Apple's Vision Pro's actual price of $3,500 is closer to $4,600

Tech & Gadgets

When Apple unveiled the Vision Pro virtual reality glasses at a technology conference last year, many in the audience gasped at the price: $3,500. That's more than four times the cost of a new iPhone and 14 times the cost of a competing headset from Meta.

The headset, which Apple has marketed as a computer, movie player and gaming machine, will be available in stores on Friday. Ahead of its release, discussion focused on price, with many wondering why people would pay so much to do what they could already do with their computers, TVs, and gaming consoles.

Still, the actual cost of owning the Vision Pro is likely even higher. Try $4,600. That's because the price skyrockets with the add-ons and accessories that many people would want to buy, including:

Apple's $200 carrying case to protect the Vision Pro on the go.
Headphones, like Apple's $180 AirPods, for listening to music privately.
An additional battery pack worth $200 to get more use out of the headset (because with a battery life of only two hours, the headset won't last long enough to play a feature film).
$100 prescription lens inserts for eyeglass wearers.
An extra $200 cushion so the glasses fit another member of the family.
An extra $200 for the larger data storage option (512 gigabytes instead of the 256 gigabytes on the base model) to keep more videos and apps on the device.

And those are just the extras that many consider must-haves. Other options, including Apple's $500 extended warranty coverage, a $70 video game controller, and a very cool $50 battery case to attach to your pants, could push the price well over $5,000 — before taxes.

While I have your attention with these breathtaking numbers, we can all learn a valuable lesson from the Vision Pro about “phantom fees,” the add-ons that significantly increase the amount we spend. For electronics, including smartphones, computers and virtual reality headsets, this can include cases and charging gadgets.

A clear understanding of the true cost of technology ownership is critical for consumers trying to maintain control of their budgets, says Ramit Sethi, personal financial advisor. He said he learned about phantom charges when he bought a Honda Accord about 20 years ago. Initially, he thought he would spend $350 a month on the car to pay off his loan. The actual cost was $1,000 per month, after he added up maintenance, insurance, gas, parking and tolls.

“Companies are counting on you not being able to do the calculations,” said Mr. Sethi, who is hosting a podcast about money psychology. “The bigger the purchase, the more money you spend invisibly.”

These lessons apply to all tech products we use regularly, not just Apple hardware. Let's go over the phantom costs of a Windows computer and a Samsung phone.

Windows computer

Microsoft sells its Surface laptop 5 at a starting price of $1,000. But after adding some extras from the Microsoft Store, it's more realistically a $1,950 laptop, almost double the sticker price.

The extras include:

$500 for more memory.
A pair of earphones, like Microsoft's $250 headphones.
$200 for the Microsoft dock that charges the laptop and connects to an external display.

Here the biggest phantom costs are memory, which is important for helping the computer run multiple apps smoothly at the same time. Typically, computer manufacturers sell their base models with a modest amount of memory, which likely won't be enough to keep the computer running quickly for years to come. So it is wise to buy the model with extra memory.

The base model of the Surface Laptop 5, which costs $1,000, comes with just eight gigabytes of memory, but most people will likely need double that to smoothly run the latest Windows operating system and new apps and games. The 16 gigabyte model costs an additional $500.

Samsung phone

Samsung's new high-end smartphone, the Galaxy S24Ultra, has a starting price of $1,300. But realistically, it's a $1,540 phone.

Over the past five years, many smartphone makers, including Apple, Google and Samsung, have stopped shipping phones with basic accessories like earphones and charging bricks, a shift that boosts their profit margins. And mirroring the way computer manufacturers sell memory, the base model of a smartphone typically includes a modest amount of data storage that likely won't be enough to keep your photos, videos, and apps long-term.

First a quick note about storage. According to Samsung, an average photo takes up five megabytes. So taking 3,000 photos would take up about 15 gigabytes. Popular mobile games such as Fortnite and Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis consume tens of gigabytes. On Netflix, every hour of video downloaded for offline viewing takes up about a gigabyte. Long story short, data storage can run out quickly, so why get 256 gigabytes when you could spend $100 more for twice as much?

Unless you already own accessories that work with your new phone, you should consider these extras:

$30 for the Samsung charging brick.
$40 for a Samsung protective case.
$50 for Samsung's wireless earbuds.
An extra $120 to get 512 gigabytes for more photos and apps. (At the time of writing, this data upgrade is free during a limited-time promotion.)

That doesn't include the cost of using the phone with a modest wireless phone plan of, say, $70 per month. Including wireless service, the cost of owning this Samsung phone for three years is approximately $112.77 per month, or $4,060 total.

In short

The point is not to shame people for buying technology, but to raise awareness of what we actually spend on new gadgets, which is a lot more than we think, Mr Sethi said. Therefore, for most people who buy tech products, it is best to hold on to them for as long as possible. This way they maximize the value they get not only from the devices, but also from the many extras purchased for them along the way.

For comparison, the examples above show the cost of extras like headphones and cases if you buy them directly from the device manufacturers. An easy way to save money would be to look for cheaper third-party alternatives, but the purchases would still be phantom costs that would drive up the overall price of your technology.

All of this brings us to the biggest phantom cost of regularly buying products like new phones and Apple's Vision Pro: the price you pay as an early adopter.

“The more you buy a new phone, the more the people around you expect you to have the latest, and the more you create an identity that you always have the latest,” Sethi said. “That's the biggest phantom cost of all.”