Raspberry Pi 5 16GB Hits $385 After Second $80 RAM-Driven Price Hike

The 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 now costs $385, after an $80 price increase that the company describes as unavoidable. That figure matters for one simple reason: the board launched at $120. In less than the lifetime of a single product generation, the top-spec Pi 5 has more than tripled in price, and memory supply, not design cost, is the reason.

The increase lands as part of a broader pattern. Raspberry Pi has raised prices across its lineup during the ongoing RAM shortage, and the 16GB configurations sit at the sharp end of that trend. Higher-capacity DRAM is scarcer than lower-capacity parts, and that scarcity now flows directly into retail pricing.

What exactly changed in price?

Two product families moved in this round of increases:

• Raspberry Pi 5, 16GB: up $80, now $385 — more than triple its $120 launch price.
• Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, 16GB variants: up $40, now priced between $375 and $415.

The Compute Module 5 is the industrial-facing member of the family, built for embedded products rather than desktop tinkering. A $40 rise on that line matters beyond hobbyist budgets, because module pricing feeds into the bill of materials of commercial products that ship in volume. Customers who designed a product around the 16GB module now face a higher unit cost on every board they buy.

Why is 16GB DRAM the bottleneck?

Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton attributed the increases specifically to a lack of "alternative supply" for 16GB DRAM, layered on top of shortages affecting other components as well. In plain terms, the company cannot simply switch to another supplier or another memory part for these configurations; the sourcing options do not exist at acceptable cost.

Upton acknowledged the impact on customers directly. "Though these increases are unavoidable, we know they are unwelcome news for our customers," he said. The framing is notable: Raspberry Pi is not presenting the hikes as a margin decision but as a pass-through of component-market reality.

The wider context is the RAM shortage that has pushed memory pricing upward across the computing market, not just on single-board computers. When a commodity input rises in price, low-cost platforms feel it hardest, because memory can grow from a modest slice of a $120 bill of materials into the dominant share of a $385 one.

What does this mean for buyers?

For anyone planning a build around the 16GB Pi 5, the practical consequence is straightforward: budget at $385, and treat the older price as history. Upton encouraged customers to consider their options in light of the new pricing — lower-capacity variants face less severe DRAM pressure, and remain the cheaper route where 16GB is not genuinely required.

For industrial users of the Compute Module 5, the calculation is harder. A product designed around 16GB cannot easily be re-specced downward without engineering work, so many will absorb the $40 increase rather than redesign.

Unless DRAM supply conditions ease, the pressure on high-capacity configurations looks set to continue, and Raspberry Pi's pricing will keep tracking the memory market rather than its own launch prices.