Apple Raises Refurbished Mac and iPad Prices After New Product Hikes

Apple has raised the prices of Macs and iPads across its Certified Refurbished online store, following the sweeping new product price hikes introduced earlier today.

Across the affected products in Apple's refurb inventory, prices went up by around $160 to $180 on average, but it was the Mac increases that were generally more eye-watering than the iPad increases.

The Mac increases averaged about $204 at the low end and $330 at the high end. Some of the smaller Mac changes included the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip rising from $1,699 to $1,779 – the Nano-texture version of the same model rose from $1,829 to $1,909. Elsewhere, a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip and Nano-texture display increased from $2,249 to $2,339.

But it was the higher end of the Mac lineup that saw the biggest price increases. A refurbished 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 chip rose from $1,359 to $1,439, while the highest-priced configuration in that group increased from $2,629 to $3,309. A 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Max chip also jumped from $4,249 to $4,839.

As for the iPad, the increases were more consistent. Many refurbished iPad models went up by around $120 to $150. In terms of lower-end models, examples include the 10th-generation iPad Wi-Fi 256GB models rising from $339 to $409, while iPad mini 6 models increased from $379 to $459 or from $449 to $529. Some higher-end iPad Pro configurations also saw larger increases of around $230 to $250.

The refurbished price changes are in line with Apple's broader pricing reset for new products, which are said to be due to the company having to grapple with the impact of rising memory and storage chip costs owing to the ongoing AI data center buildout. In other words, if new Macs and iPads become more expensive, refurbished versions also need to rise so that they remain discounted by roughly the same amount.

That said, many of Apple's refurbished units likely contain original memory, storage, and logic boards, or service parts purchased before the latest component cost spike. So this appears to be more a case of increased prices based on Apple's updated pricing structure, rather than the actual cost of each device.