The 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 now sells for $385 after an $80 price increase. That is more than triple the $120 price the board carried when it launched.
Raspberry Pi also raised prices on the 16GB Compute Module 5. That module now costs between $375 and $415 after a $40 increase.
CEO Eben Upton blamed the move on a lack of alternative supply for 16GB DRAM. He said shortages for other components added pressure to the same bill of materials.
“Though these increases are unavoidable, we know they are unwelcome news for our customers,” Upton wrote. He told buyers to make sure they are not paying for more memory than they need.
Cheaper boards stay available
Upton pointed users toward configurations with less memory or older Pi models. Those options remain cheaper, though they may not fit workloads that need a large in-memory database or a local AI model.
The 2GB Raspberry Pi 5 also received a price increase last month. The hikes now touch most of the current lineup, not just the top tier.
At $385, the 16GB board sits close to the price of a desktop mini PC. A small x86 machine with 16GB of RAM often costs about the same and ships with a case, storage, and a power supply.
A memory market problem, not a Pi problem
The increase reflects a wider memory shortage. DRAM prices have climbed through 2026 as data center operators buy capacity for AI training clusters. Samsung has said the shortage could last until at least 2028.
That pressure reaches hobbyist hardware first. Makers work on thin margins, and a $40 jump in memory cost wipes out the profit on a $60 board.
Upton said the company plans to reverse the increases. “The current memory landscape is difficult but ultimately temporary, and we look forward to rolling back our price increases when memory costs fall once again,” he wrote.
Buyers who need a 16GB Pi for a project this winter should budget for the new price. Anyone waiting for a discount may wait a long time, because the shortage is forecast to run for two more years.
Read the full report at The Verge. For more hardware coverage, see our HomePod Mini 2 first look and our report on Meta ending Quest 2 updates.
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