We may be months out from the iPhone 16, but that hasn’t stopped the iPhone 15 gravy train from making a sloppy stop into the early spring “hot Amazon deal” circuit. A new deal on Amazon’s Big Spring Sale Event seems to imply you can nab an iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max for as much as your grandpappy claims he used to buy a pack of gum. We’re here again to remind you not to fall for any too-good-to-be-true iPhone deals, especially since this latest is just a rewrapped existing deal from Boost Mobile.
The new Big Spring Sale is still ongoing, but now it’s promoting you can get the gamut of iPhones for literally $.01. If your first inclination is that it costs way more than a mere penny, then you’d be right. First, you’d still be paying taxes and shipping costs for your new iPhone. Sure, there’s no trade-in required for this deal, but it will lock you into a 36-month contract with Boost Mobile. You’re billed the first payment of this new contract immediately after hitting the order button, so your penny purchase immediately becomes a $60 or $70 purchase once you order.
Most importantly, the deal locks you into a three-year Boost Infinite plan. That deal normally grants you unlimited talk, text, and data, and the whole “free iPhone” is already a part of that deal once you lock into that service. You don’t need to do a trade-in to get access to the phone, so at the very least, you could make some extra cash by selling your old iPhone. However, if you get your $.01 iPhone and try to use it on another network, Boost will charge you the full phone amount.
Currently, the iPhone 15 lineup is showing for $.01, so why would you opt for a regular iPhone when the Pro ostensibly costs just as much? Well, the different Boost plans for each phone vary by nearly $10. The regular phone with the base 256 GB of storage mandates a Boost plan for $60, while the Pro Max models cost $70.28. You’ll pay more depending on if you opt for larger storage. There’s a mandatory 36-month contract for both, meaning the $60 contract will end up costing you $2,160 after three years. The Pro model will cost you $2,530 after that time, ignoring all other fees on top of the purchase price.
Ignoring the Max versions of each phone, the regular iPhone 15 costs about $800, while the Pro starts at $1,000. That’s all before you try to go for more storage options. Customers might go for financing options for their new phones, in which case they’re already spending around $50 for a Pro model on top of their monthly carrier fees. Whether or not going with the Boosts deal saves you money will ultimately depend on your current plan and how much you’re paying now. However, ultimately, the whole deal will still cost you well over $2,000 over time, and you’re locked into a single service for the next three years.
The deal could still be advantageous for somebody who really wants to get an iPhone and start on a new network entirely. Still, for everybody else, you’ll need to crunch the numbers to tell whether this plan is cheaper than the many other service providers’ iPhone deals.
