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Skip to main content The Galaxy S26 lineup is jumping on this year’s biggest smartphone trend: $100 price hikes. The Galaxy S26 lineup is jumping on this year’s biggest smartphone trend: $100 price hikes. by Stevie Bonifield Oct 1, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge Stevie Bonifield is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI.
The base Galaxy S26 with 256GB of storage costs nearly $1,000 after Samsung raised prices in the US by $100 or more, Phone Arena reports. The Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus were already $100 more expensive than their S25 predecessors when they launched earlier this year, which Samsung said RAM price hikes were partly to blame for. With both price hikes combined, the base S26 will now set you back $200 more than the base S25 would have.
Apple and Google have also raised prices on their phones this year. Nearly every phone in the S26 lineup is $100 pricier on Samsung’s official website now, and the 1TB version of the S26 Ultra went up by even more with a $200 price hike: Galaxy S26 (256GB): $999, was $899 Galaxy S26 (512GB): $1,199, was $1,099 Galaxy S26 Plus (256GB): $1,199, was $1,099 Galaxy S26 Plus (512GB): $1,399, was $1,299 Galaxy S26 Ultra (256GB): $1,399, was $1,299 Galaxy S26 Ultra (512GB): $1,599, was $1,499 Galaxy S26 Ultra (1TB): $1,999, was $1,799 The S26 FE is the only S26 phone that appears unscathed by this price hike. It still starts at $699, although that price is also higher than the S25 FE’s, despite being, as The Verge ’s Dominic Preston put it, essentially “the same phone as last year’s.” Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
Stevie Bonifield The Verge Daily A free daily digest of the news that matters most. Email (required)
Source: The Verge
