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Economy · Business

Apple wants you to rent your next iPhone

Apple has launched a US programme to pay for the iPhone —and other devices— by the month, through Klarna. Owning the device turns, step by step, into one more subscription.

Pablo González Analysis 18 August 2026 ~5 min read Versión en español

For twenty years the deal with Apple was simple: you paid a lot and the device was yours. On 28 July 2026, Apple launched a different idea in the United States. It is called Apple Upgrade and, in practice, it turns the devices into something you do not buy: you rent them.

This is not “Apple has become a subscription company” (that was already true with Apple Music, iCloud and Apple TV). It is one step further: the subscription reaches the hardware itself. And it is no whim of Apple’s: it is where half the industry is pushing, from ownership to recurrence. Here is how it works, why it suits Apple, and which small print is worth reading before the model reaches your country. Apple Upgrade is available in the United States only, so everything below is priced in US dollars; for readers anywhere else this is a preview, not an offer.

How it works

Apple Upgrade, run with the lender Klarna, lets you pay a monthly fee for the iPhone, the Apple Watch, the Mac or the iPad over a fixed term (12–24 months on iPhone and Watch, 24–36 on Mac and iPad), with the option to upgrade the device, hand it back or keep it at the end. It starts at $17.99 a month for an iPhone. It replaces Apple’s old payment and upgrade programmes, and Klarna runs a “soft” credit check that does not affect your record.

Why it suits Apple

To begin with, predictable recurring revenue instead of one big payment every few years. It also locks the customer into the upgrade cycle (always on the newest model, always paying) and, by putting Klarna in the middle, moves the risk of non-payment off Apple’s own books. It is a model the industry has been chasing for years, and the precedents are very concrete: Adobe stopped selling its software in a box and moved it to a subscription with Creative Cloud in 2013, and in 2022 BMW went as far as charging around $18 a month for heated seats already fitted at the factory — the backlash was such that it dropped the charge the following year. Apple Upgrade is the same logic applied to the whole device.

Chart 1 · calculator

Are you better off renting or buying?

Default case: iPhone 17 Pro, 24-month contract. Change category, model, term and horizon for your own case. US market. Every price here is a US list price, and in the United States sales tax is added at the till according to your address, so these are not shelf prices in the way a British or European reader is used to reading them: your local price includes VAT and these do not. The 0% alternative the calculator offers below is Apple Card, which Apple issues “only for qualifying applicants in the United States”. Outside the US, that comparison is not available to you.

Apple Upgrade monthly fee
$31.99 /mo
List price
$1,099
If it is a treat: renewing every 24 months, in 2 years you will have paid $767.76 without the device ever becoming yours at any point, against $1,099 paid once if you buy it and keep it. Over that horizon renting comes out $331.24 cheaper in cash, but you are left with no device. The calculation credits the bought device with no resale value: the more it is worth second-hand, the worse renting looks.
See the full breakdown
Rent and renew every 24 months (2 years)
$767.76
never yours — you hand it back each cycle
Buy it once and keep it 2 years
$1,099
yours from day one
Cumulative cost over the horizon
Cumulative cost: renting against buying an iPhone 17 Pro Comparison of cumulative cost over 24 months: renting with Apple Upgrade adds up to $767.76 at $31.99 a month, never reaching the purchase price; buying it once costs $1,099 from day one, as a single payment.
% of the device’s value paid if you keep it at the end of the first cycle
70% of the device’s value · buyout: $331.24
Real alternative: 0% financing with Apple Card, over its own fixed term. Apple Card is issued in the United States only. The monthly figure is my own calculation: the price divided by the term Apple sets for that category.
$45.79 /mo over 24 months — by instalments you end up the owner, at no extra cost thanks to the 0% interest.
Outside the programme (not eligible for Apple Upgrade): iPhone 16, Apple Watch SE, entry-level iPad, MacBook Neo, Mac mini. The calculation assumes continuous renewal with no early-change fee and no interest (that is how Apple defines it), and holds the monthly fee flat: Apple’s small print warns that it may rise on renewal. It credits no resale value to the device you buy. The Apple Card figure uses the fixed ACMI term —24 months on iPhone; 12 on iPad, Watch and Mac—, not the lease term. Apple does not publish the buyout price: the one shown above is the difference between the list price and what has been paid over the cycle, an assumption of this calculator. All prices are US list prices and exclude sales tax, which in the United States is added at checkout at the rate for the delivery address.

Source: Apple Newsroom; apple.com/shop/apple-upgrade and product pages at apple.com/shop (verified 18 Aug 2026; monthly fees and small print re-checked 2 Sep 2026); support.apple.com/en-us/102730 for the Apple Card Monthly Installments terms; MacRumors; AppleInsider. Apple pairs its official monthly fees with a $1,099 example for the iPhone 17 Pro 256GB in Apple Upgrade’s own small print; the standalone product page for the same model lists $1,199. This chart uses the $1,099 price because it is the one Apple attaches directly to its two official fees for that model: $31.99 a month over 24 months and $45.99 over 12.

The small print

Something is worth clearing up here, because the name misleads: Apple Upgrade is a real lease, not a finance deal. Under Apple’s old programme you paid for the phone in instalments (at 0% interest) and at the end it was yours; with Apple Upgrade, unless you pay extra to keep it when the term ends, you never come to own it: you hand it back or swap it for another, and you keep paying. The monthly fee looks cheap (an iPhone 17 Pro works out at $31.99 a month over two years, against $1,099 to buy it), but if you chain upgrades together, you pay for ever. It is neither a scam nor a bargain: it is a change in how we have things. (For anyone who would rather buy, Apple keeps its 0% financing with Apple Card — in the United States.)

Apple did not invent leasing, just as it invented almost nothing: it has taken it to its most wanted product and made it easy. The question it leaves is not technical but cultural: are we happy to stop owning things in exchange for always having them new?

Opinion — first person

Here is an opinion, in the first person. As a photographer, I tell two things apart: the kit I am going to get a real return on (a camera, a computer that makes me produce more) and the treat. For the first, if the interest is zero or very low, not paying it all at once can be worth it: it is an asset that raises your output and frees up cash. For the second, almost never: taking on debt or entering a lease for a treat is rarely the best financial decision.

Chart 2

Everything becomes a subscription: from music to hardware

Five milestones that carried subscription logic from what you watch to what you hold in your hands.

2007

Netflix launches streaming

You stop buying or renting film by film: you subscribe and watch whatever is there. The first big leap from ownership to recurrence, applied to content.

2013

Adobe moves its software to Creative Cloud

Photoshop and Illustrator stop being sold in a box: from now on they are rented by the month. The leap reaches the software you use to work, not just to be entertained.

2015

Apple Music

Apple, which had sold single songs for a decade through iTunes, joins the music subscription.

2022

BMW charges for heated seats

Around $18 a month to switch on a feature already fitted at the factory. The backlash was so loud that BMW dropped it the following year, but the warning stood: physical hardware no longer escapes subscription logic.

2026

Apple Upgrade

It is the whole device’s turn: the iPhone, the Mac, the iPad or the Watch can be rented by the month, never becoming yours unless you pay extra at the end.

Source: Netflix Newsroom; Adobe Newsroom (2013); Apple Newsroom (Apple Music, 2015); The Drive / Autoblog (BMW, heated seats, 2022–2023); Apple Newsroom (Apple Upgrade, 2026).

Source notes
  1. Apple Newsroom — “Apple Upgrade launches in the United States”, 28 Jul 2026. Primary.
  2. apple.com/shop/apple-upgrade and product pages at apple.com/shop (iPhone 17 Pro, Apple Watch Series 11, iPad Pro, MacBook Pro) — verified 18 Aug 2026; monthly fees and small print re-checked 2 Sep 2026. Primary.
  3. Apple Support — “Products you can buy from Apple with Apple Card Monthly Installments”, support.apple.com/en-us/102730, consulted 2 Sep 2026. Primary. It sets the ACMI term by category: 24 months on iPhone; 12 on iPad, Apple Watch and Mac. The same page states that Apple Card is “available only for qualifying applicants in the United States”, which is why this English version says so rather than leaving the 0% alternative looking universal.
  4. MacRumors — “Apple Upgrade: Apple Retires iPhone Upgrade Program for Klarna-Backed Leases”. Reliable secondary.
  5. AppleInsider — coverage of prices and terms by category. Reliable secondary.
  6. TechCrunch, 28 Jul 2026. Reliable secondary.
  7. CNBC, 28 Jul 2026. Reliable secondary.
  8. Newsweek. Reliable secondary.
  9. Gap declared. The calculator charges the buyer the full list price and credits no resale value. This piece has not opened any second-hand price series by model, so no unverified figure goes in. With that asymmetry in plain view, over the 2-year horizon renting comes out cheaper in cash than buying: that is what the calculator’s verdict now says. It used to conclude the opposite. Whether it is worth it is a judgement, and it is signed as one in the opinion block.
  10. Gap declared. Apple does not publish the buyout price at the end of the lease. Its small print only says that, if you neither upgrade nor end the contract, “you will be charged the purchase fee under your lease”, with no figure. The buyout the calculator shows is my own assumption —list price minus what has been paid over the cycle—, not an Apple figure.
  11. A note on the market. Apple Upgrade is a United States programme and every figure in this piece is in US dollars at US list prices, which exclude sales tax: Apple applies it at checkout “using the applicable sales tax or seller’s use tax rate for your shipping address”. A reader in the UK or the euro area is used to shelf prices that already include VAT, so these numbers are not comparable with a local price without that adjustment. This piece does not make the adjustment, because Apple Upgrade is not sold in those markets and there is no equivalent local fee to compare it against.