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Phone Affordability Calculator
How much should you spend on a phone? Enter your monthly take-home salary, the EMIs you already pay, and how you plan to pay, and this calculator tells you the most expensive phone you can actually buy, which phones fit that budget, and what salary your dream phone needs. It uses marketfeed's 1 / 3 / 50 / 10 rule, and you can change every number in it.
Key takeaways
- Spend at most one month of take-home salary on a phone, and keep it for at least three years.
- Keep all your EMIs together under 50% of take-home, and non-essential EMIs (phone, laptop, credit card) under 10%.
- A no-cost EMI does not make a phone affordable. The phone still has to fit both the price rule and your EMI room.
- If your existing EMIs already fill the 50% or the 10% cap, the answer is to save up and pay cash, not to add another EMI.
- Thinking about the iPhone 18? Enter its launch price in dream phone mode to see the salary it needs before you pre-order.
How to use the phone affordability calculator
Enter your monthly take-home salary after all deductions. If you are buying for the family, use the combined take-home. Then enter the EMIs you already pay each month in two buckets: essential EMIs such as home, vehicle and education loans, and non-essential EMIs such as phone, laptop, TV and credit card EMIs. Finally choose an EMI tenure (set it to 0 if you are paying cash) and the interest rate, which is 0% for a no-cost EMI and usually 14 to 16% for a consumer or credit card loan.
The calculator shows the most expensive phone you can actually buy, the monthly room you have for a new phone EMI, which of the two caps is limiting you, and a list of phones that fit the budget. Switch to the dream phone mode to go the other way: enter a phone price and see the salary it really needs.
Why the cheapest phone in the list is not always the answer
The list shows the six most expensive phones inside your budget, priciest first. That is deliberate. The point of the rule is to stop you from overspending, not to push you to the cheapest phone. Once you are inside the budget, buy the phone you will happily keep for three years or more. A phone you keep for four years costs you less per year than a cheaper one you replace in eighteen months.
Cash or EMI?
If the phone fits the one-month rule, paying cash is the cleanest option: no EMI, no cap to track, nothing to worry about if your income changes. A no-cost EMI is fine when the phone fits both the price rule and your EMI room, because you keep the cash invested while paying in instalments. An EMI with interest is the expensive route, and the calculator shows exactly how much smaller a phone the same monthly room buys once interest is added.
iPhone 18 price in India: should you buy it?
Every September the same question comes up: can I afford the new iPhone? The iPhone 18 lineup lands at the same price tier as the iPhone 17 series, which ranged from ₹82,900 for the base model to ₹1,49,900 for the Pro Max. If Apple keeps that pricing, the one-month rule says the base iPhone 18 needs a take-home of about ₹83,000 a month, and the Pro models need ₹1.35 to ₹1.5 lakh. Exchange offers and bank discounts lower the effective price, so enter the final price you would actually pay.
The trap is the no-cost EMI. A 24-month EMI on a ₹1,40,000 iPhone 18 Pro is about ₹5,800 a month, which looks harmless. But if you already pay a laptop or credit card EMI, that ₹5,800 pushes your non-essential EMIs past 10% of take-home on most salaries. The calculator catches that: switch to dream phone mode, enter the iPhone 18 price, and it shows both the salary the phone needs and which cap is stopping you. If the answer is not yet, the phones within your budget list gives you the best phone you can buy today without the stretch.
What the share of annual income tells you
The calculator divides the phone price by your annual take-home and by the number of years you keep it. Under 3% a year is sensible. Above 8% you are overspending on a phone relative to your income, even if the EMI feels manageable month to month.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I spend on a phone based on my salary?
A simple rule: spend at most one month of take-home salary on a phone. On a ₹30,000 take-home that is a ₹30,000 phone, on ₹75,000 it is a ₹75,000 phone. If you buy on EMI, the phone also has to fit inside your EMI room: all EMIs together under 50% of take-home, and non-essential EMIs (phone, laptop, TV, credit card) under 10%. The calculator applies both checks and shows the lower figure.
What is the 1 / 3 / 50 / 10 rule for buying a phone?
- 1: the phone costs at most one month of take-home salary. Lower is better.
- 3: you keep it for at least three years. Higher is better.
- 50: all your EMIs together stay under 50% of take-home. Check this first.
- 10: non-essential EMIs alone stay under 10% of take-home. A separate, tighter cap that applies on its own, even when the fifty has room.
These are not magic numbers. They are conservative defaults, and the calculator lets you change each one to build your own version of the rule.
Which phone can I afford on a ₹25,000 salary?
With no other EMIs, the one-month rule gives you a ₹25,000 budget. That covers most of the strong mid-range Android phones. Add an existing EMI and the budget can drop fast: the calculator's phone list updates as you change your numbers, so enter your real situation rather than relying on the headline figure.
Can I use this as an iPhone affordability calculator?
Yes. Switch to the dream phone mode, enter the price of the iPhone you want, and the calculator shows the take-home salary that phone really needs, which of the three checks is stopping you, and what the difference is worth if you buy within your budget instead.
Can I afford the iPhone 18 on my salary?
Use the dream phone mode and enter the iPhone 18 price in India for the model you want. Apple announces India prices at launch, and the previous generation is a good guide: the iPhone 17 started at ₹82,900, the iPhone 17 Pro at ₹1,34,900 and the iPhone 17 Pro Max at ₹1,49,900. Under the one-month rule, an iPhone 18 Pro needs a take-home of roughly ₹1.3 to ₹1.5 lakh a month. On a 12-month no-cost EMI the monthly payment on a ₹1,40,000 phone is about ₹11,700, which alone is more than the 10% non-essential EMI cap on any salary under ₹1,17,000.
Does a no-cost EMI make an expensive phone affordable?
No. A no-cost EMI removes the interest, not the price. The phone still has to fit the one-month price rule and your EMI room under the 50% and 10% caps. With interest, the same monthly room buys a smaller phone, which is why the calculator asks for the rate.
Why does the calculator say my phone budget is zero?
Because your existing EMIs already use up one of the caps. If all your EMIs are at 50% of take-home, or your non-essential EMIs are already at 10%, there is no room for another EMI. The right move is to save up and pay cash, or to clear an existing EMI first. Set the tenure to 0 to see your cash budget.
What salary do I need for a ₹1.5 lakh phone?
Under the one-month price rule, a ₹1,50,000 phone needs a ₹1,50,000 take-home. On a 12-month no-cost EMI the monthly payment is ₹12,500, so with ₹15,000 of essential EMIs and ₹5,000 of non-essential EMIs already, the 10% cap pushes the required salary to ₹1,75,000. The dream phone mode works this out for your own numbers.
How does the phone affordability calculator work?
- It adds up the EMIs you already pay and checks them against the 50% cap on all EMIs and the 10% cap on non-essential EMIs.
- The room left under whichever cap is tighter is your monthly EMI room for a new phone.
- That room is converted into a phone price over your tenure, at your interest rate. With 0% it is simply room times months.
- The answer is the lower of that figure and the one-month price rule.
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