The receipts
What the upgrades actually cost.
Machine
Start from
Memory · 16 GB included
Storage · 256 GB included
Mac tax
Mac tax $400 on a Mac mini M4 with 32 GB of memory and 1 TB of storage.
That's a 1 TB external SSD and a year of Game Pass Ultimate.
Apple's memory is on the package and its SSDs are quick. The argument is the multiple, and that you can't decline it.
Checked September 2026 · macwindow.com/mac-tax?m=mini&r=2&s=2
HouseYou can't decline it either — it's soldered to the board before the machine leaves the factory.
Is this fair?
Apple's memory sits on the processor package and its SSDs are genuinely quick, so this isn't a like-for-like against a bargain SODIMM. The argument was never that the prices should match — it's that you cannot decline the difference, because none of it can be changed after you buy. Memory is priced as the capacity you add; storage as a whole drive at that capacity, because that is how you would buy each of them.
And the gap narrowed in 2026. Datacentre demand took the memory supply with it: DDR5 and NVMe street prices roughly tripled over the year, so the multiple this page used to quote — six or seven times the going rate — is no longer true. The house is telling you that rather than leaving the old number up, because a receipt you can't check is worth nothing. Apple didn't get cheaper. Everyone else got dearer.
Street prices checked September 2026.
?m=mini&r=2&s=2.