16GB Raspberry Pi 5 hiked to $385, more than triple its launch price — makers are already shifting to Pico/ESP32 for small projects, mini PCs for more ambitious tasks

Raspberry Pi boss Eben Upton has officially announced price rises for some 16GB products. Specifically, the price of the 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 is being raised by $80 to $385, and the 16GB Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 will go up by $40. In a glimmer of better news, the price of the Raspberry Pi 500+ all-in-one desktop, which also features a 16GB model, is being held, but it was already rather pricey.

Upton framed the decision to raise prices as being due to “the steep rises in the cost of memory over the past two years.” He explained that other computer makers have had to make similar decisions recently. That sounds fair, and he added that Raspberry Pi had been doing what they could to minimize costs passed on to customers.

The price rise of the headline 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 to $385 is effective immediately. As is the $40 increase to the CM5 16GB variant. Of course, both these 16GB devices have seen prior increases in price since being launched at $120 and $135, respectively.

Some moderately good news was that there would be no price increase today for the Raspberry Pi 500+ 16GB all-in-one keyboard wedge computer. Upton didn’t mention that this is already rather expensive at $485, though.

Indeed, there have been several waves of price increases affecting Pis since the components RAMpocalypse began. Only a month ago we saw a similar cost-of-memory post by Upton on the official blog, this time accompanied by news that there were price increases being implemented for the 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 models. Prices of both rose by $12.50, to $67.50 and $77.50, respectively. Perhaps this price gulf between the 2GB and 16GB Pi 5 helps highlight the heavy impact of RAM pricing even more clearly than today’s blog. 1GB devices haven’t seen price rises recently.

The price rises, and comparison in prices between high-and-low memory density models makes it all the more important “to make sure you’re not paying for more memory than you need,” indicates the Raspberry Pi blog about the latest price increases. Sadly for the Pi business, hobbyists and makers already seem to be moving away from the full-sized Pi and CM products for many DIY projects.

The Pi/pricing relationship

Higher pricing is affecting all sorts of computer products, but it might have a particular impact on Raspberry Pi’s business. Generations of this device were explicitly designed around a strict budget constraint, and very famously stuck to a $25–$35 target price for many years.

Now the core Raspberry Pi business is being squeezed by simpler microcontrollers at the low end, where the use of Picos and ESP32 boards have become increasingly popular for small projects. At the other end of the market, with some Pis approaching $400 or $500, makers start to eye entry-level x86 SBCs and mini PCs. Even a cheap mini PC can be powerful with a stronger CPU, GPU, NPU, and more. Mini PCs can win on flexibility and expandability too, and there’s a wide variety to choose from capable of running the most popular and capable OSes and applications.

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