Sept. 15 matched panel: outgoing Mac asks fell 11.9%

Historical market reading. This matched-offer panel ends Sept. 15, 2026, before the replacement Macs’ Sept. 22 availability date. It does not measure the later trade-in wave or today’s stock and prices. For a dated current reading, start with the daily used Mac price tracker and compare the exact configuration and seller terms.

In the Sept. 15 reading, asking prices for the Macs Apple replaced on Aug. 25 had fallen further than in our first post-announcement reading. One more model had joined the decline.

Among 134 outgoing-model offers observed on both sides of the announcement, 101 had a lower asking price by Sept. 15. Twenty-four were unchanged and nine were higher. The matched basket fell from $387,597 to $341,643 — a $45,954, or 11.9%, decline. The median listing moved down $103.26, or 7.7%.

That is a different market from announcement day, when 10 of the first 12 same-listing asks held and only two moved lower. It is also a deeper cut than the reading this page carried until now, which covered the first 11 days.

What the Sept. 15 panel meant for buyers

Replaced model, median listing cut by Sept. 15	Replacement announced for Sept. 22
Mac mini M4, −$50	M6, 16GB/256GB: $899 Apple list; Amazon preorder last seen at $879.99 Sept. 16; may be gone. Amazon listing or Apple
Mac mini M4 Pro, −$200	M5 Pro 15-core, 24GB/512GB: $1,699 Apple list; Amazon preorder last seen at $1,669.99 Sept. 16; may be gone. Amazon listing or Apple
Mac Studio M4 Max, −$400	M5 Max with an 18-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 36GB/512GB: $2,499 Apple list; Amazon preorder last seen at $2,449.99 Sept. 16; may be gone. Amazon listing or Apple
Mac Studio M3 Ultra, −$500	M5 Ultra, 96GB: $5,499 Apple list; no exact Amazon listing, so order from Apple. The 36GB M5 Max above is not a memory substitute for an Ultra

Amazon preorder prices are from MacRumors’ Sept. 16 report; check the current price on each listing.

• A warranty-backed used M4. Amazon Renewed Premium, exact M4 16GB/256GB listing; check the current price. The used M4 price ladder puts the Sept. 2 median ask at $749; at $899 or more, a new M6 costs no more.
• Which used channel protects you. The channel-by-channel price table pairs each seller’s median ask with its return and warranty terms.
• Waiting or keeping what you have: $0. The panel ended before Sept. 22 and cannot show the later trade-in effect. The pre-ship comparison preserves what was known before availability; use the daily tracker for a dated later reading.

The daily used Mac price tracker preserves each reading of this panel, and the used Mac catalog shows the offers buyers can compare now.

How far each outgoing Mac model fell

Apple announced the M6 and M5 Pro Mac mini and M5 Max and M5 Ultra Mac Studio on Aug. 25. We therefore limited the main comparison to the processors those machines replaced: M4 and M4 Pro minis and M4 Max and M3 Ultra Studios.

Outgoing model	n	Down / same / up	Matched basket	Median listing
Mac mini M4	69	44 / 18 / 7	−5.7%	−$50
Mac mini M4 Pro	19	18 / 1 / 0	−11.3%	−$200
Mac Studio M4 Max	29	27 / 1 / 1	−12.5%	−$400
Mac Studio M3 Ultra	17	12 / 4 / 1	−14.6%	−$500
All four	134	101 / 24 / 9	−11.9%	−$103.26

The four model rows are the whole panel, not a selection from it: 69 plus 19 plus 29 plus 17 is 134 matched offers, and their basket losses of $4,456, $4,564, $13,564 and $23,370 sum to the $45,954 total.

The Studio market moved first and furthest. Twenty-seven of 29 M4 Max Studio asks fell. Their matched total lost $13,564, or 12.5%, and the median listing cut was $400. Twelve of 17 M3 Ultra asks fell; that basket lost $23,370, or 14.6%, and the median listing cut was $500. The Ultra’s larger basket decline rests on fewer, bigger markdowns: its median listing fell 8.6%, against 12.9% for the M4 Max.

Mac mini repricing is broader but shallower, and no longer uniform across the two chips. The M4 basket lost $4,456, or 5.7%, with 18 of its 69 asks unchanged and seven higher — 25 offers that did not fall, or 36%, the largest such share of any row and well above the M3 Ultra’s 29%. The M4 Pro basket lost $4,564, or 11.3%, taking more dollars out of 19 offers than the base M4 took out of 69. Each model name in the table leads to its current inventory, with condition and price together.

The M4 Pro mini stopped holding out

On Sept. 5 the M4 Pro mini was one of the steadier rows in this table: 13 of 17 matched asks lower, a 6.5% basket decline and a $100 median listing cut. Ten days later it is 18 of 19 lower — every matched M4 Pro offer but one — with an 11.3% basket decline and a $200 median cut. The median cut doubled, and the share of lower asks went from 76% to 95%, the highest of the four models.

For someone shopping that model, the practical reading is that the listing in front of them has probably already moved, and a seller still quoting an unchanged August ask is now the exception rather than the norm. It is also the row with the least visible slack left in the panel: one offer out of 19 has not fallen, against 25 of 69 on the base M4.

Nineteen offers is a thin panel, and a median cut is a fact about listings rather than a price anyone can demand. Treat $200 as what comparable sellers have already conceded, not as a target. The Mac mini M4 Pro page carries what is actually listed now.

The drop is mostly eBay, but not only eBay

Of the 134 matched offers, 102 came from eBay. Seventy-nine of those cut their asks, accounting for $37,238 of the $45,954 decline. The eBay basket fell 11.1%, with a median listing cut of $152.

The smaller non-eBay check still points the same way, and harder. Among 32 matched offers from eight other sources, 22 fell, eight held and two rose. That basket fell $8,716, or 16.7%. But two high-priced iPowerResale listings — $17,798 between them at baseline, $11,498 after — account for $6,300 of that $8,716, the same attribution this check carried on Sept. 5. Set those two aside and the other 30 non-eBay offers fell $2,416 on a $34,562 baseline, or 7.0%. The non-eBay figure is directional and thin, not a claim that every non-eBay channel cut 16.7%.

This source split matters. An 11.9% headline accurately describes the matched panel, not a universal markdown at every seller. It also shows where the repricing dollars are: the marketplace with the deepest secondary inventory supplies 76% of the panel and 81% of the decline.

Intel prices did not move the same way

Intel Mac minis provide an imperfect comparison group because Apple did not announce direct replacements for them. Of 112 Intel offers observed on both sides of Aug. 25, 72 were unchanged, 32 fell and eight rose. The Intel basket declined 3.9%, and its median listing still did not move at all: the median change is exactly $0.00.

The directly replaced models were more than two and a half times as likely to post a lower ask: 75% against 29%. Their aggregate decline was just over three times as large. That contrast held across ten further days of observation, which makes it more durable than it was on Sept. 5 without making it causal — and the gap did narrow, because the Intel group’s share of lower asks rose from 26% to 29% while the replaced group’s slipped from 76% to 75%.

The two groups also differ in far more than replacement status. The entire 112-offer Intel basket is worth $26,691, less than a fifth of the M3 Ultra basket alone. Differences in model, condition, price level and source mix mean this comparison cannot establish cause by itself.

What we reported on Sept. 5, and what changed

This page headlined a different number until now, and anyone who cited it should be able to see what happened to it.

Reading	Followup through	n	Down / same / up	Matched basket	Median listing
Published Sept. 5	Sept. 5	127	97 / 24 / 6	−10.7%	−$100
This update	Sept. 15	134	101 / 24 / 9	−11.9%	−$103.26

The Sept. 5 reading was a $40,402 decline on a basket that fell from $379,095 to $338,693 — 10.7% across 127 matched offers, 97 of them lower, with a $100 median listing cut. It is not withdrawn. It was the correct reading of an 11-day window and remains the right figure to cite for Sept. 5.

Two things moved it. Ten more days of observation, and seven more listings matched into the panel — five base M4 minis and two M4 Pros, with the two Studio rows unchanged in size at 29 and 17. Both push the same way. At the model level the M4 Max Studio median cut went from $300 to $400, the base M4 mini’s from $42.84 to $50, and the M3 Ultra’s held at $500.

Because the panel grew, the two rows above are not identical baskets. They are the same method and the same Aug. 21-25 baseline, run over a longer followup window with more of the same listings re-observed.

What the decline means for buyers

When this page was first published, the open question was whether sellers would react before the new Macs’ Sept. 22 availability date. By Sept. 15 they had, and the observed decline had widened: the basket decline widened from 10.7% to 11.9% and the median listing cut from $100 to $103.26 over ten further days.

The answer is still not that every used Mac became 11.9% cheaper. It is that a fixed basket of the exact same outgoing-model offers did, removing the changing inventory mix that can distort daily medians. These are asking prices, not completed sales.

The holdouts are harder to characterize than the count suggests. Twenty-four matched offers were unchanged on Sept. 5 and 24 are unchanged now, but the panel grew by seven offers in between, so those are not necessarily the same 24 listings. The share of unchanged asks fell from 18.9% to 17.9%, and nine asks are now higher than they were in August. From the published panel we cannot identify which individual listings held throughout, so we are not claiming the same sellers are still holding.

This panel stops on Sept. 15, before the replacement Macs’ announced availability date. It cannot establish what happened to resale asks after Sept. 22. The daily tracker carries later dated observations; a new matched-panel analysis would be needed to test the trade-in-wave hypothesis on the same basis.