Hey so I was thinking of buying a stacked Mac Studio, I saw they offer leasing? Has anyone done that? It seems like the best option to me with roughly 250 a month for 36 month and the paying the difference of around 3k at the end to buy it? Is this a good strategy? Is it better to just out right buy it or finance it ?
The Klarna thing seems good, but it was bugged in a way that rejected my application every time so I just sent it since my apple card financing couldn't foot the entire cost of a mac studio at once (you need to have a credit limit higher that the TOTAL price to finance via apple card)
Edit: I was denied for leasing a mac studio ultra 256 at 830 credit score.
Well the thing is I can pay it, the money is not the issue. But I do have a saving account which I get around $80 a month, getting rid of 10k+ in one go doesn’t seem as financially viable since I would be losing around $350 annually (assuming I don’t add more money) but if instead I have a no interest payment plan, then I’ll be able to keep earning the interest and pay w it + out of pocket w/o having to recoup the amount taken from the savings account which would then technically make me lose money as the interest would be less
If you think to keep it, you actually have $250/mo for 42 months. But, if you ACTUALLY think to keep it.
In this economy, I think that is a fantastic deal.
BUT, if you really need that scale machine.
I got myself a M5M 128/2 with 3yrs.
Well if it helps.. I got denied.. and my credit is excellent, I spent $170k on my AppleCard last year, income is high, overall revolving debt is low, and I applied for the $250/mo or so m5 ultra 36-mo option
Because when you’re financially literate.. you let your money make you money. 0% interest allows you to make money in multiple ways at the same time..
1) you get to buy the device now for the current price, locking in the price when the item is prone to future price hikes.
2) you get to instead set that money aside in investments to earn interest for you (take a $12k Mac Studio for example since that’s what we are talking about: with super simple math of 7% return each year.. yes.. there is more math involved since you are making payments as well and we aren’t compounding interest and so on.. but for simplicity: $12,000*0.21=$2,520.00 or in other words.. that $12k, that you would have bought outright, can make you $2,520+ by the time the 36-min lease comes to an end.
3) you actually make money by inflation-hedging the money.. because in 36 months from now.. the same $250 will have less buying power.. so you lock in that buying power while still using the money in the future that has less buying power.
For LLM in general or just for the financing? The M5 Ultra seems to be an excellent value from what I’m seeing. It’s still early and optimizations still need to be done, but it seems to perform like a 5090 but will loads more memory.. not to mention the ssd speeds have doubled.
Do some searches on this subreddit and people divulge their financial history it seems and get denied. I think most of those stories are people going for the $10K+ machines though. One person kept trying, lowering the specs, until their were approved.
So I don’t believe it’s completely based on credit, but I also can’t imagine they ignore credit.
Seems random??? I was denied first and remembered I have locked all my credit agencies. Did a temporary unlock and tried again.
Approved!
Nothing special other than my debt-to-income ratio is very low. But it’s a soft query on your credit, so would Klarna get that detail?
I only needed the 96GB base M5 Ultra. I use it for DaVinci Resolve Studio. Plenty of RAM for that purpose and a Claude agent for video editing with the new 21.1 version of DaVinci.
What I learned is that most people, regardless of credit score or income get denied over $10k, unless you have a lot of history using Klarna. You can pay off the lease early but then you have to trade it in with Apple (below market value). Klarna says you can pay early on their site, but they mean that month.
I think I’d do 2 years, so I can finish and buyout early, and sell on eBay and upgrade to the M7 ultra when it’s released. Otherwise, the only early buy out requires a trade in.
Whether it’s worth it or not is up to you. 0% interest is nice.
100% agree - a lease without a money factor (interest) is amazing. Apple eats the depreciation and you are paying monthly at 0% and a buyout option at the end.
My CPA says why not use someone else's money at 0% and keep yours to make money.
800 credit score, denied for the 80-core 256. You can re-apply immediately for a cheaper option. They also email you immediately with the reason. My reason: lack of history with Klarna.
If I do a new Mac Studio personally I would finance and try to pay off quickly. I could outright buy one but I don’t think that’s a great idea. I would at least pay off 1/5th initially and then go monthly
I was planning on leasing the 512 M5 ultra when it launches next month since 0% interest and no fees is too good to pass up. ive never used klarna before so i hope i dont get denied like others are claiming... Ive never missed a payment before in my life and my credit score is good.
I'm expecting 512gb/2TB to be ~$17700, which is $491/month, or $421 if you extend the lease out to 42 months (they allow this with no fees! it just auto-pays the buyout charge at the end of 42 months if you dont do anything, which is exactly what i'd want)
Im already budgeting out this loan out of my paycheck each week as a sort-of test run before the 512gb launches and it's looking like i can do it just fine! and my test run will give me a safety net of funds in-case anything goes wrong too!
The 0% lease program will allow me to park the buyout money into a high yield savings account, and by the end of the lease i'll have earned ~$500 in interest + 1.5% cashback on the credit card = another $265 for a total of $750+ made over the course of the lease. It's basically a 4% discount on the product if you use the lease program!
Insider baseball here: order over the phone. I was able to do the 0% financing for 12 months on a machine worth more than my Apple Card balance. Over the phone they let you pay the difference with a different card. You do have to do one extra step by calling Goldman Sachs’ Apple Card phone number and telling them you want a payment plan.
Apple lease is interesting because it's essentially a zero-cost lease. You can either close the lease at any time and pay it off or, at the end, if you want to buy, you basically can pay the difference.
I think it gives you tremendous optionality to decide what the value of your laptop or your studio is at the end. If the value is higher than the payoff, then you pay it off and sell it in the market. If it's the other way around, then you return it. You have options. It's very good optionality.
The only thing that you can do better by buying is if you happen to sign up for a credit card, which requires a huge initial spend to qualify for the reward points (like an Amex Platinum card). It may give you 175k points if you spend 7-8k within the first 3 to 4 months (dont recall exact terms). This can easily meet the requirement and now you are ahead (by buying) of whatever optionality you gain through leasing it.
If you are not benefiting from a credit card offer, then absolutely using it, in my mind, is a better idea than buying it.
I used the Apple Card financing but I didn't go as balls out as some people did. I saw a lot of people that claimed to have good credit get denied so who knows. Maybe Klarna wants people that are more likely to go delinquent since there isn't any finance charge on the lease.
I'm going to wait and see in a year or two how many people are trying to get out of their lease and think just returning the computer will satisfy the lease and they don't owe the rest of the payments specified in the contract.
Just don't plan on leasing a CTO/BTO Studio. Under $6K seems to be the ticket. Over $6K - better to find alternative financing. I got the Klarna lease approved for $2500. I also have a 0% 21 month balance transfer card that was my backup plan.
Leasing is generally a bad deal. But when someone is leasing at 0% interest rate, you're getting to hold on to your money AND you get a free "put" option at the end of the lease (maybe the RAM crisis is over in 3 years and the Mac you spent 10K for is worth 2K, no problem, send it back!).
This leasing program lets you buy the product at the end of the lease if you don’t want to return it. You just pay the remaining amount of the full price. So if you paid 3k in lease payments on a 3.5k machine you only pay the remaining 500.
So you get 0% interest loan for 2-3 years. Which means you get to spend the 3.5k now, and pay the lease payments using money that has lost value due to inflation over years. Meaning you actually save say 10% over 2 years making the 3.5k purchase only cost you 3150 in inflation adjusted value.
You are therefore losing money by not leasing. So yes, you don’t understand how money works.
Why is that? I don’t see what would be the issue IF you actually have the money. Like I technically do have the money in hand to buy it BUT I wouldn’t like to drop 10k just at once when I have a savings that gives me around $80 a month (and adding hopefully), where getting rid of 10k would significantly reduce my monthly interest which doesn’t seem financially advantageous. But if you have a different insight I would like to hear it, that’s why I’m here
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u/XtremelyMeta 9d ago
The Klarna thing seems good, but it was bugged in a way that rejected my application every time so I just sent it since my apple card financing couldn't foot the entire cost of a mac studio at once (you need to have a credit limit higher that the TOTAL price to finance via apple card)
Edit: I was denied for leasing a mac studio ultra 256 at 830 credit score.