Raspberry Pi 5 and Pi 4 price hikes now in place due to industry-wide memory shortages
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After sharing a similar update in October this year, Raspberry Pi has announced a new round of price changes, and this time, both the Raspberry Pi 4 and the Raspberry Pi 5 are seeing price increases. This update is meant to help the company deal with the rising cost of LPDDR4 memory as stock becomes scarce. The hardware has become much more expensive due to high demand in the tech world, especially with the ongoing boom in AI hardware.
Raspberry Pi has always focused on keeping prices low. It’s a big part of their mission. For example, the 1GB Raspberry Pi 4 still sells for $35, the same price as the original Raspberry Pi 1 with only 256MB of RAM back in 2012. Over the years, the company has also introduced cheaper options like the $10 Raspberry Pi Zero and the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico. Because of this, any price increase is a big deal for the community.
All the Raspberry Pi 5 and Raspberry Pi 4 price increases
The company explained that the cost of memory has gone up so much that they can no longer absorb it. To keep production steady and secure memory supplies for the coming year, they are adjusting prices on several models.
Along with the price increases, Raspberry Pi has shared one piece of good news: a new 1GB Raspberry Pi 5 is now available for $45. This brings the newest Pi to a more affordable price point, making it easier for hobbyists, students, and makers to try the latest model. It still comes with the powerful quad-core 2.4GHz Cortex-A76 CPU, dual-band WiFi, and PCIe support.
In any case, here are the new prices that take effect immediately:
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*Prices and savings subject to change. Click through to get the current prices.
| Product | RAM | Old price | New price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 4 | 4GB | $55 | $60 |
| Raspberry Pi 4 | 8GB | $75 | $85 |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | 1GB | – | $45 |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | 2GB | $50 | $55 |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | 4GB | $60 | $70 |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | 8GB | $80 | $95 |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | 16GB | $120 | $145 |
Compute Module 5 (16GB variants) is also going up by $20, but older boards like Raspberry Pi 3+, Raspberry Pi Zero, and lower-density Pi 4 models will stay at their current prices.
It is important to keep in mind that Raspberry Pi says this price hike is not permanent. According to their announcement, the surge in memory prices is mainly caused by competition from companies building AI infrastructure. Early in October, OpenAI announced a partnership with Samsung and SK to target “900,000 DRAM wafer starts per month”. They expect this pressure to ease over time. When that happens, they plan to lower prices again.
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