Apple upgraded the Mac mini line today for the first time in two years, and a lot has changed since the M4 model landed in October 2024. Memory prices have surged thanks to the AI boom, and you can see exactly where that lands on the Apple.ca configurator page.
Using iPhone in Canada’s price history of the M4 Mac mini, here’s what the upgrades cost now compared to two years ago.
At this tier the damage is manageable. RAM went up $50 across both options and the 512GB SSD is another $50, a 20% increase. The pain starts at 1TB, which is $250 more than before, and 2TB, which is a full $500 more, a 50% spike. Ethernet is a $25 increase and I’m feeling Apple could have left this the same at $125.
Memory is where things get stupid ugly. Going to 64GB of RAM now costs $1,500, exactly double what 64GB cost on the M4 Pro. The 48GB option nearly doubled too, from $500 to $900 (up 80%).
Storage is just as bad at the top end and you better be ready to spread open your wallet. A 1TB SSD went from $250 to $450 (up 80%), 2TB is up 60%, 4TB climbed from $1,500 to $2,700 (up 80%), and 8TB now runs $5,700 when it was $3,000 two years ago (up a cool 90%). That’s roughly 60 to 100% increases on every option that involves memory components.
Jumping from the base M6 machine to the M5 Pro costs $1,150, and the 18-core CPU with 20-core GPU config runs $1,450. Back in 2024 the equivalent jump from the base M4 to the M4 Pro was $1,100, so that gap has only widened by $50. Moving up within the Pro tier itself costs $300 today against $250 for the M4 Pro core bump.
That tells you the component shortage is hitting exactly where you’d expect, and when you layer on the Canadian exchange rate, it’s brutal. Silicon pricing has stayed roughly flat, but anything packed with RAM or NAND storage has climbed sharply. If you were planning to max out a Mac mini as a local AI box, the chip is actually the cheap part now.
“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” said CEO Tim Cook back in June. “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.” He told the WSJ at the time, “There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases.”
We can only imagine the iPhone price increases coming next month, so be ready for that if you’re going to be upgrading.
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