iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max pre-orders opened at 12:00 UTC today, 5 a.m. PT on Saturday, September 12, and the phones reach stores Friday, September 18. What has not opened, two hours or two days in, is any matching page from AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile that prices what buying through them actually costs.
Apple’s own iPhone 18 Pro pages describe carrier trade-in credit worth up to $1,200, and that figure has already spread across the web as if a carrier said it. Apple said it, in a footnote, describing what the carriers are supposed to offer. The carriers themselves have not confirmed it on their own sites.
Key facts on pre-order day
| Question | What is published |
|---|---|
| Pre-orders opened | 12:00 UTC, 5 a.m. PT, Saturday, September 12 |
| In stores | Friday, September 18 |
| AT&T’s own iPhone 18 Pro offer | Not published; AT&T’s deals page still leads with iPhone 17 Pro Max |
| Verizon’s own iPhone 18 Pro offer | Not published; its page shows only the pre-order start time |
| T-Mobile’s own iPhone 18 Pro offer | Could not be verified; T-Mobile’s site blocks automated access |
What each carrier has actually published
AT&T’s own site carries no iPhone 18 Pro trade-in offer. Its deals page still leads with last year’s iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the iPhone 18 Pro product page shows a monthly financed price and a credit-card statement credit, not a device promotion.
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Verizon’s iPhone 18 Pro page states only that pre-orders begin today. No credit amount, no plan requirement, no trade-in terms and no newsroom release accompany it. That is the entirety of what Verizon has published for this phone.
T-Mobile is the hardest to check directly, because its site returns an error to automated requests. Its page is confirmed to exist and to name today as the pre-order start, with phones arriving locked and financing available over 36 months. Anything more specific about a trade-in tier is unconfirmed first-party.
Where the $350, $930 and $1,200 figures actually come from
Those numbers exist because Apple’s own store footnotes describe them, not because AT&T or T-Mobile posted them. Apple’s footnoted language for AT&T sets tiers of $1,200, $930 or $350 depending on the trade-in device and the plan, paid out over 36 months. Apple’s footnoted language for T-Mobile describes a wider range, $150 to $1,200, depending on whether the customer is new, existing or adding a line, plus a separate no-trade-in route worth up to $1,200 for a qualifying port-in.
Verizon carries no equivalent footnote on Apple’s page at all. Boost is now a carrier option in Apple’s online store alongside AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, and it has no published credit terms anywhere, including in Apple’s own footnotes.
Instant credit at Apple versus a 36-month bill credit
The one number Apple states as its own, rather than as a description of a carrier, is Apple Trade In: $175 to $885 in the US, credited instantly at checkout for an iPhone 13 or later, in any condition Apple’s estimator accepts. That range is published, it is Apple’s credit, and it lands the day of purchase.
| Route | Amount | How it arrives | Who has confirmed it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Trade In | $175 to $885 (US) | Instant credit at checkout | Apple’s own press release |
| AT&T, via Apple’s footnote | $350, $930 or $1,200 | Bill credits over 36 months | Apple’s footnote only, not AT&T’s own site |
| T-Mobile, via Apple’s footnote | $150 to $1,200 | Bill credits over 24 to 36 months | Apple’s footnote only, unconfirmed on T-Mobile’s site |
| Verizon | Not published | Not published | Not published anywhere |
The carrier numbers are larger on paper, but they are also conditional on the plan tier, on staying with that carrier for the full credit period, and, at the moment, on the carrier ever publishing the terms first-party. Apple’s smaller range is the only one of the two that a buyer can rely on today without waiting on anyone else.
Buying through Apple instead
Apple’s own checkout has its own quiet mechanism worth knowing about before choosing a carrier route: the $1,199 starting price for the 6.3-inch iPhone 18 Pro applies when a carrier is selected at checkout, and choosing no carrier, meaning a fully unlocked phone, costs $1,299 for the same 256GB model. The Pro Max follows the same pattern at $1,299 connected and $1,399 unlocked. Apple does not print that as a delta anywhere on the page.
Apple Card Monthly Installments carries its own carrier condition, separate from the price itself: buying an iPhone with ACMI requires selecting AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon, and prepaid plans do not qualify. The iPhone Duo, which does not ship until October 23, has no carrier trade-in figure published for it at all, footnoted or otherwise.
What has not been confirmed
AT&T has not published an iPhone 18 Pro trade-in offer on its own site. Verizon has not published any offer for this phone. T-Mobile’s specific terms cannot be verified first-party. No carrier has said whether the $1,200 ceiling is easy or rare to reach, and none has said what happens to a bill credit if a buyer switches carriers before the 36 months are up. Until one of them publishes its own terms, the only page worth trusting for a number is Apple’s.
Checking back after Friday, September 18, when bills arrive, is the useful next step, since that is when a carrier promotion normally becomes visible in an account rather than a footnote. The full spec and price picture is in our iPhone 18 Pro versus iPhone 18 Pro Max comparison.