There are three ways to pay for an iPhone 18 Pro on Apple’s own checkout, and only one of them will take anyone. Apple Card Monthly Installments requires an Apple Card and one of three named carriers, the Apple Upgrade lease requires a Klarna account and US residency, and paying outright requires nothing at all.
With pre-orders opening on Saturday, September 12 at 5 a.m. PT, the requirement is the part worth checking now, because two of the three routes involve an application that can fail at 5 a.m. Apple’s published prices are $1,199 for the 256GB iPhone 18 Pro and $1,299 for the Pro Max.
Key facts
| Route | Apple’s published figure | Provided by | What it requires |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay outright | $1,199 (256GB) | Apple | Nothing beyond a payment method |
| Apple Card Monthly Installments | $49.95 a month for 24 months | Apple Card | An Apple Card and AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon |
| Apple Upgrade lease | $34.99 a month for 24 months, $49.99 for 12 | Klarna Inc. | Klarna account, US residency, SSN or ITIN |
Apple Card Monthly Installments and the carrier rule
Apple publishes 0 percent APR over 24 months for iPhone on this route, with $49.95 a month for the iPhone 18 Pro and $54.12 for the iPhone 18 Pro Max. It also pays 3 percent Daily Cash on purchases at Apple, up front, which on a $1,199 phone is $35.97.
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The condition is stated plainly in Apple’s own wording: to buy an iPhone with Apple Card Monthly Installments you must select AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon, and prepaid carrier plans are not supported. Anything outside those three, including buying the phone unlocked to connect later, takes this route off the table. Apple also states that its card’s variable APR ranged from 17.49 percent to 27.74 percent as of July 1, 2026, which applies to anything not on an installment plan.
Apple Upgrade is a lease, and Klarna runs it
Apple retired the iPhone Upgrade Program on July 28, 2026 and replaced it with Apple Upgrade, stating that it will no longer offer the iPhone Upgrade Program and iPhone Payments in the United States. Leases start from $17.99 a month for iPhone, and a 256GB iPhone 18 Pro is published at $34.99 a month over 24 months.
Apple lists the requirements: 18 or over, a valid Social Security number or ITIN, an accepted credit or debit card, an Apple Account in good standing, a Klarna account and the ability to receive security texts. It is US residents only, and the device has to come back in good condition, with damage fees possible.
- AppleCare is not included, unlike the programme it replaced, and has to be added separately
- Terms are 12 or 24 months for iPhone and Apple Watch, 24 or 36 months for Mac and iPad
- At the end you upgrade, buy the device outright with a one-time payment, or return it
- Do nothing and Apple states the lease converts to a month-to-month lease for up to six months
- The published monthly figure excludes taxes and any trade-in credit
The same lease covers other hardware at published starting prices of $11.99 a month for Apple Watch Series 12, $24.99 for Mac and $11.99 for iPad, so a household can end up with several leases running at once on different terms.
Paying outright is the only route with no test
A card payment at $1,199 has no application, no carrier condition and no residency rule, and it is the only route that leaves you owning the phone on day one. It is also the route that works if you want the phone unlocked with no carrier selected, which the installment route does not allow.
The trade-off is the cash. Apple’s own comparison, in its own numbers, is $1,199 today against $49.95 a month for 24 months at 0 percent, which totals the same $1,198.80 before tax, or $34.99 a month on a lease that returns the phone at the end. The $100 increase on this generation raised all three of those figures.
Where two of the three routes disappear
Apple’s Veterans and Military Purchase Program takes 10 percent off Apple products, which is $119.90 on a $1,199 iPhone 18 Pro, with eligibility for current and former members of the US Military, National Guard and Reserve plus immediate family in the same household, verified through ID.me.
The catch is written into the same storefront. Apple states that Apple Card Monthly Installments are not available as a payment type there, and Apple Upgrade is unavailable too. That leaves paying outright as the only route inside the discounted storefront, so the choice is 10 percent off or 0 percent financing, not both.
What has not been confirmed
Apple has not published approval criteria for Apple Card, has not published what Klarna’s approval depends on, and has not published buyout pricing at the end of an Apple Upgrade lease. Per-device AppleCare+ prices for the September 2026 products are not published either, so the cost of adding coverage to a lease is unknown. Totals above are our arithmetic on Apple’s published monthly figures.
Pre-orders open on Saturday, September 12 at 5 a.m. PT and the phones reach buyers on Friday, September 18. Apple’s Store page currently allows a configuration to be saved in advance, which includes choosing the payment method before the clock starts. The full lineup is in our iPhone 18 Pro launch coverage.
