Raspberry Pi computers are known as some of the cheapest computers on the market. However, these computers are getting a price hike due to the RAM shortage. On December 1, Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi’s Chief Executive, announced the price hikes effective immediately.
Say Hello to the Price Hikes
The price hikes are up to 21%, which will affect the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB and 8GB, as well as the Raspberry Pi 5 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16 GB. The 1GB Raspberry Pi 5 will remain unaffected at $45. Upton wrote, “to offset the recent unprecedented rise in the cost of LPDDR4 memory, we are announcing price increases to some Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 products. These largely mirror the increases that we announced in October for our Compute Module products, and will help us to secure memory supplies as we navigate an increasingly constrained market in 2026.”
Upton also wrote, “At Raspberry Pi, our mission is to put high-performance, low-cost, general-purpose computers in the hands of people all over the world. For me, the crucial element of that sentence is low-cost.”
He added, “The current pressure on memory prices, driven by competition from the AI infrastructure roll-out, is painful but ultimately temporary. We remain committed to driving down the cost of computing and look forward to unwinding these price increases once it abates.”
Reactions and Feedback
One person commented on Upton’s post, “A nice addition to the Pi 5 range and hopefully the so- called ‘AI’ bubble will explode and everything (especially memory prices) will go back to normal (well until the next big thing comes around).”
Another person commented, “It’s not just some of the Pi’s that have gone [up in price] due to the silly ‘AI’ bubble. It appears that the Raspberry Pi SSD’s are going up (have gone up) in price.” The person added, “It looks like I’ll be putting a hold on getting any more until the prices go back to normal (please ‘AI’ bubble explode into the ether ASAP :D).”
Meanwhile, PC retailer CyberPowerPC will increase prices on prebuilt PCs due to the RAM shortage. The retailer announced the price hikes on X (formerly twitter), which will go into effect December 7. The post said, “We understand that with the holidays around the corner that this situation is not ideal, and we want to remain fully transparent with our community.”
