The one thing we can say with certainty about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra's price is that it is not cheap. Samsung's S Ultra flagship uses historically the best components and comes with exciting extras like the recent Galaxy AI and a built-in S Pen for doodling on the screen. But it comes at a steep price.

So what do we know about the price of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra? We won't have a definitive answer until it goes on sale early next year, but we do have enough information to speculate.

The best that prospective buyers of the S25 Ultra can hope for is that things remain quiet for another year. In case you were wondering, the least expensive configuration will be the same as the Galaxy S24 Ultra, at $1,299.99 for the 256GB version and $1,659.99 for the 1TB model.

While this feels like wishful thinking, there is one advantage to this optimism: last year's starting price of $1,299.99 was a $100 increase over the Galaxy S23 Ultra's price. Samsung may decide that fans will not accept two major price increases for the second year in a row and maintain the status quo.

Unfortunately, there are two reasons to believe that regardless, buyers may be hit with a price hike in 2025. [The first is inflation. No one is unaware that the prices of goods and services continue to rise, and while they have slowed in recent years, there is no reason to expect smartphone makers like Samsung to be immune from rising component prices.

The most prominent of these expensive internal components is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, which will be found in all three versions of the Galaxy S25; in June, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that this new chip is the best in the past year, with Android phones, and estimated that it would cost 25-30% more than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that powers Android phones.

And of course, phones are not just about processors. One company that has thrown a wrench into the rising cost of materials is Weibo leaker Setsuna Digital, who last month predicted that components could cost more than $110 more. If this is correct and all of the most modest price increases are passed on directly to consumers, that would mean prices for the S25 Ultra would start at $1,409.

But there are reasons to be skeptical here as well. For one thing, Samsung's size means that it has immense buying power and will probably be able to negotiate volume discounts with suppliers.

Perhaps more importantly, starting at $1,409 means that Samsung's top device will cost $210 more than the iPhone 16 Pro Max and $310 more than the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL. The benefits of the Snapdragon 8 Elite notwithstanding (and there are plenty of them), it would be commercially risky.

You might think twice, but perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between those two numbers. Samsung is not a charity, nor is it immune from rising operating costs, so a price increase seems very likely. On the other hand, a ~$100 price increase for the second year in a row seems like overkill.

Taking all of this into account, a starting price of $1,349 seems the most likely scenario. However, we won't know for sure until Samsung announces the Galaxy S25 family (likely at the end of next month).