The iPhone 18 Pro could be the first iPhone you rent instead of buy

A 24-month lease values a Pro iPhone at about 30% of its price after two years. A 12-month lease says about half after one. The rent is the gap between the two.

Apple offers up to $560 for an iPhone 16 Pro that launched at $999. That is 26 points above what the lease books the same class of phone at, and it is where the missing interest went. Klarna collects $767.76, charges nothing for the wait, and gets back a device it valued at $331. Apple sets the final offer only after inspecting the phone, so $560 is a ceiling rather than a promise.

Leaving early is the expensive one. After day 14 you return the device and still pay out the rest, so you finish with no phone and the same bill. Doing nothing is not free either. If you neither return, upgrade nor buy, the lease rolls monthly for up to six months, your payment can rise, and Klarna charges the buyout fee anyway.

A longer term shrinks the monthly figure without improving the deal. It matters more for Macs than phones, because people keep Macs longer. A MacBook Pro used for six years costs its purchase price once. Leased twice across those six years it costs about 140% of that, and you own nothing at the end.

Jeff Pu of GF Securities told clients on 31 July 2026 that the iPhone 18 Pro models could cost $250 to $300 more than the current ones, which start at $1,099 and $1,199. He blamed 2nm silicon and memory prices. That puts an iPhone 18 Pro at $1,349 to $1,399, and at the 70% ratio a 24-month lease lands at $39 to $41 a month. That is $7 to $9 above an iPhone 17 Pro, or $175 to $210 across the term. A Pro Max would be higher again. Apple has not priced the phone and has not said it will be in the scheme.

The Consumer Protection (Amendment) Bill 2025 would cap interest and ban lending where total repayment is more than twice the credit value. TechTrends reported in August 2025 that most Kenyan buyers on daily payment plans pay two or three times the sticker price.

Apple Upgrade is United States only, and there is no Apple retail store anywhere in Africa. A lease needs somebody to carry residual risk, a credit file to underwrite against, and consumer leasing law to enforce the contract.

The part that could arrive first is code. 9to5Mac found a system in the iOS 27 beta that would let an approved financing partner check a device’s payment status and drop it into a Restricted Mode, plus a lock that survives a factory reset. Apple told The Verge it will not use Restricted Mode for Apple Upgrade, and did not say what it is for.

M-KOPA, Watu Simu and Safaricom’s Lipa Mdogo Mdogo already lock handsets when payments stop, and every device on those plans is an Android. Apple gives lenders no supported way to do that to an iPhone. If the lock code ships in iOS 27 this year, financed iPhones become possible here long before leased ones do.