The cheapest place to buy the Google Pixel 9a

There’s still an element of mystery surrounding the Google Pixel 9a release. Despite launching, the latest Android phone isn’t even available for pre-order yet, giving buyers a bit more time to mull over their decision. One of the biggest selling points of the device is the sticker price, which is $499 plus tax in the US. Even if that puts it in mid-range territory, many people will be interested to know if they can get a better deal on it, and we can look abroad for clues. The phone retails for a different price in each country, which led us to wonder where’s the cheapest place to buy the Pixel 9a. We did the research, and you can find the answer below.

We’re just looking at the base 128GB model for this comparison, mainly because Google has only announced the price of this configuration in most territories. That said, these price structures are always relative, so knowing that the base model is the cheapest or most expensive in any particular country will tell you if it’s the same case for the higher-spec version.

What’s the cheapest place to buy the Pixel 9a?

We visited the online Google store for every country that has one, noting the starting price of the Pixel 9a. We then converted those various currencies into equivalent amounts in US dollars, ordered them from cheapest to most expensive, and put them in the table below.

There’s one exception to that, which you may have spotted already. The US price in the table includes an approximate 10% sales tax to reflect what an American would pay for the handset. We’re looking at this from the point of view of a US resident at home or abroad, and you can often avoid or claim back this sales tax when you buy something in a foreign nation. It isn’t a perfect metric, which we’ll get on to later, but this at least gives you an idea of where the phone might be cheaper or more expensive.

In some cases, the listed price includes the local sales tax, saving you a little more if you’re able to claim it back before leaving the country.

The cheapest place in the world to buy the Pixel 9a is Canada — at least, in theory. The device will be available for the equivalent of just $474 for our neighbors to the north, which is $25 less than Taiwan in second place and around $75 less than what a US buyer is paying post-tax.

The big caveat here is that it’s actually very difficult to avoid paying sales tax in Canada, even if you’re a tourist. Tax rules can get very complicated, especially as they’re country-specific, and we’re potentially talking about moving across borders. However, the bottom line here is that most taxpayers won’t actually get the device for less than $500 by the time they reach the checkout.

Even when sales tax has been levied on American buyers, Google’s home country is still one of the cheapest places in the world. The US is fourth on the list and almost $100 cheaper than parts of Europe.

At the wrong end of the scale for buyers is Sweden, where the Pixel 9a will cost the equivalent of $649. The UK is only a couple of bucks cheaper at $647. It might seem strange to some people that there could be such a big price disparity for the same piece of hardware, but we’ll take a look at why that might be below.

In addition to the 256GB price, there are other unknowns about international Pixel 9a pricing. For example, at the time of writing, neither Japan nor India has the price of the base model listed on their respective Google Store websites. Japan is often one of the cheapest nations to buy new Android phones when conducting these types of comparisons, so we’ll be interested to see where it ranks once the phone becomes available.

Since the phone isn’t even on sale yet, you should be very wary if you see it advertised below the retail price in the next few weeks. This doesn’t have to be something nefarious, but it could be that the deal refers to a carrier offer, a trade-in, or some other strings-attached offer. This might not always be obvious, especially if you’re in an unfamiliar country.

There are also vendors in some countries who completely misrepresent what they’re selling, which is why you need to be alert to this possibility. Third-party outlets could be selling stolen goods or even just reconditioned devices that have been returned but labeled as brand new. There’s also a market for fake flagship phones, which might look like the real thing but have vastly inferior software.

Should I buy the Pixel 9a from another country?

It’s not for us to tell you when or where to buy your tech, but there’s little advantage to be gained for an American buying the Pixel 9a abroad. This has probably occurred to you already, but as one of the cheapest countries on the list, you can’t do a whole lot better in terms of price than in the US. On top of that, as we’ve already touched on, crossing the border to Canada isn’t necessarily going to get you the savings that the table suggests due to sales tax.

Even if you did decide to pick up the device on your travels, you might have a big problem trying to use the warranty back home if something is wrong with it. There are other hidden risks, too, such as whether you might be questioned at US customs about whether you need to pay any sort of import taxes when you return.

Besides, you probably won’t have to wait more than a few months to see the Pixel 9a on sale in the US — Prime Day in July immediately springs to mind. If you can’t wait that long, you could consider carrier offers. Some of them will probably give you the phone for free with the right plan commitment. You could also consider one of the Pixel 9a alternatives.

It might cost Google the same amount to produce each handset, but the costs of getting them onto the shelves in each country will be starkly different. There are import taxes, shipping costs, labor overheads, and many other nation-specific charges to take into account. All of these regional costs need to be absorbed into the final sticker price of the phone wherever it’s sold.

Google is also a money-making machine. In addition to the cost of getting the Pixel 9a to market, the best price to charge for it is whatever the locals will pay for it. This means factors such as disposable income and spending power come into play. We might suppose that this could be one reason why places like Sweden are high on the list.

Last but not least, a comparison in US dollars is going to be susceptible to exchange rate fluctuations. The political landscape at the moment is certainly taking its toll on the foreign exchange rates, sending volatile movements through the FX market. The order of the table above probably changes on a weekly basis, which is one of the reasons that we’ll revisit this analysis periodically.