Raspberry Pi lifts 16GB Pi 5 to $385 in fourth memory-driven rise

Buyers on a fixed budget face a choice. They can pick a smaller board or a cheap mini PC. Raspberry Pi calls the rises temporary. It has set no date for reversing them.

What changed

Raspberry Pi held the 16GB Raspberry Pi 500+ at $485. The 16GB Compute Module 5 rose $40.

This is the fourth round of increases on the high-memory board. Raspberry Pi added $25 in December, $60 in February and $100 in April. A month before this one, the company lifted the 2GB Pi 4 and Pi 5 by $12.50 each, to $67.50 and $77.50. Boards with 1GB of RAM have not seen recent rises. Eben Upton is Raspberry Pi's boss. He blamed a lack of alternative supply for 16GB DRAM, compounded by other component shortages. Raspberry Pi said it had done what it could to keep costs from reaching customers.

The gap to a $77.50 2GB Pi 5 is the memory bill in plain sight.

Why makers absorb it

For years Raspberry Pi designed the Pi around a $25 to $35 target price. That constraint is gone.

Makers have already started moving. Pico and ESP32 boards are taking the small projects, while entry-level mini PCs and x86 single-board computers absorb the more ambitious ones. Upton's own advice is to buy less memory than you think you need, reuse an older Pi, or tune software to fit. He also warned that a few sellers were exploiting the shortage. They charge inflated prices or ship products that are not what they appear to be. Buyers should stick to approved resellers, he said.

The memory bill behind the board

Contract prices for 16GB DDR5 chips went from $8.70 in October 2025 to $48 by September 2026. That is a rise of more than 550% in twelve months, according to Chen Ching-wen. He is Team Group's chief executive.

Chen said on his company's 2 November earnings call that the shortage will get worse between the end of 2026 and the end of 2027. He expects supply and demand to balance in the second half of 2028 at the earliest. He also said the spread between spot and contract prices for memory chips runs from 30% to 50%. The Guardian reported that AI datacentre demand has driven memory prices up across the industry. Apple's John Ternus called the increases unprecedented. Micron has warned that shortages could drag on into 2028 or beyond.

A promise to roll back

First-half revenue rose 90% to $256.9m and gross profit 79% to $59.4m.

Gross profit per board climbed 53% to $12.20, helped by memory that Raspberry Pi bought before prices went through the roof. The Register reported that this stockpile advantage has since largely disappeared. Upton says the increases are temporary and that the company looks forward to rolling them back when memory costs fall. Chen expects no easing for budget components before 2029.