Mac mini starting price rises to $799 as Apple stops offering 256GB option

If you’re looking for the cheapest desktop Mac, you’ll have to spend a little more than last week. On Apple.com, you can no longer buy the M4 Mac mini with 256GB of storage. No, it’s not simply out of stock, nor does it have extended delivery times (as has been the case for a while). It’s just gone. It’s not an option on the Apple store any longer.

This is what the storage section of the configuration page looks like now:

Though Apple hasn’t increased the cost of the 512GB model (or other options and variations), this still effectively makes the Mac mini more expensive. You used to be able to get one for $599, and now you have to pay $799, even though you get double the storage. The MacBook Neo and iMac are now the only Macs that still have a 256GB option.

In Apple’s earnings call yesterday, Tim Cook said he was looking at “a range of options” to deal with the massive increase in memory costs. This is one tactic—Apple charges an incredible price premium for RAM and storage upgrades, asking customers to pay several times more than the going rate for these components. By effectively forcing consumers to buy an “upgraded” model, it can absorb the memory chip price increase while maintaining a high profit margin.

It’s not clear if that’s exactly what is happening here, or if Apple will use the same tactic on other products to raise the average selling price and profit margin of some products while not technically raising prices. Apple made this change to the Mac mini configurations without comment or announcement, so we can only guess as to the reason for the change.