Is the iPhone 17e Really "¥1"? I Ran the Numbers on the Actual Total Cost

Good morning. It’s まさきん.

The other day, a flyer for Rakuten Mobile showed up in our mailbox. The headline — “iPhone 17e, ¥1/month” — was eye-catching, to put it mildly. My first thought was that this might be a genuine bargain, but I work as a marketer, so naturally I wanted to run the numbers myself, terms and conditions included, to see exactly how good a deal it really is.

This time, I’ll walk through the terms printed on the flyer, work out how much of a deal this campaign really is, and look at how to get the most out of it. I’m taking a similar approach here to when I ran the numbers on the family referral campaign.

What the Flyer Said

Let’s start with the terms. The target device is the iPhone 17e (256GB). The offer: switch from another carrier and pay via Rakuten Card’s 48-installment plan, and the monthly payment drops to ¥1.

“Switching from another carrier” here refers to what’s commonly called MNP — number portability, where you keep your current number and switch only the carrier. The procedure itself hasn’t changed from what I laid out in my earlier walkthrough of the MNP process.

But the fine print added an important detail: “¥1 for the 1st through 24th installments, then ¥4,549/month from the 25th installment onward.” In other words, the ¥1 rate only applies for the first 24 months. For the second 24 months, it reverts to a normal installment amount.

The headline is eye-catching enough on its own, but reading through to the fine print makes the actual terms much clearer. Even so, having the entire first 24 months at just ¥1 is a substantial saving in its own right.

Running the Numbers on the Actual Total

Let’s follow the math. The first 24 months at ¥1 each come to ¥24 total. The second 24 months at ¥4,549 each add up to ¥109,176.

Add the ¥24 and the ¥109,176 together, and you get ¥109,200. That’s the total device cost paid over the full 48 months.

Here’s the breakdown in table form.

For the first 24 months, you’re effectively paying next to nothing, which is a meaningful saving on its own. The second 24 months come to ¥4,549 a month, but considering you’re financing a brand-new iPhone at that price, it feels like a reasonably fair structure. Think of it as light payments up front and heavier payments in the back half.

During the first 24 months, you’ll see “¥1” lined up in your household ledger month after month, so the benefit should feel very real while it lasts. Once you hit the second half and the payment switches to ¥4,549 a month, it helps to have that ¥109,200 total figure in mind from the start — that way, you can keep using the phone with a clear sense of what’s coming rather than being caught off guard.

Comparing It to Buying the Same iPhone 17e Elsewhere

There’s one more thing I wanted to check: what the device price itself looks like if you buy the same iPhone 17e (256GB) from another carrier.

Here’s a comparison of the pre-discount device prices listed on each carrier’s official site, as of June 2026.

Rakuten Mobile’s ¥109,200 works out to ¥10,700 cheaper than Docomo and au, and ¥15,360 cheaper than SoftBank. Even setting the campaign discount aside and comparing device prices alone, Rakuten Mobile is priced lower than the competition. On top of that, you can also stack the “¥1/month” campaign, which dramatically reduces payments for the first 24 months, lightening the household burden even further at the time of purchase.

If you’re currently with another carrier, it might be worth starting with a fee simulation to see the actual difference for yourself.

The Trick to Claiming Both Perks

The flyer also included a separate mechanism: point rewards through a referral campaign. Combine it with the ¥1/month device offer, and the overall deal gets even better.

According to the fine print, points are paid out starting four months after the month the referred person logs in, spread across three months. For applications made on or after March 2, 2026, using the Rakuten Link app is a condition of the offer.

The key thing to understand here is that the device installment payments and the point rewards are two completely separate mechanisms. The device cost is fixed under the Rakuten Card 48-installment plan and doesn’t change depending on whether you receive points. The points are strictly a perk from the referral campaign side.

To make sure you claim both perks in full, I’d recommend tracking each set of conditions separately. It’s easier to keep things clear if you manage the device cost and the points as two distinct things.

The conditions themselves are independent of each other too. Getting the ¥1/month rate on the device requires switching from another carrier and paying via the Rakuten Card 48-installment plan. Getting the full referral point payout, on the other hand, requires the referred person actually logging in and continued use of the Rakuten Link app.

Before you apply, checking off the following points one by one should help you avoid missing out on either perk.

• Whether you’re applying by switching from another carrier (MNP)
• Whether you’re paying for the device via the Rakuten Card 48-installment plan
• If applying through a referral, whether the referred person has actually logged in
• For applications on or after March 2, 2026, whether you can keep using the Rakuten Link app continuously

Once you’ve cleared up each of these points ahead of time, all that’s left is to apply — and you should be able to receive both perks in full.

On the Length of a 48-Installment Plan

Here’s a more practical point. A 48-installment plan works out to 4 years by simple math. My household looked into the cost-effectiveness of Apple Watch for the whole family once before, and I came away with the sense that Apple products tend to come with fairly long installment periods.

If you’re planning to use the phone for a long stretch, a 48-installment plan is a solid option for spreading the monthly burden out as thinly as possible. That said, if you end up wanting to switch devices partway through, keep in mind — as I mentioned in an earlier article about how remaining device debt works — that the remaining installments could be billed to you all at once. Just keeping that in the back of your mind now can save you some worry later.

Wrap-Up

Running the numbers behind the “¥1/month” headline, this turned out to be a genuinely generous campaign — the entire first 24 months really do come to just ¥1. The total comes to ¥109,200, with the second 24 months at ¥4,549 a month, which is a perfectly reasonable price for financing a brand-new iPhone.

The conditions are switching from another carrier and paying via the Rakuten Card 48-installment plan. Layer on the points from the referral campaign as well, and the deal gets even better.

Campaign terms and device prices tend to get revised fairly often. If this caught your interest, be sure to check the official site for the latest terms and pricing before you apply.

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