Polymarket Puts iPhone 18 Pro Over $1,100 at 90% Odds

The odds on Polymarket that Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro will launch above $1,100 jumped to 90% this week, a 43 percentage point move in seven days. The shift came after Apple raised prices across its MacBook and iPad lines and CEO Tim Cook confirmed price increases on the iPhone are unavoidable. The bet, tracked on the live market page for iPhone 18 Pro launch pricing, has gone from a longshot to a near-certainty in a single trading week.

Polymarket bettors are now pricing in a 96% chance the entry iPhone 18 Pro will be priced at $1,000 or higher, and a 33% chance it will clear $1,200. Apple has not officially announced iPhone 18 pricing, and the next flagship is widely expected to launch in September.

The Bet Moved on Polymarket

The implied probability that Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro will launch at $1,100 or more sat at 90% on the prediction market, up 43 percentage points in a single week. The market resolves on Apple’s official US launch price for the standard iPhone 18 Pro on the first official day of its release. Apple has not yet named the device, but Polymarket’s separate market for an iPhone 18 release before December 31, 2026, sits at 96%.

The market for the iPhone 18 Pro launching at $1,000 or more is the leading outcome at 96%. A separate market for an entry price at or above $1,200 sits at 33%. The market resolves based on the pre-tax launch price in USD of the standard iPhone 18 Pro as listed on the official Apple Store website or Apple’s retail pricing in the United States on the first official day of release. Both the $1,000+ and $1,100+ outcomes have moved sharply higher since Apple’s June 25 Mac and iPad price hikes. That pricing decision landed days after Cook’s Wall Street Journal interview on memory chip costs.

Apple Confirms What Polymarket Priced In

The Polymarket move tracks the public statements from Apple itself. On June 17, Cook told The Wall Street Journal that memory chip costs had become unsustainable for Apple to absorb alone, and that price increases on the iPhone were “unavoidable”. The interview where Cook called price increases unavoidable set the tone for the week that followed.

Apple backed that up on June 25 with price hikes across its Mac and iPad lines, its broadest move yet to pass memory costs to consumers. The 512GB MacBook Air rose from $1,099 to $1,299, a $200 jump. The 1TB MacBook Pro climbed from $1,699 to $1,999, also up $300. The 128GB iPad Air moved from $599 to $749, and the entry MacBook Neo went from $599 to $699, per Apple’s June 25 MacBook and iPad price increases.

Apple’s statement to the press made the logic explicit. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” the company said. Apple said it had “shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on several products.”

Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable. We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, told The Wall Street Journal on June 17, 2026.

Cook called the memory chip shortage a “hundred-year flood” in the same interview and said he had not seen anything like it in over 40 years in the supply chain. The price increases are tied directly to AI data center demand for memory and storage.

What the iPhone 18 Pro Could Cost

The Polymarket odds are not a forecast, but they do map onto the price ranges analysts have been publishing. Apple’s current iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099 for the 256GB base configuration, and the iPhone 17 Pro Max starts at $1,199. Those figures are the reference points every iPhone 18 Pro estimate is being measured against.

Bank of America Securities raised its iPhone Pro and Pro Max average selling price estimates by an additional $100 on June 18, after Cook’s interview. The firm kept its Buy rating and $380 price target on Apple stock.

The range of estimates splits into three camps. The BofA case lands at $1,199 for the Pro and $1,299 for the Pro Max. The TechInsights worst case, which prices in DRAM, NAND, and a more expensive variable-aperture camera, runs $1,299 to $1,399. Polymarket’s bettors are pricing in something between the BofA case and the worst case, and for shoppers weighing the new lineup against the used shelf, the case for buying used before the iPhone 18 ships walks through the math.

The Memory Bill Behind the Math

The price pressure traces to the bill of materials inside every iPhone. Memory chip makers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are redirecting capacity toward higher-margin server chips for AI data centers. That supply squeeze has lifted the price of the 12GB of DRAM Apple ships in the iPhone 17 Pro from roughly $39 to a projected $145 for the iPhone 18 Pro. NAND flash storage has moved in the same direction, climbing from about $13 to a projected $51 for the same 256GB module. Apple does not plan to build its own memory or storage factories, with Cook saying the company knows what it is good at.

TechInsights, the research firm that bills each generation of iPhone, estimates Apple’s total bill of materials for the iPhone 18 Pro will rise about 25%, from $582 to $726. To preserve its roughly 47% gross margin on the Pro line, Apple would need to charge around $1,371. The figure Apple is more likely to land on, per the same model, is $1,299.

Cook called the squeeze a “hundred-year flood” and said he had not seen anything like it in over 40 years. “We can’t do everything,” he told the Journal. “We know what we’re good at.”

The pinch is not limited to Apple. Microsoft said on June 25 that console storage and memory prices have more than doubled, and it expects them to double again by fall 2027. Samsung and Sony have raised prices on their own consumer hardware. Nintendo has flagged the Switch 2 as exposed to a price hike from September. The shared problem is what gives the Polymarket move its weight, because the bet is not resting on one vendor’s pricing choice.

• DRAM per iPhone: roughly $39 today, projected $145 for iPhone 18 Pro (TechInsights, via WSJ)
• NAND per iPhone: roughly $13 today, projected $51 for iPhone 18 Pro (TechInsights, via WSJ)
• Total bill of materials: approximately $582 for iPhone 17 Pro, $726 for iPhone 18 Pro (TechInsights)
• Apple Pro gross margin target: roughly 47% (TechInsights model)
• Microsoft expectation: console storage and memory prices to double again by fall 2027 (Microsoft, June 25)

Where Wall Street Stands vs the Bet

The Polymarket move converges with Bank of America’s revised pricing. Wamsi Mohan’s June 18 note added an additional $100 to his iPhone Pro and Pro Max average selling price forecasts, leaving the base iPhone and Air estimates unchanged. His $380 Apple price target still implies 28.4% upside from where Apple traded when the note was published.

BofA’s logic is that Apple can protect demand at the lower end while charging more in the segments where buyers are less price-sensitive. The firm lowered its unit demand estimates marginally across all product categories and now sees 100 basis points of gross margin headwind in hardware. Services margins are expected to remain stable, with potential upside offsetting the hardware softness. The bank framed the move as one that “leverages share gains at the lower end and pushes prices higher in the more inelastic segments,” per the analyst note projecting a $100 iPhone Pro price rise.

Other analyst views split on the magnitude. A TechInsights bill-of-materials model, the same one driving the worst-case $1,299 to $1,399 figures, pushes much harder than BofA. The Polymarket $1,100+ market is currently pricing in something between a modest case and BofA’s call, and the J.P. Morgan case for a $50 iPhone 18 Pro price rise lays out a smaller-increase scenario in more detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Polymarket odds on the iPhone 18 Pro price?

The Polymarket market for the iPhone 18 Pro resolving at $1,000 or above sat at 96%, with the $1,100+ outcome at 90% and the $1,200+ outcome at 33%. The odds on $1,100+ jumped 43 percentage points in a single week after Apple’s June 25 MacBook and iPad price hikes.

How much will the iPhone 18 Pro cost?

Apple has not confirmed pricing. The published analyst range currently spans a $1,149 to $1,199 modest case, a $1,199 BofA case, and a $1,299 to $1,399 TechInsights worst case. The Polymarket crowd is pricing in something between the modest and BofA scenarios.

Why are iPhone prices expected to rise?

Memory and storage chip costs have risen sharply as AI data centers absorb much of the industry’s new DRAM and NAND supply. Cook told The Wall Street Journal the situation was unsustainable and that price increases were unavoidable. TechInsights estimates the bill of materials for an iPhone Pro has risen about 25%.

When will Apple confirm iPhone 18 Pro pricing?

Apple typically confirms new iPhone pricing at its September launch event, widely expected in the second or third week of September 2026. Pre-orders usually open the Friday after the event, with retail availability the following week. Until then, every number in circulation is a forecast.

Has Apple announced iPhone 18 pricing?

No. Apple has not officially announced iPhone 18 pricing. The company confirmed price increases on Mac and iPad on June 25 but excluded the iPhone from that round. The iPhone 18 Pro price will be set at the September 2026 launch event.