Apple Vision Pro value: How does the Vision Pro headset price compare against the rest?

The Apple Vision Pro looks to be one of, if not the, most capable AR/VR headsets around – at least it will be at release in early 2024. However, with impressive tech comes not-so-impressive pricing, and that’s especially true of the Apple Vision Pro and its whopping $3,499 price tag. 

Now we’re not saying that VR headsets are cheap – some, especially those that connect to beefy gaming PCs can cost well over £1000/$1000 – but that’s still quite a jump to get to the price of the Apple Vision Pro. 

The HTC Vive Pro 2 is one of the priciest PC VR headsets around in 2023 and that’ll set you back £1,399/$1,249 with the controllers, base stations and everything else you need. That’s under half the price of the Apple Vision Pro.

The comparisons only get more shocking when narrowing the discussion to standalone VR headsets like the Quest 2 and more premium options like the Meta Quest Pro and HTC Vive Elite XR. In fact, the latter two could be considered direct competitors to Apple’s Vision Pro with a focus on AR as well as VR with colour passthrough capabilities. 

Despite the similarity in design and focus, the Meta Quest Pro has a relatively affordable RRP of £999/$999, down from the initial £1,499/$1,499 price tag when it launched in October 2022. That makes it 3.5x cheaper than the Apple Vision Pro. It’s a very similar story with the £1,299/$1,099 HTC Vive Elite XR. 

Again, these have been considered top-end Pro options with price tags to match until this point. 

But despite this fact, you’d still be able to buy two Vive Elite XRs and a Meta Quest Pro in the US and still have enough change left over to pick up a £299/$299 Meta Quest 2 instead of buying the Apple Vision Pro. 

It’s comparisons like this that really drill home just how expensive and, essentially, unattainable, the Apple Vision Pro will be to the everyday consumer once it’s released in early 2024. It’ll likely be fodder for the rich and keen developers that want to get their apps onto the platform, but not much else. 

It’s possible that this is the top-end version with Apple planning a more affordable headset to come further down the line, potentially without the Pro moniker of the first-gen headset, but that’s very much speculation for now. 

With all that said, here’s a complete breakdown of popular VR/AR headset pricing from big manufacturers and how they compare to the Apple Vision Pro:

• Apple Vision Pro: $3,499
• HTC Vive Pro 2: £1,399/$1,249
• HTC Vive Elite XR: £1,299/$1,099
• Valve Index: £949/$999
• Meta Quest Pro: £999/$999
• Sony PlayStation VR 2: £529/$549
• Meta Quest 3 (release in late 2023): $499
• HTC Vive Flow: £499/$499
• Meta Quest 2: £399/$399