Apple for business, any bulk discounts?

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Have been using iMacs, but may look into Mac mini's. When I looked before I wasn't saving much on mini after buying keyboard. mouse, and monitor.

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Cheapest iMac is $1299. ($1249 at Costco)
Cheapest Mac mini is $699. ($669 at costco). Apple for Education for higher ed students is listed at $649. You probably will not do a ton better than Costco pricing on that volume if I were to guess. And I would guess you would not get beneath education pricing, but I’ve never attempted what you’re asking.

24” monitors start around $100 new. Any old hdmi monitor will work. You may want something nicer. But for general office use for someone who doesn’t really know the difference, the $100-120 Dell/Acer/LG monitor is going to be fine. Your biggest cost variance will be here.
If you currently own 12-15 computers, then you probably on 12-15 mice/keyboards. To upgrade them for the sale of upgrading them would be silly. But if you wanted to, you could even get MacAlly keyboards for $40/pop, and you can get one of about 15 different mice for another $10-20 which, again, for office use is basically ideal.

Anyway, if you budget $60 for mouse/keyboard, you can do a LOT with the other ~$500 on a monitor. Ultra wide and/or dual screens are pretty awesome for productivity if your cloud-based software can stand being managed that way. Some of mine doesn’t play nice, but most of it does. In general, multi-monitor and ultra wide support on Mac is actually a bit “clunky” compared to windows, but there are some third party apps like Magnet that make it usable.


With very little effort, I think you’ll save a bunch or get a better-tailored experience with an m1 mini vs a new iMac if these are the only two machines you are considering. If you do need built-in camera, microphone support, the margin narrows a bit, but there are a lot of business-class monitors in the $250-350 range that include this, most of them being a bit bigger than the 24” iMac.


There’s nothing wrong with an iMac. I personally wouldn’t buy either machine for my business’ use, even though my main laptop is an m1 MacBook Air (there’s just far too much value in off-lease SFF boxes right now, and have plenty of horsepower with no moving parts. I don’t see myself moving away from them unless supply drops/prices jump), but I like the “modular” approach because when you inevitably have one fail in 3-4 years from a power surge/accident/cup of coffee/lemon, I’d rather replace the broken piece than an all-in-one, and if much rather have dual-monitors or an ultra wide than a 24” for pretty much anything I can think of.

Don't do it... Business life is better on a PC, leave the Mac's for your home web surfing.

How are PC's not holding up? I use Apple and PC in the business world for clients so I'm generally curious to your thoughts.

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How are PC's not holding up? I use Apple and PC in the business world for clients so I'm generally curious to your thoughts.

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Probably because he's using a crap W10 AIO PC that he bought for $350 and is trying to compare it to a $1200 apple product

Using HP and Lenovo all in ones. Have issues with drives. Yes they are cheaper than Apple, but I have 7-10 yr old iMacs with no issues.Tried the chrome desktops, but they did not last. In a healthcare business with cloud based software, very little word-processing, Quickbooks on a few. Seems like I really dislike Windows 10 (loved XP) and that may have something to do with my disdain for PC's right now.

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Using HP and Lenovo all in ones. Have issues with drives. Yes they are cheaper than Apple, but I have 7-10 yr old iMacs with no issues.Tried the chrome desktops, but they did not last. In a healthcare business with cloud based software, very little word-processing, Quickbooks on a few. Seems like I really dislike Windows 10 (loved XP) and that may have something to do with my disdain for PC's right now.

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You should really plan a hardware deployment on a five year cycle. Your disdain for Win10 shouldn't be put on the users. You'll have users that love PC and hate Macs and vise versa.

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That makes it even more of a reason to stay away from the Macs.

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From my standpoint, it’s what leveled the playing field. There’s no local files and no local applications. It boils down to the web browser being supported, and web browsing between the two is almost the same. Window management may/may not matter depending on the application and need for multiple sessions/applications within the browser.

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You are going to spend 2K a machine when an $800 Win 10

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I think you’re pretty far off on the cost. Mac mini is within the ballpark of many SFF Win10 boxes with very comparable internet-browsing capabilities. As for all in one machines, you’re spending a lot on an iMac for what you get (compared to a Mini). But base model is a $1250 machine. Storage is essentially irrelevant given the web-based platform for most applications and just how cheap local/network storage is.

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you can actually manage them, join them to a domain/Azure, use policies, etc

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You aren’t incorrect, but practically speaking for the other guy, he’s not going to do this. He’s not interested in this. And he gains very little by doing it. The guy with the power/knowledge to make the capital investment in IT infrastructure is on a message board asking about discounts. There’s probably not an IT guy. There is no domain. The wifi is probably password protected. That’s probably the extent of the network, and it probably isn’t growing in the future.
It isn’t “best practice,” but it’s how the vast majority of small offices that I’ve seen run.