Beats 360 Pre-Orders Hide a $9.99 Cushion Clock

Beats opened pre-orders for the $349.99 Beats 360 on September 22 and priced extra Cushion Kits at $9.99 through October 31. In-store stock follows on September 24. The headphones are the story on the box; the clock on the pads is the part that changes how people buy them.

Each kit is $49.99 from November 1. Apple also cut Beats Studio Pro to $299.99 on its own shelves the same day, while Amazon still lists that 2023 flagship at $169.95.

A $9.99 Kit That Reverts on November 1

Beats is selling the pads as a separate product, not a free color chip. A Cushion Kit is a matched set of ear cups and a headband pad, in Performance Knit or UltraPlush, and the special introductory pricing of $9.99 runs only from September 22 through October 31 at apple.com, the Apple Store app, and U.S. Apple retail stores. The cap is three kits per customer, taxes extra, no stacking with other Beats offers, and supplies can run out. On November 1 the same SKU is $49.99.

That is a 40-day window if you count both end dates. Three kits cost $29.97 before tax now and $149.97 after Halloween, a $120 swing for the same foam and fabric. Amazon listings put Performance Knit and UltraPlush kits at $9.99 too, even though Beats wrote the intro terms for Apple’s own channels.

The offer is live in the United States, Canada, the U.K., France, Australia, South Korea, and China. Everywhere else the kits already sit at the standard $49.99 (or the local list).

THE 360 LAUNCH CALENDAR

1. September 22, 2026: Pre-orders open at $349.99 and Cushion Kits go on sale at $9.99, three per customer.
2. September 24, 2026: In-store and on-shelf stock begins in more than 100 countries.
3. October 31, 2026: Last day of the $9.99 kit price in the listed markets.
4. November 1, 2026: Kit price returns to $49.99.

Forty dollars off a pad set is the hook. Training people to keep spare knit pads by the gym bag, then charging $49.99 a set once the habit is set, is the business that outlives launch week.

Beats 360 Lands at $349.99 With IPX4

Culver City’s pitch is the first customizable over-ear headphone from Beats, with interchangeable ear and headband cushions plus what the brand calls its strongest noise cancelling. Apple’s store lists a Cloud pair listed at $349.99 and 294.5 g (10.39 oz), in four body colors: Black, Cloud, Pink, and Sky, each shipping with matching Performance Knit pads. Extra USB-C cables and power adapters are sold separately. A woven ripstop case is in the box.

We combined our most advanced acoustic performance ever with a perfectly balanced design that moves effortlessly with you. And with our new interchangeable cushions, our customers can express themselves in a way no other over-ear headphone can.

Oliver Schusser, vice president of Music, Sports, and Beats at Apple, Beats 360 launch

The campaign line is “For every version of you,” which is also how the brand announced the pair on X.

For every version of you. Beats 360, with interchangeable cushions.

Available online now.

Beats 360 sold with color-matched ear and headband cushions; additional cushion kits sold separately. pic.twitter.com/ocNX4ljPsK

— Beats by Dre (@beatsbydre) September 22, 2026

Beats rates total noise cancelling at up to 1.75x the Studio Pro figure when active and passive isolation are combined under IEC 60268-24. Drivers use three-layer diaphragms and dual neodymium magnets. Transparency mode, Adaptive EQ, and Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking sit on top, with a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope in the left cup. Battery life is up to 32 hours with ANC and Personalized Spatial Audio on, and the same 32 hours with Adaptive EQ when ANC and Transparency are off. Fast Fuel is a five-minute USB-C charge for up to one hour of playback.

Performance Knit Versus UltraPlush

Two pad materials ship as kits. Performance Knit wraps memory foam in a breathable diamond knit, each strand made from 36 micro-threads, and Beats aimed that stack at workouts. UltraPlush uses the same seamless engineered leather as Studio Pro and Solo 4 for longer indoor wear. Ear pads are shaped for a seal; the headband pad is there to spread weight across a slim arc that no longer has to hide a cable run, which is the trade that made the wireless-first chassis possible.

IPX4 is the other first. Beats 360 is the brand’s first over-ear set rated sweat and water resistant under IEC 60529, for non-water sports and exercise, and the fine print says that rating can fade with wear. Do not charge them wet; Apple publishes cleaning and drying instructions for wet 360s. Hands-on testers who lived with the knit pads say they twist off to wipe down or wash, and they keep them out of the dryer because the foam can sag.

Nine Mics and a Custom Beats Chip

A custom Beats chip, not Apple’s H2, runs Class 1 Bluetooth 5.3. Apple-side features now include one-touch pairing, always-on Hey Siri, automatic switching, Audio Sharing, Spatial FaceTime, and Find My with network location, which needs iOS 27 or later. Android gets Fast Pair, Audio switch, and Find Hub; the Beats app wants Android 15 or later. Nine digital MEMS microphones sit in the cups, eight for ANC and three for voice, with two shared. Call pickup uses a beam-forming voice mic plus feed-forward mics, and the system can borrow extra mics when they hear a cleaner signal.

On-device controls are physical. Volume and play/pause live on the right cup; power and listening mode live on the left. There are no wear-detection sensors. Recycled content is part of the spec sheet too: 80 percent recycled plastic in ear cups, speaker enclosures, and some internals, the highest share Beats has used, plus 100 percent recycled rare earths in the magnets and plant-based packaging fiber.

Studio Pro’s New $299.99 Apple Price

Beats did not leave the last over-ear flagship at its old $349.99 list. The 2023 Studio Pro is now $299.99 at apple.com and Apple Stores, a $50 gap under the 360, while Amazon still has it at $169.95. That street price is $180.04 under the 360, which is the comparison most people will actually make if they shop both listings on the same day.

The 360 is also 34.5 g heavier than Studio Pro (260 g, 9.17 oz on Apple’s own spec). The gym pitch is the IPX4 rating and the washable knit, not a lighter frame than the last Beats over-ear. Studio Pro still wins on ANC-off runtime, up to 40 hours, and it still ships with a USB-C cable that carries audio plus a 3.5 mm analog cable. The 360 ships neither.

360 VERSUS STUDIO PRO AT LIST

If you want a jack, lossless USB-C listening, and a cable in the carton, the older pair still does that work at a lower ticket. If you want pads you can twist off after a run, and a splash rating, the 360 is the one Beats will sell you at full price.

Older Beats Models Sit at Clearance Prices

Amazon’s 360 pre-order pages lead with Black and Cloud, plus a bundle built around the swap kits. Apple’s own configurator lists Pink and Sky as well, so the two extra body colors are the reason to start on apple.com if those are the frames you want. The rest of the Beats rack on Amazon reads like a warehouse making room.

AMAZON BEATS CUTS NEXT TO THE 360

• Beats Solo Buds: $69.95, down from $79.99.
• Beats Studio Buds+: $99.95, down from $169.95.
• Beats Pill: $99.95, down from $149.95.
• Beats Solo 4: $129.95, down from $199.95.
• Powerbeats Fit: $169.95, down from $199.99, the same dollar figure as Studio Pro on Amazon.
• Beats Studio Pro: $169.95, down from $299.99.
• Powerbeats Pro 2: $199.95, down from $249.99.

Those cuts sit in the same cart as a $349.99 pre-order, which is a blunt merchandising choice. The 360 has to beat a speaker, a pair of buds, and last year’s over-ears that now cost less than half. Three regular-price cushion kits at $149.97 would cost more than the Pill or the Studio Buds+ on that list, which is why the $9.99 teaser exists at all.

Wireless-First Means No Jack and No Cable

The first question under Beats’ own launch post was whether the 360 works wired. It does not, in any practical sense: there is no analog jack, no USB-C audio path in the box, and no charging cable in the carton. Beats says the wireless-first chassis let engineers spend headband volume on balance instead of cable routing. Studio Pro buyers who still plug into airplanes and mixers keep that option; 360 buyers carry their own USB-C lead for charging only.

The missing H2 chip is the other gap people already know from Studio Pro. Auto-switching and Hey Siri finally show up on this Beats silicon generation, so the practical Apple gap is narrower than it was, but Spatial Audio still wants an iPhone TrueDepth pass to build a personal profile, and Find My’s network trick wants iOS 27. The 360 arrives in the same stretch as iPhone 18 Pro pre-orders, which is a hard week to ask for another $349.99, and the muted Black-Cloud-Pink-Sky set skips the old Beats red entirely. Navy and Volt exist only as knit kits, not as frames.

Eight Kits Make 256 Color Mixes

The headphone ships with one color-matched Performance Knit set. Extra Performance Knit kits come in Black, Cloud, Pink, Sky, Navy, and Volt. UltraPlush kits come in Black and Cloud. That is eight kits. Ear pads and headband pads swap independently, and the frame is one of four colors, so 4 frames × 8 ear kits × 8 headband kits is 256 mixes if you actually buy the extras and cross them.

THE EIGHT CUSHION KITS

• Performance Knit: Black, Cloud, Pink, Sky, Navy, Volt.
• UltraPlush: Black, Cloud.
• In the box: One knit set that matches the frame you bought.
• Swap: Twist the ear pad off; snap the headband pad.

At $9.99, loading three kits on the same order is a $29.97 experiment. At $49.99, each new look is a $50 accessory, and the three-kit cap goes away only because the teaser is over. The 360 is a $349.99 headphone with 1.75x the last Beats over-ear’s combined noise cancelling, an IPX4 shell, and 32 hours with ANC on. It is also a pad platform whose real price shows up on November 1, after the $9.99 kits have done their work.