At&t officially announce iPhone 3G pricing/plans – $199 to $499


At&t has finally made its pricing and plans announcement for the iPhone 3G here in the US today. As we all know, the iPhone starts at $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. All existing iPhone customers who purchased their iPhone before July 11th, 2008 are eligible for those prices. Customers activating a new line, and other “eligible” customers will also get the same price.

Customers who are not eligible for the $199 rate will have to pay $399 for the 8GB iPhone or $499 for the 16GB iPhone if they want to jump on the iPhone bandwagon.

All existing iPhone customers will have to pay an $18 upgrade fee in addition to their purchase price (which is absolutely infuriating…to me, anyway), and the plans are as we’ve been discussing for weeks now. The same as before, except 3G is $10 more a month, and they’ve dropped txt messages.

At&t also says that in the future they plan to offer a “no contract” iPhone for the price of $599 and $699 respectively. No word on if you’ll be able to take that iPhone to another carrier legally, but I doubt it.

If you want to see if you’re eligible for the iPhone’s $199 price you can click here to find out.

Update: To be clear, the txt messages have been dropped from the default plan, and will be $5 extra. So if you’ve been using the cheapest plan with only 200 txt messages, you’ll now have to pay $5 more for them.

Also AT&T has also announced that the iPhone 3G will be available at 8 a.m. on Friday, July 11, 2008 at AT&T retail stores.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

5 Comments

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  1. Michael –

    Can you elaborate on the “they’ve dropped txt messages” comment? What exactly does that mean?? Will there no longer be a limit on text messaging under the new (more expensive 3G plans)? Pr have they reduced the number of messages we get in out packages??

    I am currently paying an extra $10 / month to get 1500 txts/month.

  2. I just checked out the details on the new AT&T 3G iPhone plans on another site. Not only will I have to pay an extra $10 for the data, but an additional $5 for my extra text messages.

    450 min plan – $39.99
    Data – $30
    1500 Text Messages – $15
    Total – $85/month

    I hope my Roll Over minutes go with me when I upgrade to a 3G iPhone . . .

  3. Hi Fellow Iphone Fans

    Well, Australians are being screwed again as far as pricing goes. I just received details from Optus (one of the big 3 phone carriers) in Australia about 3G iphone pre-paid and post-paid plan pricing.

    Pre-paid plan pricing of AU$849 for the 16GB model and AU$729 for the 8GB model seem incredibly high. See urls to the plans and tariff rates below:

    https://www.optusiphone.com.au/getdoc/fe459345-d9c4-437d-a665-f36ec10c7cb8/pre-paid-pricing.aspx

    https://www.optusiphone.com.au/getdoc/3727f208-955d-4c4a-ad38-b860c9b14e56/post-paid-pricing.aspx

    What happened to US$199 and US$299 pricing? What happened to the promise from Steve Jobs that 3G iPhone would be made more accessible to a broader range of people?

    Frankly, i’m angry and disappointed. Vodafone is due to release this 3G iphone plans tomorrow. Wonder what they’ll look like?