Apple Upgrade, decoded
Apple Upgrade is Apple’s new device lease, underwritten by Klarna. Twelve or twenty-four months of low payments, then you hand the phone back — or don’t. This page walks the decision the way Apple’s checkout would, one choice at a time, then prices what you picked against the three other ways you could have paid.
The whole program is one sentence in the FAQ: “Will I pay more than the full price of the device? No.”
A 24-month lease collects 70% of the sticker. If you then do nothing at all, Klarna keeps billing you for six months and charges the remaining balance, and you own the phone having paid exactly list price. That is 0% financing stretched over thirty months, with a free option to walk away at month 24 instead.
The catches are real. They are just not the ones people assume, and most of them are about when the money moves rather than how much of it there is.
What are you leasing?
Apple Upgrade covers every current iPhone except the 16. The payment is a fixed share of the sticker price, so this one number drives every number below it.
Where the payment comes from
Apple publishes four example payments in the Apple Upgrade footnotes and never explains the formula. Work backwards from them and it’s boring: a 12-month iPhone lease collects 50% of the sticker price and a 24-month lease collects 70%. Divide by the term, round to the nearest x.99, done.
An iPhone 17 Pro at $1,099 gives $45.99 and $31.99. A Pro Max at $1,199 gives $49.99 and $34.99. All four match Apple’s published numbers exactly, which is the only reason to trust anything else on this page. iPad and Mac leases use different shares, so this calculator sticks to iPhone.