Raspberry Pi raises 16GB Pi 5 to $385, over triple launch price

The 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 now costs $385, up $80, and the change is effective immediately. It launched in January 2025 at $120. The 16GB Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) rises $40 to $425, from a $135 launch price.¹

Raspberry Pi boss Eben Upton blamed the steep rises in memory costs over the past two years, and said other computer makers have had to make similar decisions. He added that Raspberry Pi had been working to limit what gets passed on to customers.¹

The 16GB Raspberry Pi 500+, an all-in-one keyboard computer, keeps its $485 price, though that is already well above its $199 launch figure.¹

This is not the first increase. A month ago, the 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and Pi 5 each rose $12.50, to $67.50 and $77.50 respectively. Set that beside the $385 for 16GB and you can see how much of a Pi’s price is now memory. The 1GB boards have not risen recently.¹

The Raspberry Pi blog says the gap makes it more important not to pay for more memory than you need.¹

There is a market effect too. The Pi was built around a strict budget, and for years it held to a $25 to $35 target price. At the top end, with some Pis near $400 or $500, builders are eyeing entry-level x86 single-board computers and mini PCs, which can bring a stronger CPU, GPU and NPU (a chip for AI tasks) and more room to expand.¹

Our read: Think of a Pi’s parts list like a bench drawer where one item has quietly become the priciest thing in it. At $385, the 16GB Pi 5 costs more than triple what it did at launch, and the 2GB-versus-16GB gap shows where the money goes. That is my analysis, and it rests on the price figures above. It would be wrong if Raspberry Pi’s costs turn out to be driven by something other than memory, and the source does not say how much of the increase comes from memory alone.

On the bench: if you are planning a build, pick the smallest memory size your project truly needs, and price a mini PC against any Pi that creeps toward $400.¹

Footnotes

1. Tom’s Hardware, “16GB Raspberry Pi 5 hiked to $385, more than triple its launch price”. Retrieved November 2, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷