We use some essential cookies to make our website work.

We use optional cookies, as detailed in our cookie policy, to remember your settings and understand how you use our website.

$5–$10 price increases for some 4GB and 8GB products

As many of you are aware, memory prices have been rising rapidly for the last six months. Insatiable demand for High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI applications is competing for fab space with the commodity LPDDR memory used by Raspberry Pi, leading to shortages and price rises. At this point, memory costs roughly 120% more than it did a year ago.

We came into this year holding substantial stockpiles of memory, which has allowed us to hold prices flat. However, we’ve now reached the point where we have to pass some of this cost on. With effect from today, we’re making the following changes to pricing:

In the case of Compute Module 4, this exactly reverses price cuts that we made earlier this year. We’ve been able to hold the Raspberry Pi 500 kit price at $120 by accepting a heavily reduced margin. 1GB and 2GB products are not affected, as the impact of the memory price increases is not so pronounced at these densities.

At the same time, we’re increasing the price of Raspberry Pi 3B+ by $5 to $40 and reducing the price of Compute Module 1 by $5 to $25, reflecting changes to the underlying (non-memory) cost structure of these older products. No other “classic” Raspberry Pi products are affected.

Low, stable prices are an important part of what makes Raspberry Pi special, and these changes reflect the exceptional nature of the current environment. We look forward to reversing them once memory prices return to their long-term downward trajectory.

16 comments

mrlinux2u avatar

Very understandable given the additional costs you’re facing.

Gordon77 avatar

Understandable, but good you have kept pi4, pi5 etc the same..

Helen Lynn avatar

Yes, the only products of which the prices have changed are the ones listed in the post.

Graham Jackson avatar

No mention of the Pi 500+ in the post, but I see the price has increased roughly £20 on retail supplier web sites.

Ashley Whittaker avatar

All of our Approved Resellers are required to sell Raspberry Pi 500+ at our set price of $200. You may be seeing local tariffs or shipping costs bumping up the price.

mrlinux2u avatar

Looking at my Invoice for my Pi 500+ (from The Pi Hut) from last week it appears the price was reduced down from £192.00 to £172.80 (plus £3.90 postage) and I did see the same price on other UK Resellers websites until this morning.

I’m not sure why they sold them at a reduced price until today but even at £192.00 I’ll be buying another one to replace my Dads old laptop (I’ve already got a 15.6″ Pi monitor at home).

Martin avatar

Hi Eben, can you add more PCIe lanes to RPi?
For more AI, Robotics applications.

James Hughes avatar

That would need a different SoC with more PCI lanes, so not feasible on the current range.

Martin avatar

I know, but maybe on next SoC with RPi 6 or RPi 7?
For more bandwidth with AI accelerators and eGPUs.

gus3 avatar

“Insatiable demand… for AI applications…”

But remember: Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.

Helen McCall avatar

Hi Gus3,
Natural Stupidity is currently causing an AI bubble in the financial markets; which looks like it is close to bursting. When the bubble bursts, the AI companies which go bust will have their remaining assets disposed by the official receiver. The resulting glut of stocks of RAM should cause the price to drop like a stone. When the price goes back down, Eben has promised the Raspberry Pi prices will also go back down.

Paul S avatar

Springboard to LPDDR5 and a new SOC for RPI 6.

mrlinux2U avatar

After 44 years of using computers (ZX81 was my 1st of many) and I’m still waiting for real ‘AI’ to appear (maybe another 44 years?).

The mind boggling amounts of money getting thrown at so called ‘AI’ is just silly and just think how much good could be done with the hundreds of billions being wasted – personally I’m getting the popcorn ready for when the latest tech bubble finally bursts.

Helen McCall avatar

Hi Mrlinux2U,
With my 60 years of computing experience, I am greatly impressed at the way Raspberry Pi Ltd have been riding the storm of this AI bubble, and the Trump war against humanity.

mrlinux2u avatar

Hi Helen,
The AI bubble will eventually burst and join the pile of silly ideas that we’ve seen over recent years (3D TVs and the metaverse to name a few).

Christopher Herman Becker avatar

Thank you all so very much for all your hard work! You are in my prayers!

Comments are closed