month lease costs $1,295.76 in total. Stretching the lease to three years raises that total to $1,403.64 — just $107.88 more for an additional year of use. That effectively makes the third year cost only $8.99 per month.
At the end of the lease, you would have paid Apple $1,403.64. At that point, you can return the Mac or upgrade to a newer model. If you decide to keep it, you pay another $595.36, bringing the total purchase price to $1,999 before taxes.
The lease does not reduce the Mac’s cost. It only delays part of it while lowering the monthly payment. Buying outright means you own the laptop and can continue using it as long as you want or sell it whenever you want.
Apple Upgrade does not add a finance charge, though. So, keeping the unpaid money in savings or investments could help you effectively make more money to offset the cost of convenience.
If you plan to buy a high-end Mac, putting that money in a high-yield savings account can actually end up making you a decent amount of money. That may be enough to at least partly pay for AppleCare+ or AppleCare One.
Apple Upgrade sells convenience, not savings
The above math does not make Apple Upgrade a bad deal. If anything, it makes it clear what you are paying for.
If you already sell your iPhone privately every year or two, buying remains the best option. You own the device and recover more of its value when sold.
If you normally use Apple Trade In, Apple Upgrade becomes much more attractive. And if you don’t want to get into the hassle of creating a marketplace listing, haggling with buyers and shipping the device, the Apple Upgrade convenience is worth it.
The 24-month iPhone lease offers the best balance. It costs more than buying and reselling, but its annual convenience premium is far lower than that of the one-year plan.
Many people may not be comfortable leasing a Mac from Apple. That’s because leasing is typically associated with a car or a house. However, if you can get over that mindset, leasing a high‑end Mac from Apple may actually work out in your favor.
