Apple charges $99 to replace an iPhone battery once a device is out of warranty. AppleCare+ brings that figure to $0, and so does a battery that measures below 80 percent capacity while the device is still covered by Apple’s standard warranty or by AppleCare+. Those are two different routes to a free repair, not one, and they do not apply under the same conditions.
This is the one repair Apple prices in public in any concrete way, and it does so through category-based terms rather than a per-device list. Apple’s page does not name a specific iPhone anywhere on it, current or older. What follows is limited to those published terms, not to what any individual model should be expected to cost, and it does not weigh in on whether replacing a battery is the right move for any particular device.
Key facts
| Item | What Apple publishes |
|---|---|
| Out-of-warranty battery fee, US | $99 |
| Fee under AppleCare+ | $0 |
| Free replacement threshold | Capacity below 80%, while covered by warranty or AppleCare+ |
| Per-model pricing | Not published; Apple points to a personalized online estimator |
| Additional charges disclosed | Tax, and a shipping fee if Apple needs to ship the device |
| Source | support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement |
The three categories that set the price
Apple’s published wording sorts every battery request into one of three outcomes. Out-of-warranty service with no AppleCare+ attached is the $99 case. Any service performed under an active AppleCare+ plan is priced at $0. A battery that has measurably degraded while the device is still inside its standard warranty is also $0, but only once a specific condition is met that the other two categories do not carry. Nothing in Apple’s published terms describes a fourth outcome, and nothing on the page varies the $99 figure by device.
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What has to be true for the warranty path
Apple ties the free warranty replacement to a measured outcome, not to a device’s age on its own. Capacity has to have dropped below 80 percent, and the device has to still be inside its coverage window, either the standard limited warranty or an active AppleCare+ plan, at the time of the request. Apple’s page does not describe a health-based exception once that coverage window has closed. A device that is genuinely out of warranty, with no AppleCare+ attached, is billed the $99 fee regardless of how far its measured capacity has fallen. A newly purchased iPhone 18 Pro starts inside that coverage window on day one, the same as any other current iPhone; the distinction Apple publishes only becomes visible once the standard warranty period has actually ended.
What AppleCare+ promises beyond that
AppleCare+ does not carry the same condition. Apple states the AppleCare+ battery fee as $0 without tying it to a capacity reading, which is a broader promise than the warranty path offers by itself. In practical terms, a battery still reading above 80 percent, replaced under AppleCare+ for another reason, remains a $0 service. The identical request on an out-of-warranty device with no AppleCare+ attached is not free at all, whatever the reading shows. Apple’s own battery-life ratings describe how a battery performs when new; the terms on this page describe what happens once it is not, and the two pages are not connected to one another.
The charges Apple discloses, and why there is no price list
| Scenario | What Apple’s page states |
|---|---|
| Out-of-warranty, no AppleCare+ | $99, plus tax where it applies |
| Out-of-warranty, device shipped to Apple | $99, plus tax, plus a shipping fee |
| Any service under an active AppleCare+ plan | $0 |
| Standard warranty, capacity below 80% | $0 |
Apple’s own caveat on the same page reads: “Estimated fees are for out-of-warranty service from Apple and may be subject to tax, and a shipping fee may be added if Apple needs to ship your device.” Tax and a possible shipping fee are the only additions Apple names anywhere on the page. Apple does not state how often the shipping fee is actually applied, or what specifically triggers it beyond the device needing to be shipped. Beyond those two additions, Apple has also moved away from a published, per-model battery table, and now directs customers to a personalized estimator on the same repair page. That estimator responds to the specific device and request entered at the time, which is why no figure beyond $99, $0 and the 80 percent threshold appears in this article. A dollar amount attributed to a named iPhone model, beyond those three terms, is not something Apple’s own page currently states, for iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo or any older model.
What Apple has not said
Apple has not published a capacity exception that applies once standard warranty coverage has ended, has not stated how often the disclosed shipping fee is actually charged, and has not published a battery fee broken out by model. This fee structure has nothing to do with software; iOS 27 arrives Monday, September 14, on an entirely separate schedule. As of Saturday, September 12, 2026, these terms also sit apart from this week’s iPhone 18 Pro pre-order pricing, which is a different page entirely. A reader checking whether any of this has changed should read Apple’s battery-replacement page directly, dated after this week rather than before it.
