Raspberry Pi 5 gets much more expensive amid the AI boom: 16 GB boards now cost as much as a laptop

Raspberry Pi is getting more expensive again: higher-end boards with large memory in 2026 have increased so sharply that two Raspberry Pi 5 units with 16 GB are now comparable in price to a laptop. The main reason is not the board itself, but a sharp increase in memory prices, which market participants link to the AI data center boom.

Why this happened

On April 1, 2026, Raspberry Pi announced a new round of price increases, having previously raised them on February 1. In an official statement, the company directly explained the reason: the procurement cost of LPDDR4 DRAM, which is used in Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5, has increased roughly sevenfold over the past year. For an ecosystem that has always been sold as an accessible platform for learning, hobbies, and embedded projects, this is a painful shift: what's getting expensive is not a premium accessory, but a basic component without which boards cannot be manufactured.

Pressure is coming not just from the ordinary electronics segment. As AI companies scale their infrastructure, memory manufacturers are increasingly willing to switch to higher-margin orders for servers and accelerators. Framework provides a telling scale in its analysis: one NVIDIA GB300 rack uses approximately 20 TB of HBM3E and 17 TB of LPDDR5X — this volume of LPDDR5X would be enough for about a thousand laptops.

When large data centers purchase such racks by the thousands, budget devices like Raspberry Pi end up at the back of the queue.

"We want customers to not pay for memory they don't need."

Where the increase hit harder

The price increases hit hardest on configurations that already had more memory, and now it has become truly expensive. The April round affected Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 with 4 GB and above, Raspberry Pi 500 and 500+, Compute Module 4 and 4S, select versions of Compute Module 5, and even the CM5 developer kit. In practice, this means the familiar logic of "I'll get the higher version with headroom" no longer works: memory headroom is now too expensive, especially if buying multiple boards at once for testing, labs, or a small team.

• Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 with 4 GB: approximately +$25 combined
• 8 GB versions: approximately +$50 combined
• Raspberry Pi 5 with 16 GB: approximately +$100 combined
• Raspberry Pi 500: about +$50, Raspberry Pi 500+: about +$150
• Some versions of Compute Module 5, CM5 Dev Kit, and AI HAT+ 2 also increased in price

Looking at the timeline, the market began pressuring Raspberry Pi as far back as late 2025: on December 1, the company was already warning about rising memory prices and raising the cost of some models. The February increase added another $10 to $60 depending on RAM capacity, and April solidified the new reality. That's why comparing two top-end Raspberry Pi 5 models to a full laptop no longer seems like an exaggeration: in the segment of top configurations, single-board computers have ceased to be an automatic "cheap computer."

How not to overpay

Raspberry Pi itself offers the most practical way to save: stop buying memory "just in case." For Home Assistant, Pi-hole, controllers, kiosks, retro projects, educational setups, and most embedded tasks, 8 or 16 GB are often simply unnecessary. The company directly promotes the idea of precise memory selection matched to the task, while simultaneously expanding mid-range options so users don't have to overpay for excessive configurations.

Hence the launch of a 3 GB Raspberry Pi 4 at $83.75 — an attempt to fill the gap between basic models and already too-expensive higher-end versions. There's a more practical conclusion as well: if you don't need GPIO, a compact industrial board, or the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, but just a small computer, it's now worth honestly comparing Pi with mini PCs and affordable laptops.

Devices like the Pi 400, as well as the Zero, Zero 2 W, and Raspberry Pi 3 lines, which use a different type of memory and weren't hit by the current price increase, look notably more rational. The secondary market is also becoming more interesting: for many tasks, a used board with less RAM is now cheaper than a new top-end version.

What this means

The AI boom is beginning to change prices not just on GPUs and servers, but on ordinary boards for makers and learners. As long as memory manufacturers earn more from infrastructure for models, Raspberry Pi and similar platforms will become more expensive precisely in their higher configurations. The takeaway for buyers is simple: get exactly the amount of RAM you really need, and stop assuming any Raspberry Pi is an inherently cheap purchase.