Apple’s $600 iPhone 18 Pro storage upgrade costs $192, report says

Apple charges customers an extra $600 to upgrade the iPhone 18 Pro from 256GB to 1TB of storage, even though the additional flash memory is estimated to cost the company just $192, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.

The figures come from a Wall Street Journal report by Rolfe Winkler, which compared Apple’s retail storage prices with component-cost estimates from research firm TechInsights. The $600 charge exceeds the estimated cost of the added storage by $408. That difference is a component-level gross profit estimate, not a measure of Apple’s net profit after other expenses.

The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 in the United States and £1,199 in the United Kingdom with 256GB of storage. Choosing the 1TB model raises the price to $1,799 and £1,799, making the upgrade $600 or £600 more expensive than the entry configuration.

Apple’s pricing has become steeper since the iPhone 17 Pro. Last year’s equivalent 256GB-to-1TB upgrade cost customers $400, with an estimated additional component cost of $42. For the iPhone 18 Pro, Apple’s estimated cost has risen by $150, while the amount charged to buyers has increased by $200. The difference between the retail charge and estimated flash cost has consequently grown from $358 to $408.

Not every storage tier has become more lucrative. Moving from 256GB to 512GB still costs $200, but the estimated cost of the extra flash has climbed from $15 on the iPhone 17 Pro to $66 on the iPhone 18 Pro. On that upgrade, the difference between the selling price and estimated component cost has narrowed from $185 to $134.

The figures arrive amid rising demand for memory and storage chips from companies building AI data centers, which has weakened Apple’s negotiating position with suppliers. As The Apple Post reported earlier this week, Apple expects memory prices to keep climbing after raising prices across several product lines this year.

For iPhone buyers, the figures underline the premium attached to choosing more storage when ordering a new device. People who regularly record large videos or keep extensive files offline may still need the higher-capacity models, while others could avoid the extra charge by checking how much local storage they actually use. Apple has already raised the iPhone 18 Pro’s starting price by $100 compared with the previous generation, making the storage decision an even more significant part of the overall cost.