Samsung announced its New Galaxy Club, which allows you to lock in a guaranteed trade-in value on next year’s Galaxy phone for a monthly fee. If you finance a new Galaxy S25 purchase, Samsung will pay off the remaining balance after one year. You’ll make 50% of the payments and return your phone to Samsung. Sure, you’ll also get Samsung Care+ thrown in, but the deal still tips heavily in Samsung’s favor.
This structure will sound familiar to car buyers or people who finance smartphones through their carriers. You aren’t buying a smartphone from Samsung; you’re leasing one. And no matter what the company offers in trade-in value once the year is over, Samsung is the one that will come out ahead, not you.
The finances don’t make sense
Enhanced trade-in offers are finished
I’m having trouble reconciling Samsung’s numbers in the company’s example for the New Galaxy Club. If I buy a Galaxy S25 Ultra through the program, I can pay $1,300 upfront or $55 a month, plus the additional $8.33 monthly New Galaxy Club fee. Yes, Samsung Care+ does have some value, but any faults with the device are covered under Samsung’s 1-year warranty. So, Samsung Care+ protects me against drops and theft, which may be worth it to some of you, but I’d rather keep that additional $8 a month in my pocket and buy a case, especially since the New Galaxy Club doesn’t score me any savings on the phone itself.
However, it’s not just the financing that throws me off; it’s the trade-in values. Samsung will guarantee a 50% trade-in value on next year’s Galaxy phone. For example, if I purchased my Galaxy S25 Ultra outright, I’d get back $650, or Samsung would waive the remaining $650 balance if I made payments. Either way, I’m capped at a $650 credit. I guess that’s fine, but the problem is that Samsung currently offers a $900 trade-in credit for a Galaxy S24 Ultra on a new Galaxy S25 Ultra. So, either Samsung will have lots of unhappy club members who will be getting ripped off next year, or enhanced trade-in offers on new Galaxy devices will become history.
We could see this coming
You don’t have to innovate if people are just leasing devices
When I saw the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I thought something like this might be in the works. Samsung highlighted carrier upgrade cycles from an earlier Galaxy phone as a reason to upgrade to the company’s new offerings. The sales pitch seemed surprisingly thin for Samsung, especially since overseas Android manufacturers made more significant hardware upgrades to their flagship devices for 2025. Samsung appeared to intentionally launch the least offensive phone possible, with a relatively generic design and iterative feature upgrades. The new 50MP telephoto lens is an improvement, but it hardly makes up for using the same battery technology at the same capacity and charging speeds as the last few generations.
The New Galaxy Club is a preview of how Samsung plans to get us to pay for Galaxy AI.
However, if you’re basically leasing your phone from Samsung, those concerns melt away. You never experience the full price, so your demands for year-over-year improvements won’t be as vocal. I’m disappointed that Samsung didn’t do more with the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but if you’re using it for a year before turning it in for the next one, that’s not what you’re focused on. It’s a way to keep casual users locked into Galaxy phones for the long term, and it’s Samsung’s attempt to duplicate the highly successful carrier finance model that tens of millions of Americans use each year.
Galaxy AI will be rolled into this
It’s a way to ease into payments
The New Galaxy Club is a preview of how Samsung plans to get us to pay for Galaxy AI. I think the only reason it wasn’t included in Samsung’s explanation for the New Galaxy Club is that the company would have to answer questions about pricing for non-club members. However, when pricing for Galaxy AI is discussed later in 2025 as Samsung tries to swap users over to a pay model, I expect the company to use the New Galaxy Club to ease the transition. Instead of paying $20 a month for Galaxy AI, I’m sure it’ll be included in a new $10 a month price tag for the New Galaxy Club. It’s a way for Samsung to save face by still making people pay for Galaxy AI, but it softens the blow for us as the unfortunate souls who have to pay.
It’s also a convenient way for Samsung to make us forget which features will come to older devices. If you trade your phone each year, you don’t have to worry about which new Galaxy AI functions will be added to your year-old device or when they will arrive.
Samsung wants Galaxy users for life
Whether or not you sign up for the New Galaxy Club, Samsung’s direction is clear. The company wants more people on the hook for yearly upgrades and to keep the maximum number of people in its ecosystem. It’s business, and I understand it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it — especially if it means we won’t see the innovation we’re used to from Samsung or the company’s outsized trade-in offers on new devices. I also hope I’m wrong that Galaxy AI isn’t rolled into the program, but I don’t think I am. The smartphone business is changing; I hope we’re not left too far behind.
