Ouch! Apple hikes Apple One prices, no warning given

Ouch!

With little warning, Apple has imposed huge increases on the cost of most of its services, including Apple One. The company achieved 70.5% margins on services in its last quarter

Nice margins you’ve got there

The only good news for services today is US only, which is that Apple Pay Later is now available across the US. Hooray for them. Elsewhere, customers just get price increases, without even a decent delay in their being imposed.

Apple makes great profits on services. Apple achieved 70.5% margins on services in its last quarter. It also told us it: “Set an all-time revenue record in services driven by more than one billion paid subscriptions.”

Apple managed to generate $21.2 billion from services in its third quarter. Now, with these price hikes, it’s going to generate more. Though to be fair energy prices do have a direct impact on the costs of offering these services.

Big increases on most services

Some of these price increases are quite painful. The new costs are available to see on its website.

• The individual version of Apple One has seen a hefty increase, from $16.95/month to $19.95 per month – up $36/year.
• The family version of Apple One has seen a hefty increase, from $22.95/month to $25.95 per month, also up $36/year.
• The Premier tier now costs $37.95/month, up from $32.95/month. This is a huge increase of $60/year – why not offer a new tier at a slightly lower cost without Fitness+?
• Apple TV+ now costs $9.99/month – up a huge $3/month on the previous price, and $5 more each month than it cost at launch. An annual plan will set you back $99, up from $69. (Up $36/year).
• Apple News + increased to $12.99/month, up three dollars on the previous price. (Up $36/year).
• Apple Arcade will now cost $6.99 each month, rather than the $4.99 it cost before. (Up $24/year).
• It isn’t clear quite yet if Apple has increased prices on Music or iCloud+, though the company hammered some users with a 25% increase in iCloud costs earlier this year.

It’s possible that for many Apple users these price increases will cause churn, unless the company intends announcing some enhancements to its services at its October launch event.

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