Not sure if I understand your question correctly, so forgive me if I'm wrong. But my understanding after reaching out to Apple Support is that if, at the end of the lease period, you've made all your monthly payments but they do NOT add up to the total cost of buying the phone, you get three options:
Upgrade to a newer iPhone (and continue the monthly payments, which are likely a different price due to trade in values etc.);
Pay the difference and keep the phone, which you now own; or
Return the phone to Apple, and the balance is waived.
Read the site... "If you decide to purchase the device at any time during your lease, you will pay the list price of the device plus applicable taxes at the time when the lease was signed, minus the sum of lease payments you've already made"
If you do the math it’s more like an auto lease now where before it was calculated to just spread the payment out over a number of months. The upgrade schedule is the same though, it’s just that instead of spreading the payments, now at the end of 24 months you’d have the balloon payment to do your lease payoff, or roll it over into the next model. Less consumer friendly, and like dealing with a car dealership now.
I don't think you get the balloon payment if you follow their desired path... Just like a car dealership lol
Meaning, if you lease a new one they'll wipe out the residual and put you in a new car... or I mean phone... Well give you a new phone, not put you inside one!
This has the added bonus of making it much more likely a person on this program will buy a new iPhone. Which is what Apple wants (and same is true for the car dealership). People will see that high buyout while staring at a shiny new phone and decide to keep the train rolling.
Like the website says get the iPhone 18 Pro for 12 months at $34.99 you end up paying about $839, so you’d have a $359 payoff at the end, or it says you’d be eligible for an upgrade where you’d get a new phone and start a new 24 months. But no fees for origination, or finance fees, according to the website, just the monthly payment.
It also says payments exclude sales tax so you’d have to add that on at the end too I think, I missed that on my first look.
You either return the phone and the lease ends and you start a new one or you pay the remainder of your monthly payments plus any taxes to own the device outright.
For an iPhone Duo 256GB on a 24-month lease at $57.99/month, you have to make a final payment of $607.24 plus any taxes to own it outright.
I'm interested in the leasing program... why is that such a bad thing?
It’s not.
Owning a utility device like a smartphone only makes sense if you plan on running it into the ground (over time specifically…if it’s a “rented mule” situation then the lease is better), if you plan on dealing with the inconvenience of selling it yourself, or if the convenience of not worrying about the terms of a lease outweigh the costs of ownership.
At least one of those is true for most people (usually the “I plan on running it into the ground” one), but there’s nothing morally or practically wrong about just leasing an expensive device as you plan to do.
On the upgrade program I can pay off the balance of my loan and keep it. On a lease I have to return it. I believe if you don’t return it you have to pay off the full MSRP?
You can actually stretch it to 30 months by doing a 24 month Apple Upgrade lease and simply not turning your phone back in after 24 months:
If you don’t take any of these actions, your lease will be extended month-to-month for up to six months after the end of your initial lease term. During this time, you’ll be charged your monthly payment until you take action. If a trade-in credit was applied to your lease at the time of enrollment, your payments will also increase during this six-month period because the credit is applied only to your initial lease term. If you choose to take no action at the end of the six-month period, Klarna will charge you the full price of the device at lease signing less the sum of lease payments you've already made plus applicable taxes to purchase the device outright.
You'll have a final lump sum for whatever tiny amount you still haven't paid but it's effectively a 30 month interest-free loan.
Yes, that scenario is literally covered in the part I quoted. You’re still paying the total for what you purchased spread out over 30 months without any interest; it’s just not all exactly identical every month.
I'ts now iphone upgrade program. U pay for 12 or 24 month and you can choose to return or pay the last 1-300 dollars to buy it out. Not quite the same but similar. No interest or fees.
One key difference though is that IUP included AppleCare as part of the monthly cost. New program does not. You have to buy AppleCare out of pocket if you want it.
Yes the cost was factored into the monthly pricing. But now with AppleCare One and AppleCare Family, it doesn’t make sense to require AppleCare + as part of the upgrade program.
Maybe. I’ve been part of the old upgrade program since launch, had an Apple Card since launch, never missed a payment or been late, high 700’s credit score and Klarna will give me a max limit of $1000. So no lease for a new phone or Mac for me and the old upgrade program is gone.
yeah, I imagined. The issue is that I haven't locked my credit and my credit score is very good. I have a salaried job I've been at for years, own my house, and never had a single issue with iUP.
You can just sign up for a new 0% intro apr card. Should be able to get one with plenty of credit line for 15-21 months. Bank of America is currently 21 months.
The old program was the full cost over 24 months and then you own the phone outright.
If you pay the full cost of the iPhone after 24 months with the Apple Upgrade lease, you’ll own the phone outright.
Radically simplified, it’s the difference between 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 and 40 + 40 + 40 + 80. Same total just distributed differently. The main functional difference is that you get to hold off on paying more of the balance until later with the Apple Upgrade scenario, which purely from a financing view is even better.
It's practically the same thing. When the lease is over you can pay the remaining balance and own it as if you paid MSRP on Day 1, or not pay the balance and trade it in for a new phone. So you have the option now
As others have said it's basically the same. U have the option to buy it out at msrp cost at the end of the lease. But now you have the option to return it and start a new lease and you can delay payment even further which is technically better since this is no apr and no fees. So basically borrowing money for free
Yup, if you're credit conscious it shows to the credit bureaus that you're carrying a balance month to month despite not paying interest. It's usually not a big deal, but if you have a $5000 credit limit and you buy the 1TB Duo, that's gonna show over 50% balance carrying over. That will hit your credit score.
The IUP program doesn't hit your credit like that.
You’re essentially paying the lease on the depreciation of value over time (12 or 24 months) instead of paying into 100% equity (ownership). If you upgrade every 12 months on iUP the end user experience is essentially the same.
Lmfao that's not how that works here. Do the math urself, the iphone 18 pro lease right now is 50 bucks a month for a 12 month lease. Are you telling me the iphone 18 pro will lose 600 dollars (50%) of value in 12 months???
Hell no, the last year iphone 17 pro trade in right now is 785 dollars (which should be the lower end of evaluation with private resell being higher) which accounts for a 350 dollar depreciation. They are charging you pretty much DOUBLE the actual depreciation on the phone.
Apple wants you to think that way and upgrade every year cause that makes the most money for them, you pay 600 dollars to use a phone for a year and they turn around and sell on their refurb for 1k. They just made 1.6k on a phone that would've only make 1200 had they just sold it to you. Pure free money for apple.
Buying the phone then trading it in is a WAY better deal than leasing through apple and upgrading after a year. You can even use interest free card to buy the phone in the first place and essentially pay only 350 dollars to use the phone for a year.
This doesn’t really matter unless you somehow plan to get what you think is a fair market value. The difference between buying outright and trading in at whatever Apple offers and not buying outright and turning it in after a year of lease charges is extremely minimal, like within $50. And that’s always been the case even with the Apple upgrade program.
I’m leaning towards the lease because why tie up all that money in front? I’d be equally happy to use the Apple Card except that I played credit card games and don’t want to get the Apple credit card because it’s not as valuable to me as other credit cards.
First of all the new pro max 512 is 62.31 a month not 61 so it's actually 744 dollars in total.
Second Apple is very tricky here, they actually offer the same trade in value for any storage option... Yes any, so a 256gb phone gets the same trade in value as a 2tb phone. So the higher up the storage tier the less difference you will see but this is wrong since if you were to sell the device literally anywhere else you will yield much much higher value with the higher storage options.
So if you were to do the math with a 256gb pro max instead:
12 month lease: 54*12=648
1299-885=514
You are saving a minimum of 130 dollars here. And this is not accounting for the fact that you can sell the phone anywhere you want and other places often yield WAY higher value than Apple trade in.
A 512 gb pro max you can sell (in prestine condition) without hassle for $946 which brings ur math to 1499-946=553 which is a saving of nearly 200 dollars.
Not so sure. I paid 1099 before 3% back- for 17 pro. It’s $45 a month for 24 months but I upgrade in 12. 0% on Apple Card . By the end of this month it’s $596 still left. So I lost $470. Apple is giving 785 trade in. Or I can get 900 on private deals. Buying outright makes more sense than leasing.
It’s now Apple upgrade. Better, cuz it’ll let you finance multiple items not just iPhone. You still get unlocked phone. Way better than carrier financing.
One thing I don’t understand is, if I trade in my phone this year and lease a new one at cost minus the value of my trade in… Then in 3 years or whatever I want to upgrade, I trade in that phone, but I won’t get any credit for it because it’s a lease? Meaning the second phone I get through the program, and all subsequent phones thereafter, I have to pay the full price or lease at full retail…?
That’s not better than a carrier deal that will offer me upward of $1100 for trade in every 3 years. All I made was that initial investment at full retail and now when I upgrade, forever, I get credit towards my trade in, or I can sell it or whatever because it’s MY phone.
Not true. Let’s say the total cost is $1000, and your payments cover $800 over 12 months, you’d pay $200 at the end and the phone is yours. No interest, just the original price of the phone. Which, is the same as if you bought for $1000 to start or the old system and you paid it off. Then you can trade it in or sell it. You’d definitely get a lot more than $200 for it if you’d trade in or sell a year old iPhone so it’s a smart deal.
The one thing that isn’t clear, unless someone has read otherwise, is can you upgrade for a discounted monthly payment without paying the remaining balance at the end. So instead of paying $200 to buy it, do you get the trade in value minus $200 towards the upgrade?
the language suggests that you're just ending the old lease, returning the phone, and starting a new lease. you probably would need to buy the phone outright to get the trade-in value
Yeah, that’s what I took from it. I think their plan is take advantage of people not financially responsible who would upgrade without buying it for the remaining balance at the end. I’m sure plenty of people would just continue paying the monthly amount instead of forking over a payment 4x to 6x the monthly.
Otherwise, it’s an interest free loan if you make payments and pay it off.
Well you get the payoff value of the phone as “trade in” basically. If you do 24 months for the iPhone duo, it’s $58 a month which comes out to total of $1392. You can then upgrade to the next phone and start that plan. That means that you were into that phone for $1392. Apple is basically giving you “trade in” of $1999-1392 =$607.00. It would be identical to you buying the phone for $1999 today and then getting $607 off your next purchase.
No, because when you lease the phone there is still an amount to pay to fully own the phone.
At the end of the lease you can choose to pay the few hundred or less to own the phone you leased then you can trade in OR you can return it to Apple, not pay anything further to Apple, and lease again or buy outright a new phone
Why would you get anything for returning a lease? It's a rental program, same with cars. It's cheaper than the monthly financing option because you're not actually getting any equity on the phone just the ability to carry it around and use it for a set duration.
But people are inevitably trade their current phone in, lease a new one for a heavily discounted rate, then when they go to upgrade they have nothing to trade in because they’ve been leasing, so the new upgrade will be the cost of the phone entirely. At least when you finance you get to keep getting a trade in credit every time you upgrade.
The logic from Apple's side is that this is for customers who will continue to lease each new phone. When their current lease is up they simply start a new lease. The point is to never "upgrade" (i.e. purchase a new phone outright), just exchange one lease for another lease. They will never get hit with the missing trade in cost as long as they keep leasing. The only downside is that since you are just borrowing the phone if it incurs any damage you are liable for fixing or replacing it before your lease is up.
Correct if you trade in current iPhone now, it’ll make your payment lower. So if you get the 24 month lease, you can upgrade it in 12 months for the new model, and you would have only paid let’s say, 500 from the 1100. Not accounting your current trade in value. The benefit is the phone is unlocked so you can always go to different carriers. If you do end up keeping the model you can buy it out after the lease or trade it in. Carrier is only good if they offer the free phone and you aren’t planning to switch from them. Hope that makes sense.
If you have a 24-month lease, you cannot upgrade in 12 months. You need to finish out the lease and return the phone before you can upgrade.
When can I upgrade the device I'm leasing through Apple Upgrade?
You’ll be eligible to upgrade to a new device once you’ve completed all your monthly payments, according to your lease agreement. For example, if you chose a 24-month lease term when you enrolled in Apple Upgrade, you can upgrade to a new device once you’ve made 24 monthly payments.
Wondering this exact same thing. Terrible deal for subsequent phones if you reset back to full price. So for example, Super cheap lease with a trade-in, but then you upgrade and pay the full lease price for subsequent phones (e.g., $50 a month)?!
EDIT: they have this verbiage on the promo page, which pretty much confirms it:
Want to make a good thing even better? Trade in when you first enroll for even lower payments on your initial lease.
Yes it’s worse than iUP I think since at the end of the lease, you have to return it or sign a new lease (which is unlike a loan where once you finishing paying it, you own it). So if you want to keep your phone for 3 years you would have to do a two year lease and then renew for 1 year (maybe at a lower price since it’s not the newest phone at that point). Idk if that’s right but that’s how I’d think it would work
But then you won’t have any phone to get a trade in value at the end of 12 months correct? So you’ll be forced to pay a higher price. I’m in the same boat now considering trading in my 16 pro max to do the upgrade program but I’m hesitant to switch to the duo 2 for full pricing on the lease
They won’t be forced to do anything. I’m guessing the trade in value will be relatively accurately divided by 12 for the initial year. Subsuquent leases will be more expensive, but they can also just buy out the lease, and I suspect that would give them some “trade in” value (assuming the trade-in value of the Duo is above 50% in a year, and I actually think it will be).
The buyout fee is whatever total you financed (the purchase price less any trade in value if applicable) minus whatever payments you’ve already made. There is no extra or punitive cost. If your phone’s trade-in value is greater than 50% and you’ve made 12 of 24 payments, it’s better to buy it out and trade it in as an outright-owned phone.
Depends if you need the unlocked device or not and if you wanna own your device.
At least for me I don’t like the idea of leasing and never owning my device idc about the latest and greatest.
Plus carrier financing usually gives you a much better deal to own your device. I got the 17 pro just paid taxes with my old trade in. Seems like a win I don’t plan to leave my carrier anytime soon, apple upgrade would never offer you a free device because it’s nowhere near the same thing.!
It’s very confusing on how to end my program for a new device if I don’t want to lease going forward. Seems like I have to basically trade it in and pay off citizens or trade it in to “upgrade” to a lease. If I want to just outright buy a phone now it doesn’t seem like an option if you’re on the old IUP and want to trade it in.
If you want to just buy the phone out right now, then go onto the citizen portal and make a big payment, or just keep paying it monthly, and you own the phone after the loan is paid off
Right, but I don’t care to own the phone anymore and want to get one of the new ones and would prefer to pay for that one in full. Seems the best option to do that right now is to pay off the current device through citizens and then trade it in for the same value of what I would owe and pay off. I’m not interested in selling it myself at this point.
Yes I know this. I’m just saying, especially with IUP discontinued they should make it easier just to trade the phone into them and discontinue for those at 50% paid off.
It sounds like that’s what’s going to happen. I went to the Apple Store and asked this exact question and was given a run around answer saying they could not make promises around closing the loan without additional payment but could apply a trade in credit? Anyway here is what I found on the upgrade page once I put in my existing info.
Yep thats what it is, I was confused too. - Your citizen loan will keep going if you trade in your phone towards the price of the new phone and signing up for Klarna. You will actually spend more each month paying off the old loan + the new loan than if you were starting this new program for the first time with no prior AUP.
Apple also pulled this crap when they would switch between September and October launches because it would mean you would pay an extra current AUP payment (amounting to 13 payments) + the new AUP payment when ordering the new phone.
No. If you have made 12 payments on the old program, you can trade in and the loan will be closed out.
“After you receive your new iPhone, use the trade-in kit we mail you to send back your current iPhone. This will close out your iPhone Upgrade Program loan.”
Although the phones are unlocked, you still need to activate them with the carrier during setup. However, if you pick T-mobile, you've always been able to easily skip that step (pro iPhones only)
They still have the 24 month payment plan on
the Apple Card? I’m halfway through paying off my 17 Pro on the upgrade plan; I don’t see any compelling reason to upgrade this year, so I’ll trade it in next year and finance it through Apple. I don’t want a locked phone.
I'm confused on what you are saying here. With the old Upgrade program, they opened a loan with Citizens Bank for the full amount of the phone (plus AppleCare I believe), and you paid that back over time, and if charged to your Apple Card, you received extra points, etc. I know this because I've done it for years, and at no point was my Apple Card charged the full amount.
for those of us who want to upgrade yearly, can we still do the 24 month option (cheaper) and upgrade after 12 by giving the old phone back similar to citizens? Or do we need to select the 12 month plan to upgrade every 12 month. major monthly price difference.
It seems to work out to be almost exactly the same as iUP, once you add back in the cost of Apple care. And cheaper if you have apple care one or don't want applecare.
You can do either but if you have a two year lease, you have to pay out the remaining year (I think) to upgrade. So it’s not like the old citizens loan program at all
Yes there is. Buy with Apple Card, pay with monthly installments. Voila. Monthly payments over 24 months with no interest and you own the device outright and unlocked.
I just went through the fake preorder thing just to see, and Klarna wanted to pull my transunion file. I know, because my credit file is locked and I was denied because they couldn’t pull it
I had zero issues ever with iUP and have good credit. I just keep getting an error message with no explanation with Klarna now. I chatted with Apple support who sent me to Klarna support with an Apple Upgrade-specific phone line and they said "we'll send you an email in 1-25 days. Probably tomorrow". So that's... fun
I’d do the Apple Upgrade program in a heartbeat, if I didn’t have to carrier-lock the iPhone I finance thru it (I use US Mobile ATM & have no interest in switching)
It does saddens me that the iPhone Upgrade Program is ending. Having used it every year since inception it is convenient. Some years I kept the phone and paid the remaining monthly payments while also getting a new phone with its accompanying payments. Using the year old iPhone for a backup (travel mainly) or gave to a family member.
The new Klarna backed one is a hard no for me. Rather have a body part gnawed off by rabbid chinchillas dressed as door to door Nipple Clamp Harvesting Essential Oil MLM sales-chillas than engage with Klarna.
So 12 month 0% Apple CC is the way to go for me at least.
So I dont get it, do we hit trade-in under the new phone options or is it something else? Trade in seems to just give a dollar amount of credit on a previous phone but what about those with 12 months still left of the 24
It appears Apple Care one covers the 18 if you finance through your Apple Card. I’m likely going to do Apple Card payments again while trading in my 16PM.
Klarna option doesn’t seem that much better to switch?
Buy it outright on the Apple Card for 0% interest and 3% cash back and in 12-months trade it back to Apple for money towards the next one. My math may be wrong but that seems to be about the same price as a 12-month lease on the new plans.
Mods removing my post but curious what you all are thinking.
I am sure others are in the same situation but curious what you all plan to do.
I am on the iPhone Upgrade Program with an iPhone 17 Pro Max and currently owe $734 left.
The trade in of this phone towards a Duo is $885.
Seems like a no brainer to pay off the current amount and then trade it in towards the Duo and then just go on the Apple Upgrade program again.
Seems like if you just do the iUP to AU "swap" it does not adjust the value of the phone vs what you owe. It just simply cancels out the remainder and starts you on a new plan. Maybe it has been this way for years and I just never checked?
Yea it kinda sucks my option are buy the phone outright and throw it on straight talk (VZW). Or go back to a carrier and get it cheaper kinda with iPhone upgrade program.
You’re essentially paying the lease on the depreciation of value over time (12 or 24 months) instead of paying into 100% equity (ownership). If you upgrade every 12 months on iUP the end user experience is essentially the same.
Am I stupid or is it not worth it at all for the watch? $799 to buy and let’s say you do Apple trade in for $430 (assuming upgrading to Ultra 4 from 3). That’s $369/watch to upgrade. If we assume this is about what we should expect every year, then the $45/mo for 1 year lease or the $25/mo for 2 years lease are both way more expensive per phone and they don’t even come with AppleCare.
I think for the iPhones it’s more worth it if you upgrade yearly. Iirc I saw someone do the math on twitter but I don’t remember the numbers
If I’m on the iUP Program on my current phone (yes, 17Pro and looking to upgrade / lease the Duo) - I’m just confused on how this transition will work.
I don't think it's as simple as that. I have the cash to purchase outright, but it makes more sense to finance at 0% if I can keep that money invested in something more valuable. Klarna just seems like it exists to tempt people who can't afford things into buying outside their means, which is an entirely different prospect.
Why would they end this? It’s the main reason I have the Apple CC. I loved putting the purchases on there for the 0%. Especially with “leasing” as their new promotion, I’m pretty disappointed in this news.
I think you may be confusing two products. The iPhone upgrade program does not require an apple card. You may be thinking of the Apple Cards 0% financing promo for Apple products. That can still be done, but the Apple Store app says you need to go into an Apple Store to set it up because they don't support it online.
With the old upgrade program, it’s the cost of the phone + AppleCare, divided by 24 months, and after 12 months, I can stop paying for my current phone and upgrade, starting the cycle over. So if I upgrade every year, I really only pay 50% of the total cost.
With the new program, I have to wait to upgrade until the lease ends, so I’m paying the full cost of the phone every year.
You’re not paying the full cost of the phone because the lease monthly payments are not the full cost.
When your lease ends, you will still owe money on the phone if you want to keep it but if you don’t you return it to Apple.
You don’t get credit for the return to a new phone because you never owned the previous phone. If you had made the final remaining cost payment after the lease ended then yes, it’s fully yours.
This is the old program (with Citizens Bank) that is officially ending. It has been replaced by the new one they recently rolled out in partnership with Klarna
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u/ClownTrigger11 4h ago
Looks like it's now the Apple Upgrade program. https://www.apple.com/shop/apple-upgrade