Apple has quietly pushed through another AppleCare+ price increase in the US, nudging up the cost of protection plans for new Mac and iPad sign-ups from on or around July 15, 2026. There was no press release and no announcement — Apple simply edited the numbers on its own pricing pages, a change first reported by Bloomberg and independently confirmed by MacRumors and 9to5Mac.
Here is the fact that matters most before you worry: if you already pay for AppleCare+, nothing changes. The increase applies only to new subscriptions. Existing subscribers keep their current price, and the hike is not applied retroactively.
How much the AppleCare+ price increase actually is
The move itself is small in raw dollars: monthly plans for Mac and iPad go up by $0.50 per month, and annual plans by $5 per year. That is the entire increase — so the old price for any device below is simply the new figure minus those amounts. Here are the new US prices, per 9to5Mac’s breakdown.
Mac plans (new US prices)
- MacBook Air 13″: $7.99/mo or $79.99/yr
- MacBook Air 15″: $8.99/mo or $89.99/yr
- MacBook Pro 14″: $10.99/mo or $109.99/yr
- MacBook Pro 16″: $15.99/mo or $159.99/yr
- Mac mini: $4.49/mo or $44.99/yr
- Mac Studio: $6.99/mo or $69.99/yr
- iMac: $6.99/mo or $69.99/yr
- Mac Pro: $18.49/mo or $184.99/yr
iPad plans (new US prices)
- iPad and iPad mini: $5.99/mo or $59.99/yr
- iPad Air 11″: $6.99/mo or $69.99/yr
- iPad Air 13″: $7.99/mo or $79.99/yr
- iPad Pro 11″: $10.99/mo or $109.99/yr
- iPad Pro 13″: $11.99/mo or $119.99/yr
iPhone AppleCare+ plans were not touched this time, and the AppleCare One bundle (up to three devices for $19.99/month) also stayed put. If you are weighing coverage on a new machine — perhaps planning a Mac upgrade around the macOS 27 Golden Gate public beta and which Macs it cuts off — factor the new sign-up rate into your budget now rather than after you buy.
Apple blames a shortage. That excuse doesn’t fit here.
This increase lands alongside Apple’s broader recent Mac and iPad price hikes, which the company has tied to a global memory and component shortage. For physical hardware, that framing is at least arguable — chips cost what they cost. But AppleCare+ is a service subscription, not a product with a bill of materials. As MacTech pointed out, you cannot blame a repair-and-support plan’s pricing on a memory shortage — there is no RAM inside an insurance contract. Read plainly, this is a margin decision, and the cost lands on the customer.
It also fits a pattern. Apple raised iPhone AppleCare+ pricing by the same $0.50 in early 2025. Small, incremental, recurring — the kind of increase that is easy to wave through and adds up quietly over the life of a subscription you keep paying until you cancel.
What this means for buyers in India
This particular change is a US pricing-page update and does not directly apply to India. Apple India sells AppleCare+ under a different structure — coverage runs two years for iPhone, iPad, Watch, headphones and HomePod, and three years for Mac, displays and Apple TV — and it has historically been offered as a one-time upfront payment rather than the US-style rolling monthly subscription, though Apple’s India page does reference some subscription-style plans too.
Because that structure differs, India pricing is not guaranteed to move in lockstep with the US. We are not going to quote rupee figures we could not verify directly against Apple. If you are buying in India, check apple.com/in/applecare for the current price on your specific device before you commit.
