The cheapest MacBook Pro Apple sells in Malaysia is the 14-inch model with the M5 chip, 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage, at RM8,299. The cheapest MacBook Air Apple's Malaysian store lists is the 13-inch model, at RM5,499. We read Apple's own Malaysian online store (apple.com/my) on 25 October 2026 and counted what it charges to add memory and storage to a MacBook Pro. The 1TB-to-4TB and 2TB-to-8TB storage upgrades each cost more than a whole MacBook Air, and the larger of the two costs more than the cheapest MacBook Pro itself.
Here is the finding, and it is the part Apple does not put on one screen: the price of an upgrade works out to the same rate every time. Every storage upgrade Apple lists costs RM2,250 for each added terabyte, and every memory upgrade costs RM112.50 for each added gigabyte. The increments differ in size, but divided by the capacity they add they come to the identical rate, from the RM8,299 entry model to the RM20,999 M5 Max. It does not fall when you buy more.
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What Apple charges to add storage
A MacBook Pro's storage is chosen when you order it, in the online configurator. Which storage sizes you can pick depends on the chip: the M5 and M5 Pro models start at 1TB and go up to 4TB, while the M5 Max models start at 2TB and reach 8TB. What stays constant across all of them is the rate Apple charges for each added terabyte: RM2,250, every time.
| Storage upgrade | Chips it applies to | Price Apple adds | Price per added terabyte |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1TB to 2TB (add 1TB) | M5, M5 Pro | + RM2,250 | RM2,250 |
| 1TB to 4TB (add 3TB) | M5, M5 Pro | + RM6,750 | RM2,250 |
| 2TB to 4TB (add 2TB) | M5 Max | + RM4,500 | RM2,250 |
| 2TB to 8TB (add 6TB) | M5 Max | + RM13,500 | RM2,250 |
The 3TB upgrade, from 1TB to 4TB, adds RM6,750. That is more than the RM5,499 Apple asks for a whole MacBook Air. The 6TB upgrade, from 2TB to 8TB on the M5 Max models, adds RM13,500. That is more than the RM8,299 the cheapest MacBook Pro costs, and it is more than two MacBook Airs. Because 8TB is only offered on the M5 Max chip, reaching it also means buying up to that chip first.
What Apple charges to add memory
Memory is also chosen once at purchase. Here the rate is read a little differently: the memory options you can pick depend on the chip and its graphics grade, so we read each memory step from the configurator of the model that actually offers it, where the chip is already fixed. Read that way, every memory step Apple offers within a single model works out to the same rate: RM112.50 for each added gigabyte.
| Memory upgrade | Read from | Price Apple adds | Price per added gigabyte |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16GB to 24GB | 14-inch M5 | + RM900 | RM112.50 |
| 16GB to 32GB | 14-inch M5 | + RM1,800 | RM112.50 |
| 24GB to 48GB | 14-inch M5 Pro | + RM2,700 | RM112.50 |
| 24GB to 64GB | 16-inch M5 Pro | + RM4,500 | RM112.50 |
| 48GB to 64GB | 16-inch M5 Max | + RM1,800 | RM112.50 |
| 48GB to 128GB | 16-inch M5 Max | + RM9,000 | RM112.50 |
Each row is the memory charge on a single model's own configurator, where the chip is fixed, so it is the price of the memory itself and nothing else. Which sizes a given model offers varies: the M5 starts at 16GB, the M5 Pro reaches 64GB, and the top tier of 128GB comes only with the M5 Max. Some larger sizes are reachable only on a higher graphics grade of a chip, which Apple presents as a change to the chip, not a memory option, so we do not read those as memory prices. On every step that is a clean memory choice, the rate is the same RM112.50 per gigabyte.
The upgrade can cost more than the laptop
Put the two together on the cheapest MacBook Pro. The 14-inch M5 starts at RM8,299. Taking its memory to 32GB adds RM1,800, and taking its storage to 4TB adds RM6,750. Those two upgrades together add RM8,550, which is more than the RM8,299 laptop they are added to. The machine ends up at RM16,849, from a starting price of RM8,299.
At the top of the range, a 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 Max chip, 128GB of memory and 8TB of storage reads RM43,499 in the same configurator. That is about five times the RM8,299 entry MacBook Pro, and the memory and storage upgrades alone account for RM22,500 of it.
Why this is worth noticing
The steady rate is the surprising part. The price does not fall as the upgrade grows: Apple charges the same RM2,250 for a terabyte whether it is your first or your sixth, and the same RM112.50 for a gigabyte of memory whether you are on the entry chip or the most expensive one. What changes between models is which capacities you can reach, and that some of the largest ones require buying up to a more expensive chip first, not the price of each step itself.
We saw the same habit of steep, built-in-only storage pricing when we looked at the iPhone in Malaysia earlier this year: upgrading an iPhone 18 Pro's storage costs more than a whole iPhone 16. In our reading, the MacBook Pro is the same habit on a far larger scale.
The limits of this reading
These are current store prices, read from apple.com/my on 25 October 2026, in ringgit. They are configuration prices on sale today, not launch prices, and Apple can change them. The MacBook Air we compare against is the 13-inch model at its current store price of RM5,499, the cheapest MacBook Air the Malaysian store lists on the day we read it; an earlier 2026 launch price for a MacBook Air was lower and reflects a configuration Apple no longer sells there, so we use today's live price throughout for a like-for-like, same-day comparison. Every figure is a price Apple itself lists; we make no claim about what memory or storage costs Apple to fit, or what the parts sell for elsewhere, only what the Malaysian store charges to add them. The per-terabyte and per-gigabyte figures use Apple's own labelled tiers (1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB; 16GB, 24GB and so on), so they are a price per labelled tier, not a price per raw byte. Some capacities are reachable only by also moving to a more expensive chip, so the added amount shown is the memory or storage charge on top of whichever chip already allows that tier, not always an isolated memory or storage cost. The comparisons to the MacBook Air and to the cheapest MacBook Pro set one Apple Malaysian list price against another, both read on the same day.
How to reproduce this
Open apple.com/my, go to the MacBook Pro buy page and choose any chip to open its configurator. The Memory and Storage sections list each option with the exact ringgit amount Apple adds for it. Divide the amount by the terabytes or gigabytes added to get the per-unit rate. Every number above is read straight from that page.
