What is financial independence planning?

Working out whether what you have saved, plus what you will save, can cover what you will spend for the rest of your life — accounting for inflation, investment returns and one-off costs like education. Nivritee projects this year by year rather than applying a rule of thumb.

Does the country I live in change the answer?

Substantially. Inflation, investment returns, medical and education cost growth, and statutory savings schemes differ by country, and a figure is only meaningful against the conditions where the money is actually spent. Nivritee plans in the currency and assumptions of the country you will be living in, across eleven markets.

What if I live in one country and plan to settle in another?

That case is built in. You say where you live now and where you will settle; the second fixes the single currency every figure is reported in, and the first is what your spending today is judged against. Individual holdings, income and loans can each be held in their own currency and are converted once, before anything is computed.

How long does it take to get a first answer?

About two minutes. A country and seven figures produce a complete projection, and you add detail afterwards against a result you can already see rather than before you see anything.

Do I need an account?

Yes. Planning requires signing in with Google, so your plan is saved to your account and is still there when you come back — on any device, without re-entering anything. We ask Google for your name and email address and nothing else.

Can anyone at Nivritee see what I enter?

No. There is no internal tool that displays a plan, because one was never built. The administrative panel shows usage counts and never a figure, and no email we send carries an amount, a rate or a verdict from a plan.

Is this financial advice?

No. Nivritee is an informational planning tool and does not constitute financial, tax or legal advice. Every figure it produces is a projected estimate under stated assumptions, not a prediction of what will happen.

Why is the iPhone so expensive in India?

Three reasons, and only one of them is Apple. The rupee went from ₹43.51 to the dollar in 2008 to about ₹94.49 in 2026, which more than doubles any dollar price on its own. GST on phones rose from 12% to 18% in April 2020, and Apple re-priced its whole India line the same week. And import duty applies to anything not assembled locally. The iPhone 18 Pro at ₹1,64,900 works out at roughly $1,745 against a US list price of $1,199.

How much did the first iPhone cost?

The original 2007 iPhone was $499 in the United States for the 4GB model, at full price — carrier subsidies did not arrive until the iPhone 3G a year later. It was never officially sold in India. The iPhone 3G, in August 2008, was the first one India could buy, at ₹31,000 for 8GB.

Is the iPhone cheaper in Dubai than in India?

Yes, by a wide margin. The iPhone 18 Pro is AED 5,099 in the UAE, about $1,389, against ₹1,64,900 in India, about $1,745. The UAE charges 5% VAT against India’s 18% GST, and levies no equivalent of India’s import duty.

Have iPhone prices actually gone up, adjusted for inflation?

The expensive ones have; the cheap ones have not. The iPhone 3G’s ₹31,000 in 2008 is about ₹95,000 in today’s money, and the cheapest current iPhone costs ₹82,900 with thirty-two times the storage. The iPhone 18 Pro at ₹1,64,900 is roughly 1.7 times the 2008 phone in real terms.

Which country has the cheapest iPhone?

Of the five markets here, the United States — but its advertised price is the only one quoted before sales tax. Hong Kong charges no sales tax at all and is still about 12% dearer than the US list price, which means that gap is margin and currency rather than tax.

Research · September 2026

The cheap iPhone got cheaper.
The expensive one ran away.

Apple launched the iPhone 18 Pro and its first foldable this week, and there is no cheap iPhone 18 at all. So we put eighteen years of launch prices in five markets next to inflation, wages and what the phone actually became.

Skip to what it costs you Straight to the table

5.3×

the cash price of the dearest iPhone in India, from ₹31,000 in 2008 to ₹1,64,900 in 2026

32×

the storage you get at the base tier over the same eighteen years, 8GB to 256GB

₹95,000

what the 2008 iPhone 3G costs in today’s rupees — more than the cheapest iPhone costs now

160 days

of average Indian pay for an iPhone 17 Pro. In the United States, four days

Show every figure in

Finding one

Two lines, going different places

The cheapest iPhone India could buy in 2008 cost ₹31,000. The dearest one it can buy today costs ₹1,64,900. Those two numbers are usually quoted as one story. They are two.

Launch price by year · IndiaCash prices, unadjusted. The gap between the two lines is the whole story. The standard line stops in 2025 because Apple launched no standard iPhone in 2026.

Switch that chart to today’s money and the lines separate properly. The iPhone 3G’s ₹31,000 is about ₹95,000 in today’s prices — more than the iPhone 17 costs now, and that phone has 32 times the storage.

Finding two

The rises are lumpy, and the flat years are the interesting ones

Nothing about this went up smoothly. Prices sat still for years and then moved in steps, which is why an average annual rate describes none of it.

Change on the generation before · standard model · IndiaFour generations in a row changed the price by nothing at all. The rises are lumpy, not steady — which is why an average annual figure describes none of them.

Finding three

What the money actually bought

This is the part of the story that runs the other way, and it belongs here rather than in a footnote: the base iPhone got dramatically cheaper per gigabyte, per megapixel and per hour of battery.

Base storage against price per gigabyte · IndiaA gigabyte on the standard iPhone costs about a twelfth of what it did on the iPhone 3G — ₹324 against ₹3,875. This is the part of the story that runs the other way.

Finding four

Most of India’s rise was not Apple

Before blaming Cupertino, three things happened to the price that had nothing to do with the phone.

2.2×

The rupee

₹43.51 to the dollar in 2008, ₹94.49 today. That alone multiplies a dollar price by 2.2, and accounts for most of the 5.3 times the rupee price of the top model rose.

18%

GST, up from 12%

Raised in April 2020, and Apple re-priced the entire line the same week. The iPhone 11 went from ₹64,900 to ₹68,300 without changing at all. The September 2025 reform cut televisions and air conditioners; phones stayed exactly where they were.

₹79,900

Assembly, holding the line

The standard iPhone held this price for five consecutive generations while the rupee went on falling against the dollar. The iPhone 15 was the first generation made in India at launch, and that is most of why it could.

Prices that moved on their own

What changed in India without a new phone

A launch-price chart makes these invisible. They are drawn as dashed rules on the first chart above.

2018-02
Customs duty raised
Apple raised India prices by up to ₹3,210 within days of the duty change.
2020-04
GST 12% to 18%
Apple re-priced the entire India line the same week. The iPhone 11 went from ₹64,900 to ₹68,300 without changing at all.
2025-09
GST reform kept phones at 18%
Televisions and air conditioners fell from 28% to 18%. Phones, already at 18%, did not move.

Finding five

One phone, five prices

The iPhone 18 Pro is the same object in every one of these markets. It is not the same price, and tax explains less of the difference than you would expect.

iPhone 18 Pro, 256 GB, converted to US dollarsIndia pays about 46% more than the US does for the same phone. Hong Kong levies no sales tax at all and is still dearer than the United States.

India18%

GST 18%, plus customs duty on anything not assembled locally. GST was 12% until April 2020. The September 2025 GST reform cut televisions and air conditioners from 28% to 18% and left phones exactly where they were.

United Statesno sales tax

No federal sales tax. State and local sales tax is added at the till and varies from nothing to about 10%, so the US is the only price in this comparison quoted before tax.

Singapore9%

GST 9%, and it moved twice recently — 7% until 2022, 8% in 2023, 9% from January 2024. So the iPhone X through the 14 Pro launched under 7% and the 16 Pro onwards under 9%.

Hong Kongno sales tax

No VAT, no GST, no general sales tax at all. Hong Kong is a free port and levies duty only on liquor, tobacco, hydrocarbon oil and methyl alcohol. Whatever explains its price gap to the US, it is not tax.

United Arab Emirates5%

VAT 5%, introduced on 1 January 2018 — before that there was none, which is why the step from the iPhone X to the XS looks steeper here than it really was. The dirham has been pegged to the dollar at 3.6725 since 1997.

Top of the range, each market indexed to 2017 = 100Since 2017, India is at 185 and Singapore at 115. Same phones, in each market's own money, going different distances.

Finding six

Affordability went the other way from price

Price is only half of a price. The other half is what you have to do to earn it, and on that measure the iPhone has moved much further in some places than others.

Eight-hour days of average net pay to buy a iPhone 17 ProAn average Indian worker needs 160 days. An American needs four. The phone is the same phone.

3.9 months

The standard one

The iPhone 17 at ₹82,900, against average gross monthly earnings of ₹21,285 for a regular salaried worker in India. That is an average rather than a median, and gross rather than take-home — both of which flatter the answer.

7.7 months

The expensive one

The iPhone 18 Pro at ₹1,64,900, on the same earnings. And the iPhone Duo at ₹2,99,900 is 14.1 months — more than a year of gross pay for the average salaried worker, before anybody has eaten.

Apple withdrew its long no-cost EMI schemes in India at the start of 2026. Those schemes were the thing that turned ₹1,64,900 into ₹6,871 a month over twenty-four months, and their absence is a larger change to affordability than any price on this page.

Finding seven

A phone is a four-year decision

Not a moral one — an arithmetic one. Here is the same phone at the same price, replaced at four different intervals for twenty years, and what those rupees would have been worth at year twenty instead. The rate is 11% — the same rate this planner already projects Indian portfolios at, not one chosen to make the number look large.

What twenty years of replacing the same phone comes toStretching from a two-year cycle to a five-year one is a difference of about ₹33L over twenty years — at the rate this planner already projects Indian portfolios at.

It is an illustration, not advice, and it assumes a phone price that never changes — which, given everything above, it certainly will. What it is useful for is the shape: the difference between a two-year cycle and a five-year one is not the price of a phone. It is about ₹33L.

The data

Every iPhone sold in India

The original 2007 iPhone was never officially sold in India. The 3G, in August 2008, was the first. Every price is the launch price at the base storage tier, in the currency of the day.

2008
iPhone 3G
₹31,000
2009
iPhone 3GS
₹35,500
2010
iPhone 4
₹34,500
2011
iPhone 4S
₹44,500
2012
iPhone 5
₹45,500
2013
iPhone 5s
₹53,500
2014
iPhone 6
₹53,500
2014
iPhone 6 Plus
₹62,500
2015
iPhone 6s
₹62,000
2016
iPhone 7
₹60,000
2017
iPhone 8
₹64,000
2017
iPhone X
₹89,000
2018
iPhone XR
₹76,900
2018
iPhone XS
₹99,900
2019
iPhone 11
₹64,900
2019
iPhone 11 Pro
₹99,900
2020
iPhone 12
₹79,900
2020
iPhone 12 Pro
₹1,19,900
2021
iPhone 13
₹79,900
2021
iPhone 13 Pro
₹1,19,900
2022
iPhone 14
₹79,900
2022
iPhone 14 Pro
₹1,29,900
2023
iPhone 15
₹79,900
2023
iPhone 15 Pro
₹1,34,900
2024
iPhone 16
₹79,900
2024
iPhone 16 Pro
₹1,19,900
2025
iPhone 17
₹82,900
2025
iPhone Air
₹1,19,900
2025
iPhone 17 Pro
₹1,34,900
2026
iPhone 18 Pro
₹1,64,900
2026
iPhone 18 Pro Max
₹1,79,900
2026
iPhone Duo
₹2,99,900

Every iPhone sold in India, with the price it launched at. The original 2007 iPhone was never officially sold in India. The 3G, in August 2008, was the first.
Model	Launched	Display	Chip	Storage	Camera	Video	Launch price
iPhone 3G	2008-08	3.5″	Samsung ARM 11	8 GB	2 MP	7 h	₹31,000†
iPhone 3GS	2010-03	3.5″	Samsung S5PC100	16 GB	3 MP	10 h	₹35,500†
iPhone 4	2011-05	3.5″	Apple A4	16 GB	5 MP	10 h	₹34,500†
iPhone 4S	2011-11	3.5″	Apple A5	16 GB	8 MP	10 h	₹44,500†
iPhone 5	2012-11	4″	Apple A6	16 GB	8 MP	10 h	₹45,500†
iPhone 5s	2013-11	4″	Apple A7	16 GB	8 MP	10 h	₹53,500†
iPhone 6	2014-10	4.7″	Apple A8	16 GB	8 MP	11 h	₹53,500†
iPhone 6 Plus	2014-10	5.5″	Apple A8	16 GB	8 MP	14 h	₹62,500†
iPhone 6s	2015-10	4.7″	Apple A9	16 GB	12 MP	11 h	₹62,000†
iPhone 7	2016-10	4.7″	Apple A10 Fusion	32 GB	12 MP	13 h	₹60,000†
iPhone 8	2017-09	4.7″	Apple A11 Bionic	64 GB	12 MP	13 h	₹64,000†
iPhone X	2017-11	5.8″	Apple A11 Bionic	64 GB	12 MP	13 h	₹89,000†
iPhone XR	2018-09	6.1″	Apple A12 Bionic	64 GB	12 MP	16 h	₹76,900†
iPhone XS	2018-09	5.8″	Apple A12 Bionic	64 GB	12 MP	14 h	₹99,900†
iPhone 11	2019-09	6.1″	Apple A13 Bionic	64 GB	12 MP	17 h	₹64,900†
iPhone 11 Pro	2019-09	5.8″	Apple A13 Bionic	64 GB	12 MP	18 h	₹99,900†
iPhone 12	2020-10	6.1″	Apple A14 Bionic	64 GB	12 MP	17 h	₹79,900†
iPhone 12 Pro	2020-10	6.1″	Apple A14 Bionic	128 GB	12 MP	17 h	₹1,19,900†
iPhone 13	2021-09	6.1″	Apple A15 Bionic	128 GB	12 MP	19 h	₹79,900†
iPhone 13 Pro	2021-09	6.1″	Apple A15 Bionic	128 GB	12 MP	22 h	₹1,19,900†
iPhone 14	2022-09	6.1″	Apple A15 Bionic	128 GB	12 MP	20 h	₹79,900†
iPhone 14 Pro	2022-09	6.1″	Apple A16 Bionic	128 GB	48 MP	23 h	₹1,29,900†
iPhone 15	2023-09	6.1″	Apple A16 Bionic	128 GB	48 MP	20 h	₹79,900†
iPhone 15 Pro	2023-09	6.1″	Apple A17 Pro	128 GB	48 MP	23 h	₹1,34,900†
iPhone 16	2024-09	6.1″	Apple A18	128 GB	48 MP	22 h	₹79,900†
iPhone 16 Pro	2024-09	6.3″	Apple A18 Pro	128 GB	48 MP	27 h	₹1,19,900†
iPhone 17	2025-09	6.3″	Apple A19	256 GB	48 MP	30 h	₹82,900†
iPhone Air	2025-09	6.5″	Apple A19 Pro	256 GB	48 MP	27 h	₹1,19,900†
iPhone 17 Pro	2025-09	6.3″	Apple A19 Pro	256 GB	48 MP	31 h	₹1,34,900†
iPhone 18 Pro	2026-09	6.3″	Apple A20 Pro	256 GB	48 MP	36 h	₹1,64,900
iPhone 18 Pro Max	2026-09	6.9″	Apple A20 Pro	256 GB	48 MP	45 h	₹1,79,900
iPhone Duo	2026-10	7.6″	Apple A20 Pro	256 GB	48 MP	—	₹2,99,900

† reported at the time rather than published by Apple. ‡ from a secondary source. Everything unmarked comes from an Apple newsroom or store page. Hover any mark for the source.

Method

Where all of this came from

Every figure on this page has a source, and four figures are missing rather than estimated.

What we did not do

No price is interpolated, converted from another market, or inferred from an exchange rate. A year with no sourced figure is a gap in the chart.
US prices from 2008 to 2015 are off-contract list prices, not the $199 sticker. The subsidised figure is in the table’s notes, because it is what people remember paying — but charting it against 2026 would be false.
India’s launch year is often not the world’s. The 3GS reached India in March 2010 and the iPhone 4 in May 2011, and the table uses the India date.
Four figures could not be sourced and are absent: the iPhone 4S 64 GB price in India, the UAE launch price of the iPhone 17, and any 2026 base model — Apple deferred the iPhone 18 to spring 2027.

Sources

6 of these back a claim in the prose rather than a price in the table. Apple, iPhone and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc. Nivritee is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Apple.

A phone is a four-year decision. So is nearly everything else.

Nivritee projects what your own figures do over the decades that matter, in the country you will actually be living in. About two minutes to a first answer.

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The cheap iPhone got cheaper.The expensive one ran away.