Raspberry Pi boards are getting another price hike, thanks to RAM costs
Raspberry Pi is once again raising prices on most of its single-board computers and Compute Module devices. This is the second price increase in two months attributed to rising RAM prices.
The costs of purchasing RAM and other flash memory have soared in recent months, in part because of manufacturers’ attempts to meet demand for industrial data centers, many of which are being built or expanded to handle generative AI workloads. Higher RAM costs have affected everything from gaming PCs to external SSDs, and Raspberry Pi cards are no exception.
Raspberry Pi has announced a new price increase for most of its products, which the company attributes to “an unprecedented increase in the cost of LPDDR4 memory.” 1GB RAM devices are not affected this time, but the price of all 2GB models is increasing by $10 and 4GB models by $15. 8GB cards get a $30 price hike, and 16GB devices now cost $60 more.
The exact price breakdown of some Raspberry Pi devices is shown below. Computers and computing modules with 1 GB of RAM, such as the new 1 GB Raspberry Pi 5 variant, do not change.
- Pi 4 with 4 GB: previously $60, now $75
- Pi 4 with 8 GB: previously $85, now $115
- Pi 5 with 2 GB: previously $55, now $65
- Pi 5 with 4 GB: previously $70, now $85
- Pi 5 with 8 GB: previously $95, now $125
- Pi 5 with 16 GB: previously $145, now $205
This is the second round of RAM-driven price increases, following the increase from $5 to $25 in December 2025. The blog post explains: “Price increases accelerated as we approach 2026, and the cost of some coins has more than doubled in the last quarter. »
Unfortunately, this means that several Pi computers cost more than twice as much as their original starting price. The Raspberry Pi 5 8GB started at $80 when it was introduced in 2023, and now that same model costs $125, a 208% cost difference.
The good news is that the prices of older Raspberry Pi devices are not changing. The announcement said: “We do not anticipate any change in the price of the Raspberry Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi 3, and other older products, as we currently hold several years of inventory of the LPDDR2 memory they use.” The Raspberry Pi 500 and 500+ with integrated keyboards also remain stable, at $100 and $200, respectively.
It’s certainly not great to see repeated rounds of price hikes on Raspberry Pi boards, but it’s understandable given the circumstances. Pi boards already have razor-thin profit margins, so any change in component costs may cause the Raspberry Pi to lose money on each Pi board sold, instead of breaking even or making a small profit. The company hopes this will only be a temporary change and that Pi boards will eventually return to their original prices, but there’s no way of knowing when the current madness will end.
Source: Raspberry Pi
