How much does the 737 max cost?

Manufacturers used to publish annual catalogue prices. Boeing's final list, in 2019, put the 737 MAX 7 at $99.7 million, the MAX 8 at $121.6 million, the MAX 9 at $128.9 million and the MAX 10 at $134.9 million. Then it stopped, as Airbus had a year earlier. The reasoning was straightforward: published figures had drifted so far from signed contracts that quoting them misled everyone, and neither company wanted to keep feeding a number nobody paid.

A campaign price turns on order size, delivery slots, the value of being a launch or reference customer, credit memos for spares and training, escalation formulas indexed to labour and materials, and residual-value or buy-back guarantees. Those terms are contractual secrets on both sides; even airline annual reports disclose aircraft commitments in aggregate, never per unit. Two carriers taking identical aeroplanes in the same month can pay materially different amounts, and a lessor ordering two hundred frames is not in the same conversation as a flag carrier taking six.

Because of all this, the headline value still occasionally attached to a new order is a marketing figure rather than revenue. A more useful anchor is what the aircraft costs to own and operate: fuel burn per seat, maintenance intervals, engine shop-visit costs and the resale value eight to twelve years out, which is where narrowbody economics are genuinely decided. The purchase invoice is only the opening line of a twenty-year spreadsheet, and airlines choose between types on the rest of it.