Buying guide. Based on Apple’s current US pricing and published specifications as of September 10, 2026, not on hands-on testing. Prices checked the morning after Apple’s September 9 event.
For about fifteen years, the smartest way to buy an iPhone was to wait one week.
Apple would announce the new models, quietly cut the price of last year’s phone by $100, and anyone patient enough got a nearly identical device for less. That trick died on September 9. Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro, the iPhone 18 Pro Max and the folding iPhone Duo, covered in full in everything Apple announced this week, and then raised the price of every older iPhone still on sale by $100.
Not lowered. Raised.
The iPhone 17 went from $799 to $899. The iPhone Air went from $999 to $1,099. The iPhone 17e went from $599 to $699. For those three, that is $100 above what each phone cost on the day it launched.
The iPhone 16 is a slightly different case. It went from $699 to $799 this week, but it originally launched at $799 back in 2024 and was cut to $699 last September. So it has not been marked up so much as un-discounted, and it now costs exactly what it cost two years ago, with the same 128GB of storage. Apple also discontinued the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max outright and dropped the iPhone 16 Plus from the lineup.
So the question is not which iPhone is cheapest anymore. It is which one still earns what it now costs.
What Apple sells today, and what it actually costs
| Model | Base storage | Apple price | If you skip carrier activation |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone 17e | 256GB | $699 | $699 |
| iPhone 16 | 128GB | $799 | $829 |
| iPhone 17 | 256GB | $899 | $929 |
| iPhone Air | 256GB | $1,099 | $1,099 |
| iPhone 18 Pro | 256GB | $1,199 | $1,199 |
| iPhone 18 Pro Max | 256GB | $1,299 | $1,299 |
| iPhone Duo | 256GB | $1,999 | $1,999 |
That fourth column is the part people miss. On the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17, Apple’s advertised price includes a $30 connectivity discount that only applies if you activate with a qualifying carrier at checkout. Choose “connect to a carrier later,” or plan to use a prepaid plan, and the price goes up $30. It is not a scam, it is disclosed in the fine print, but it means the iPhone 17 is a $929 phone for anyone who wants to walk out unattached.
Everything ships with iOS 27, which arrives free on Monday, September 14.
Why everything got more expensive
This is not Apple deciding you will pay more because you always do. In a Wall Street Journal interview published June 17, Tim Cook said price increases were “unavoidable” and described the memory chip shortage as a hundred-year flood he had not seen the like of in forty years of supply chain work.
The cause is AI. Companies building AI data centers are buying enormous quantities of memory, and the three companies that make most of the world’s DRAM and NAND, Samsung, SK hynix and Micron, have shifted production toward the high-margin server parts. That leaves less supply and higher prices for the ordinary memory that goes into phones. S&P Global warned in June that memory prices look set to stay elevated through at least 2028.
Which means waiting for prices to come back down is probably not a strategy. Plan around the prices in front of you.
The one I would actually buy: iPhone 17 at $899
For most people, most of the time, this is the phone.
It is Apple’s current standard model and it is going to stay the current standard model for roughly six more months, because there is no iPhone 18. Reports through the year have pointed to a spring 2027 launch for the base model, and Apple has confirmed nothing. So the 17 is not a leftover you are settling for. It is the mainstream iPhone, full stop, and it will be until spring.
It runs Apple Intelligence and the new Siri AI, though it is worth knowing what Apple Intelligence can and cannot do before you weigh that. It has 256GB in the base model, which matters more than people expect, because no iPhone has expandable storage and 128GB fills up fast if you shoot video.
The honest problem: $899 is a lot for a phone that was $799 last week, and $929 if you are not activating a carrier at the till. That is the price of the moment, not a reflection of the phone getting better.
The value pick: iPhone 17e at $699
If you want to spend the least without giving up the things that will matter over the next four years, this is it.
The 17e runs Apple Intelligence and Siri AI. It comes with 256GB. It is $200 less than the iPhone 17 and $130 less than an iPhone 16 bought without carrier activation. You give up some camera hardware and some polish, and for a large number of people that is a trade worth making twice over.
The one to skip: iPhone 16 at $799
I do not often say do not buy something Apple is actively selling. This is the exception.
At $799, or $829 without carrier activation, the iPhone 16 costs more than the iPhone 17e, ships with half the storage at 128GB, and runs an older chip. It is a two-year-old design being sold at its original 2024 launch price. Two years of progress bought you nothing here. There is no configuration in which it beats the 17e for the money.
If someone hands you one, great phone. Do not buy it new at this price.
The awkward middle: iPhone Air at $1,099
The Air is genuinely the most interesting hardware in the lineup and it is now in a very hard spot. At $1,099 it sits $100 below the iPhone 18 Pro, which has the better camera system, the better chip and the longer battery.
There is one real argument for it, and almost nobody is making it. Apple’s most powerful on-device AI model, the one that enables the expressive Siri voices and the improved Dictation, only runs on a short list of devices: iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone Duo, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air. The 17 Pro models are discontinued. So the Air is the cheapest phone Apple sells that runs the top tier of on-device AI, and it is the only non-Pro phone that does.
If you want the thinnest iPhone and you care about on-device AI, that is a reason. If you just want a very good phone, the $899 iPhone 17 or the $1,199 Pro make more sense at either end.
The camera pick: iPhone 18 Pro at $1,199
Buy this if photography or video is part of how you earn or how you spend your time.
The new part is variable aperture, and it is physical. Six laser-cut blades open and close over the 48MP main sensor, so the camera can widen to f/1.48 in a dark room or close down to f/4 to keep a whole group in focus. Every previous iPhone had one fixed aperture and simulated the rest in software. There is also a Pro controls panel with manual shutter speed, white balance and a live histogram, and Apple Reference Image, which stores a signed, unaltered version of what the sensor saw alongside your edited photo.
If none of that made your ears prick up, you do not need this phone, and the $300 gap between it and the iPhone 17 is better spent elsewhere.
The one to wait on: iPhone Duo at $1,999
Pre-orders do not open until October 16 and it does not ship until October 23. Every durability claim about the hinge, the crease and the folding display currently comes from Apple’s own lab. You have five weeks in which reviewers will fold it a few thousand times and tell you what happens. There is no cost to waiting and a real cost to being wrong about a $1,999 phone.
How long will it keep working
This is the part buying guides skip, and it is the part that decides whether a phone was worth it.
Three tiers matter right now:
iOS 27 itself runs on every iPhone back to the iPhone 11 and the second-generation iPhone SE. Nothing got dropped this year.
Apple Intelligence and Siri AI require an iPhone 15 Pro or newer. That leaves out the standard iPhone 15, the whole iPhone 14 family, and everything older. Those phones still get iOS 27, they just do not get the AI layer, and the AI layer is where Apple is putting its effort.
The most advanced on-device models need one of the six phones listed in the Air section above.
Practical version: any phone you buy new from Apple today clears the Apple Intelligence bar. Any phone older than an iPhone 15 Pro does not, and never will. If you are buying used or refurbished, that line is the single most important thing to check.
One more that affects existing owners: Apple’s own footnotes say the new Audio Intelligence features on Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, including Live Rewind and Siri Recap, require an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone 16 or later, and specifically exclude the iPhone 16e. If you own a 16e and were planning to pair it with a new watch, check that before you order.
Refurbished, trade-in, and the carrier math
Apple Certified Refurbished comes with a new outer shell, a new battery, the same one-year warranty as a new phone, and AppleCare+ eligibility. Apple advertises savings up to 15 percent, and in practice that is closer to the ceiling than the average, because Apple only lists recent models in one condition grade. Third-party refurbishers go deeper on price and older on stock, with more variable quality. If you go that route, check the warranty length and the battery health guarantee before anything else.
Trade-in, and a detail that matters this week. Apple is offering $175 to $885 in instant credit on an iPhone 13 or later. Two things about that range. The $885 ceiling requires an iPhone 17 Pro Max in good condition, so it is not a number most people will see. And on the same day it raised phone prices, Apple also cut the trade-in payout on every returning iPhone model, several by more than $100. An iPhone 16 Pro dropped from $630 to $510, an iPhone 16 Pro Max from $720 to $610, and a standard iPhone 16 from $480 to $430.
So the gap moved against you from both directions in one afternoon: the phone costs $100 more and your old one is worth less toward it.
Select carriers will go up to $1,200 in credits for an iPhone 14 or later in any condition.
That gap looks decisive until you read how it pays out. Carrier credits almost always arrive as bill credits spread across 24 or 36 months, which ties you to that carrier for the full term. Leave early and you forfeit the rest. Apple’s credit is smaller, instant, and has no strings. Before you take the bigger number, work out the real total: the required plan cost, plus the remaining device payments, plus taxes and fees, minus the credits. A free phone attached to a plan you would not otherwise choose is not free.
So should you upgrade at all
Probably not, if your current phone is an iPhone 15 Pro or newer and the battery still holds a day. You already clear the Apple Intelligence bar and everything announced this month is either an incremental improvement or a feature dated “later this year.”
Probably yes, if you are on an iPhone 14 or older. Not because the new phones are exciting, but because that hardware will never run Apple Intelligence, and the gap between what your phone does and what a current one does is going to widen every year from here.
And if you are somewhere in between, buy on battery, not on features. A phone that needs charging twice a day is a phone that is costing you something every day. A phone with an older chip and a healthy battery is not.
Prices are Apple’s US store prices as of September 10, 2026 and can change without notice. Sources: Apple Newsroom releases for iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo, iPhone 17e, AirPods 5 and Apple Watch Series 12; Apple’s Trade In and Certified Refurbished pages; Tim Cook’s June 2026 Wall Street Journal interview; and S&P Global Ratings on memory pricing.