The small Apple Watch Series 12 costs what the small Series 11 did. The big one doesn't.
The 42mm aluminum model still starts at $399 in the US. The 46mm model now starts at $449, a $20 increase. MacRumors spotted the change. It breaks a price that had held every year since the Series 4 in 2018, when the larger aluminum Apple Watch started at $429 and stayed there.
So the size step got more expensive. Moving from the smaller case to the larger one used to add $30. On the Series 12 it adds $50.
The smaller watch sets the starting price Apple quotes for the whole line, and it didn't move. That's why the headline figure for the Series 12 reads exactly as it did last year, and why the change is easy to miss if you only see the "from" price.
It lands in a week full of Apple price increases. Amid a shortage of RAM, the working memory chips that go into nearly every device, Apple raised prices on several iPhone models it already sells. The iPhone 18 Pro starts $100 higher than the 17 Pro did, and we covered that jump along with how the increase grows with storage. Back in June, Apple had already raised prices on Macs, iPads, HomePods and the Apple TV.
The watches got more memory this year too. Developer files in Xcode, the software Apple gives app makers, show more RAM in both the Series 12 and the Ultra 4. Apple didn't announce it.
The Ultra 4 kept its price. It starts at $799, the same as the Ultra 3 did at launch.