The iPhone evolves, but do its prices stay the same?
The $1,999 iPhone Duo foldable might be Apple’s priciest smartphone yet, but its entire iPhone lineup has seen price hikes this year. The RAM crisis has hit consumer tech pretty hard, and it was only a matter of time before Apple felt the heat. While year-over-year price differences may not fairly reflect the company’s pricing strategy, they do paint a clear picture of how expensive things have gotten in the last two years.
Over the past seven years, Apple has introduced several features to its iPhones, from high refresh rates to MagSafe accessories and the ubiquitous USB-C port. Smartphone cameras and processors have steadily improved as well, making them absolute powerhouses when it comes to either front. Here’s how much the iPhone 11 Pro cost back in 2019 and how severe the price increase has been with the iPhone 18 Pro in 2026. To keep things simple, we’ll be comparing the prices of the base models from each year.
How much did the iPhone 11 Pro cost?
The iPhone 11 Pro launched in 2019 at a starting price of $999 for its 64 GB variant. Matching the cost of the iPhone XS, the first ‘Pro’-branded device from Apple introduced a triple camera setup with wide, ultra-wide, and 2x telephoto lenses. An upgraded Super Retina XDR OLED display improved the brightness and doubled the contrast from the XS lineup.
The Pro’s single piece of milled glass with a matte finish came in four colors: space gray, midnight green, gold, and silver. It also introduced the custom ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless U1 chip, helping the device connect with other iPhones via an updated AirDrop or track your AirTags. Losing its 3D Touch layer, once used for interactions based on how hard you pressed the display, allowed Apple to place a bigger battery in the Pro model. It stuck to the aging Lightning port, though, which was replaced by USB-C when the iPhone 15 arrived.
And how much is the iPhone 18 Pro in 2026?
The iPhone 18 Pro costs $1,199 for the base 256 GB model, a $100 price increase compared to last year’s iPhone 17 Pro and a $200 hike over earlier iterations, albeit with significantly higher storage. It brought a faster 2nm A20 Pro processor alongside a variable aperture (f/1.48 to f/4.0) for its main camera and a smaller Dynamic Island notch. A larger vapor chamber helps the phone deliver sustained performance for intensive tasks like gaming. A new C2 cellular modem, designed in-house to boost energy efficiency, and Glacier Blue and Burgundy colors round out the list of improvements.
A $200 increase is pretty steep, given that you could get the base iPhone 16 Pro for $999 only two years ago. And with costs rising across the industry due to the RAM and component prices being so high right now, I’m glad the Apple price hikes aren’t as drastic as the iPad Pros, which went up from $999 to $1,199 in June.
