Apple's Back to School offers are live — but there are better deals to be had

Apple's annual Back to School deals are now available, but as always the company is only offering gift cards where you can get significant discounts from other resellers that can beat what the company offers.

Outside of special promotions of the iPhone in China, Apple never has sales for general buyers. It does always offer lower prices for education users, though, and then for Back to School promotions, it adds gift cards.

Apple's 2024 Back to School offers

This year the gift cards range from $100 to $150. They are available for four specific Macs, and four iPads:

• iMac — $150
• MacBook Air — $150
• MacBook Pro — $150
• Mac mini — $100
• 11-inch M4 iPad Pro — $100
• 13-inch M4 iPad Pro — $100
• 11-inch M4 iPad Air — $100
• 13-inch M4 iPad Air — $100

For each device, Apple is also offering 20% off the cost of its AppleCare+ insurance.

Even so, though, the savings are good rather than significant, because the prices are still readily beaten on all new Apple devices from third-party resellers. They don't tend to be confined to just Back to School periods, either, although they do tend to be in limited supply.

Plus unlike Apple's student discount, you don't have to be a student or faculty member to qualify for the deals at Apple resellers.

Discounted Macs

Although Apple's back-to-school gift card promo is enticing, the far better deals available include ones that are in effect now for the latest Macs. Save up to $520 on M3 / M3 Pro / M3 Max MacBook Pros or grab an M3 MacBook Air from $899.

Then while you will have to rush because there is only a single day left on this deal, B&H Photo is selling the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro chip in its Mega Deal Zone event. Choose between the standard 16GB RAM/ 512GB SSD model for $1,599 — a discount of $400 off — or upgrade to the 1TB SSD spec with a bump up to the M2 Pro chip with a 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU and save $550.

Or while stocks last, both B&H Photo and Amazon are offering the standard M3 14-inch MacBook Pro for $300 off.

Closeout models are on sale at many resellers too, with blowout deals knocking up to $1,000 off the original price. There are hundreds of exclusive markdowns at your fingertips in our Mac Price Guide.

Discounted iPads

Even iPads are heavily discounted at third-party resellers, with the latest M4 iPad Pro and iPad Air 6 up to $100 off in our iPad Price Guide. Those looking for the most aggressive deals can save up to $550 on a variety of iPad models at Best Buy as well.

You know that Apple would never offer that amount in a gift card. But you also know that bargains like this cannot last.

So if you're in the market for a Mac or an iPad, check out these deals and don't delay.