Starlink has abandoned its longtime practice of selling hardware to customers for a one-time charge, replacing it with a $10 monthly rental fee for the satellite dish and router. The move brings SpaceX’s internet service in line with the rental model cable and telecom companies have used for decades.
The change appears on Starlink’s residential ordering pages, which now show an upfront hardware cost of $0 and a monthly “kit fee” of $10. Customers in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Australia, and Mexico are seeing the new pricing, according to PCMag.
A Starlink support article confirmed that hardware rental is now available “in select countries” and that “Starlink kits may only be rented for Residential service plans.” Customers who rent hardware instead of buying it will not be allowed to pause their service.
The new pricing structure
The $10 kit fee comes on top of recently increased service prices. Starlink now charges $55 per month for 100Mbps service, $85 for 200Mbps, and $130 for the “Max” tier, which can reach up to 400Mbps. Those represent a $5 to $10 increase over previous pricing.
Professional installation is available for a one-time fee of $199, or free with the Max plan. Customers who prefer to own their hardware can still purchase kits from third-party retailers, and existing customers can switch from renting to buying by submitting a support ticket. But the direct Starlink ordering page no longer shows a purchase option.
Why the change matters
Starlink launched in 2020 with a $499 hardware fee, raised it to $599 in 2022, and later shifted to regional pricing. The move to a rental model represents a fundamental change in the company’s relationship with its customers. Instead of selling a product that users own, Starlink is now selling a service for which users pay indefinitely.
The rental model has well-understood advantages for the company. It creates recurring revenue, reduces the barrier to entry for new customers (no large upfront payment), and ensures Starlink retains control over the hardware for maintenance, upgrades, and eventual decommissioning. It also makes switching providers more difficult, since customers who cancel lose access to the dish.
For customers, the calculus is different. A Starlink dish that previously cost $599 upfront and lasted five years would have cost roughly $10 per month in amortized hardware. The new model costs the same $10 per month, but with no path to ownership and no option to pause service and keep the hardware.
The competitive landscape
Starlink, which accounted for $3.26 billion in revenue, has long been SpaceX’s top moneymaker. The company faces growing competition from Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which is preparing to launch its own low-Earth orbit satellite internet constellation. Both companies are racing to sign up customers before the other achieves meaningful coverage.
The rental fee may also reflect changing economics at Starlink. The company has been investing heavily in its second-generation satellite constellation, which requires more capable and expensive user terminals. Spreading hardware costs across monthly payments rather than recognizing them as one-time revenue smooths the financial picture and may make the service more accessible in price-sensitive emerging markets.
For Starlink’s early adopters who paid $599 for a dish, the shift is symbolic as well as financial. The company that built its brand on breaking industry conventions is now adopting one of the most conventional practices in telecom. The prices and the terms look increasingly familiar. That is not necessarily bad for customers, but it marks the end of Starlink’s era as an outlier in the broadband market.
Sources: Ars Technica (June 10, 2026); PCMag (June 9, 2026); Starlink Support (2026)