The answer comes down to how many of Apple’s services you use regularly.
This year, several of Apple’s subscriptions saw serious price upticks, so much so that even students had to pay a bit more. Apple Music prices rose by $1 a month for individual plans and $3 for the Family plan. A few weeks later, monthly Apple TV subscriptions went up from $13 to 15, while annual ones saw a $20 total jump.
If you use many Apple services, you might have looked to Apple One to bundle them and reduce the hurt from these increases. Unfortunately, the package subscription didn’t get by unscathed either. The Individual tier climbed from $20 to $22 a month, though it’s still cheaper than subscribing to Apple Music ($12/month) and Apple TV ($15/month) separately.
While the Apple One Family plan is now $28/month, you can share it with five other people, which drastically brings down the cost per person. There’s also a higher-cost shareable Premier tier at $40/month. But before you ask friends and family to group up with you, you need to figure out which of the three Apple One subscriptions is most worth your while. That mostly depends on how many Apple services you already use.
Which Apple One tier makes the most sense for you?
Getting the cheapest tier out of the way: Individual subscribers get Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and 50GB of iCloud storage for $22 per month; that’s about $13 less than it would be to subscribe to each one on its own.
Moving on, the Family tier is a great choice if you’re providing for multiple people or want to split the monthly cost with up to five other members. At $28 per month, you get a shared 200GB pool of iCloud storage, the Apple Music Family plan (which costs $20 by itself), plus Apple TV and Apple Arcade. Combined, the Family plan saves you about $17 per month, which can stretch even further if you split the bill. With six people paying their own way, each person pays less than $5/month. Unlike some family plans, Apple doesn’t require everyone to live in the same household.
The final step up is Apple One Premier, which offers the full suite of Apple services and $35 in monthly savings compared to joining each one individually. Along with everything included in the Family plan, you also get Apple Fitness+ ($10 per month), Apple News+ ($13/month) and 2TB of shared iCloud storage ($10 per month). On their own, these would total $75, so it’s a good value at $40 per month.
Before deciding, you need to narrow down what you’ll use, what you won’t and how much storage you need. When I was subscribed to the Individual plan, I could have skated by with the 50GB of iCloud storage, but paying an additional $13 per month for Apple News+ was a pain. Before upgrading to Premier, I was paying about $38 per month when accounting for News+ and 200GB of iCloud Storage. At that rate, switching over to upgrade to 2TB of storage was well worth it, and it even included Apple Fitness+.
In case you weren’t aware, every Apple subscription within Apple One is already shareable with a Family Sharing group — with the exception of Apple Music, which requires the Family plan for multi-person access. But if your family only cares about playing the best Apple Arcade games, for example, you could pay $7/month for that and make it available to your Family Sharing group. Apple One makes the most sense when you’ll use everything.
What if I need more iCloud storage?
You can always tack on extra iCloud storage by subscribing to iCloud+, letting you max out at 14TB of storage if you get the 12TB iCloud+ plan for $60 per month alongside Apple One Premier. While you share the pool of storage, your files are not visible to other family plan members unless you so choose.
If you’re already subscribed to iCloud+ with a plan that has less storage than your chosen Apple One plan, the former will be canceled, keeping any stored data intact, and you’ll get a pro-rated refund. Meanwhile, if your active iCloud+ plan has more storage than your Apple One tier offers, you can keep your current plan alongside the storage Apple One provides. In case you don’t need all that space, you can cancel iCloud+.
When you jump to Apple One, if you’re subscribed to individual Apple services, don’t worry about getting charged twice. You’ll stop being billed for any individual services included in whichever Apple One plan you choose.
