Apple sells iPhone 18 Pro in four capacities, priced on its US Store page at $1,199 for 256GB, $1,399 for 512GB, $1,799 for 1TB and $2,399 for 2TB. Each step doubles the space and costs $200, $400 and $600 in turn, so the tier you tick is worth up to $1,200 and it is the one part of the order that cannot be changed once the phone is built.
What Apple does not publish is the other half of the sum. There is no file size for a 48MP photo, no data rate for any video mode, and no figure for how much of each tier iOS 27 and the preinstalled apps take up. That leaves four pieces of arithmetic you can do on Apple’s own numbers, and they are enough to settle the question. Our iPhone 18 Pro announcement roundup covers the rest of the specification.
Key facts: what each iPhone 18 Pro tier costs
| Tier | iPhone 18 Pro | iPhone 18 Pro Max | Step up from the tier below | Cost per gigabyte added |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 256GB | $1,199 | $1,299 | n/a | n/a |
| 512GB | $1,399 | $1,499 | $200 | $0.78 |
| 1TB | $1,799 | $1,899 | $400 | $0.78 |
| 2TB | $2,399 | $2,499 | $600 | $0.59 |
Prices are Apple’s, from its US Store pages. The last two columns are our arithmetic on those prices, taking 1TB as 1,024GB and 2TB as 2,048GB, which is how the ladder doubles. The $100 increase over the iPhone 17 Pro applies to the base tier.
Don’t miss the best of The Mac Observer
Set us as a preferred source and our Apple reporting ranks higher in your Google Search results and Discover feed — one tap, no account changes.
Sum one: the last step sells the cheapest gigabytes
$200 for 256GB more and $400 for 512GB more work out at the same $0.78 for each gigabyte added. The jump from 1TB to 2TB costs $600 for 1,024GB more, or $0.59, which is exactly three quarters of the rate of the first two steps.
Read the whole phone instead of the step and the direction is the same. At $1,199 you are paying $4.68 a gigabyte, at $2,399 you are paying $1.17. Both figures are our arithmetic on Apple’s prices, and they say something uncomfortable: the tier that looks affordable is the most expensive space Apple sells, and the tier that looks absurd is the cheapest. The $1,200 between 256GB and 2TB is one dollar more than a whole 256GB iPhone 18 Pro.
Sum two: photos are your own average divided into the tier
Apple has never published an average size for an iPhone photo, and it moves with the scene and the format. The number you need is on the phone you already own: open Settings, look at what your photo library occupies and how many items it holds, then divide one by the other.
| If your average photo is | Photos per 100GB | Photos in 256GB before iOS and apps |
|---|---|---|
| 2MB | 50,000 | 128,000 |
| 3MB | 33,333 | 85,333 |
| 4MB | 25,000 | 64,000 |
| 5MB | 20,000 | 51,200 |
Our arithmetic, taking 1GB as 1,000MB. The right-hand column ignores iOS 27, apps and downloads, none of which Apple sizes, so treat it as a ceiling rather than a capacity. Video, not stills, is what empties a phone.
Sum three: frame rate, not minutes, decides your video storage
Apple’s tech specs list 4K Dolby Vision recording at 24, 25, 30, 60, 100 and 120 fps. A minute at 120 fps captures four times as many frames as a minute at 30 fps, so at a constant cost per frame in the same codec and resolution it stores roughly four times as much. Apple publishes no data rates, so a ratio is the only honest version of this sum, and the assumption behind it is ours.
| Setting | Frames in one minute | Storage per minute against 4K30 |
|---|---|---|
| 4K at 24 fps | 1,440 | 0.8x |
| 4K at 30 fps | 1,800 | 1x |
| 4K at 60 fps | 3,600 | 2x |
| 4K at 100 fps | 6,000 | 3.3x |
| 4K at 120 fps | 7,200 | 4x |
One hour at 4K30 and 15 minutes at 4K120 land in the same place. If you leave the camera on the highest setting, a 1TB phone holds what a 256GB phone would hold at 4K30, and buying that back costs $600 on Apple’s ladder. The variable aperture and the rest of the camera system do not change this; the frame rate does.
Sum four: which tier fits which shooter
- 256GB, $1,199. Stills, short clips at 4K30 or below, and a library that already lives in the cloud.
- 512GB, $1,399. The default for anyone who shoots 4K60 without thinking about it. The $200 is $5.56 a month across three years, by our arithmetic.
- 1TB, $1,799. 4K120 as a habit, or long recordings you edit on the phone. Four times the base capacity for $600.
- 2TB, $2,399. Multi-year local libraries and internal ProRes work. It takes the price to almost twice the base model, which is a large bet on filling it.
The same four steps apply to the Pro Max at $1,299, $1,499, $1,899 and $2,499, so the size question and the capacity question are independent of each other.
What Apple has not said
Apple has not published a data rate for any video mode, a file size for any photo format, or how much of each tier iOS 27 occupies, so no capacity figure here is a promise. The tech specs list four capacities and no expansion of any kind; USB-C with USB 3 at up to 10 Gb/s is the only route to more space later, and the drive is yours to buy.
Pre-orders open at 5 a.m. PT on Saturday, September 12, with phones in stores on Friday, September 18 in more than 65 countries and 20 more on September 25. iOS 27 arrives on Monday, September 14. The color and the case can be settled later. The tier cannot.
