Is the Raspberry Pi Still an Affordable SBC? I Don’t Think So

Raspberry Pi, long synonymous with affordable single-board computing and a favorite among many tech and self-hosting enthusiasts, has gone through repeated price increases. Which, understandable, raises a question: can it still be considered an affordable SBC? But let me present you with the chronology.

In the earlier December 2025, the Raspberry Pi Foundation introduced an updated pricing structure for its most popular models. A new 1 GB Raspberry Pi 5 was launched at $45 as a low-cost entry point, but many higher-memory variants saw their prices rise.

Among the changes at that time, 4 GB and 8 GB models in the Raspberry Pi 4 and Pi 5 families increased by roughly $5 to $25 compared with prior MSRPs. The adjustments reflected an “unprecedented rise in the cost of LPDDR4 memory,” the company said, with stronger global demand squeezing supply.

And now, just two months later, there’s another round of price increases affecting most Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 5, and Compute Module 4 and 5 products with 2 GB or more RAM. The latest pricing changes further raise costs based on memory density: $10 for 2 GB, $15 for 4 GB, $30 for 8 GB, and $60 for 16 GB. Models such as the Raspberry Pi 500 and 500+ are also subject to the increases.

Products that remain unaffected include the 1 GB variants of the Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 (such as the new $45 Pi 5), the Raspberry Pi 400 all-in-one keyboard PC, the Raspberry Pi Zero series, older Raspberry Pi 3 boards, and other legacy models that use older LPDDR2 memory, for which the Foundation still holds existing inventory.

To make things clearer, here’s a table that shows how prices have changed over the past few months:

* Raspberry Pi 4 prices for Feb 2026 are approximate inferred totals extrapolating the Feb 2026 memory-driven increases affecting all 4 GB+ models; exact MSRP guidance hasn’t been published for every Pi 4 variant in the Feb announcement.

** Compute Module pricing differs by vendor and configuration; official pricing increments were confirmed, but final MSRP varies by channel and region.

The company cites a global memory shortage that has intensified through late 2025 and early 2026. This is a result of the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure, which has increased demand for LPDDR4 and other DRAM types, reducing available supply for consumer-oriented products.

Yes, these are reasonable arguments, but in the end, many Raspberry Pi configurations now cost substantially more than their original launch prices. For example, higher-memory models such as the Raspberry Pi 5 with 16 GB of RAM have seen cumulative increases that push their price well above $200 – significantly above the roughly $120 MSRP at launch.

The platform’s original core promise, being an affordable and accessible computing option for hobbyists, educators, and community projects, now feels increasingly hard to defend. With prices climbing past $200 for an SBC, that value proposition is becoming difficult to justify.

The truth is, for less money, you can find other Raspberry Pi alternatives that, in some cases, clearly outperform it in both hardware and overall performance. Of course, the most die-hard Raspberry Pi fans aren’t going to give up on their favorite device. But for the average user, at these price tags, the Raspberry Pi feels anything but affordable.