Third-Party Resellers Hike Raspberry Pi Prices, as Shortages Continue to Bite

As the Raspberry Pi single-board computer family celebrates its 10th anniversary, its target accessible-to-all $35 pricing point is looking shaky — with some retailers marking parts to more than twice their usual selling point in the face of continued supply shortages.

The original Raspberry Pi Model B single-board computer, with its single-core processor, just 256MB of RAM, and a 26-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header, went on sale on the 29th of February 2012 — and immediately sold out, temporarily crashing several resellers' websites in the process. In the years since, numerous refreshes to the current Raspberry Pi 4 with quad-core processor and up to 8GB of RAM have only increased its popularity — especially as, for a decade now, the entry point to the full-size models has remained at $35.

The ongoing supply chain issues affecting the semiconductor and wider electronics industry, however, have made keeping that price point a struggle. Late last year Raspberry Pi announced what was, in effect, its first-ever price hike as it bumped the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB from $35 to $45 — a year and a half after it had been cut to $35 to replace the 1GB version as the entry-level model in the family.

Despite reassurances from Raspberry Pi, buyers have found the Raspberry Pi 4 range harder and harder to come by — and with retail prices considerably higher than expected. Self-described hacker Flüpke highlighted the issue earlier this week with a post to Twitter showing a €119.95 (around $136) price for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 4GB — representing more than a doubling from its lowest price in the last year.

Data captured by price checker CamelCamelCamel bears out Flüpke's findings: The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB, which had a $35 RRP before the hike to $45, reached a third-party reseller high of $159.99 in January this year before dropping back to a still-elevated $118.98; the 4GB model, with its $55 RRP, hit a high of $219.96 at the start of February before reaching its current $154.99 — nearly three times RRP. The top-end 8GB model, meanwhile, has gone from a $75 RRP to $209 — after hitting a high of $290.74 a couple of weeks ago.

Supplies from official Raspberry Pi partner resellers, where prices aren't typically hiked in the face of supply constraints, are thin on the ground: Adafruit is out of stock of all Raspberry Pi 4 models, as is Pimoroni in the UK. Avnet's Newark, meanwhile, is showing all models on back-order — and warns would-be purchasers that stock lead time has been pushed all the way out to April 2023.

Four months ago, Raspberry Pi's Eben Upton said "we expect to have enough 28nm silicon over the next twelve months to support both our existing Raspberry Pi 4 and Compute Module 4 customers," and that "we see early signs that the supply chain situation is starting to ease" — but stock constraints seem to be getting worse before they're getting better.

UPDATE (2/28/22):

Upton has confirmed that Raspberry Pi is "producing a lot of units," but warns that there is a large backlog of orders. "When we ship units," he tells us, "they go to resellers in our queue. If they arrive at a reseller who takes pre-orders they'll go to end customers who are in their queue. If they arrive at a reseller who doesn't take pre-orders they'll be in stock until they're not.

"So the advice is: Find an 'Approved' Reseller who takes pre-orders, and place a pre-order. Any good reseller should be able to give you a lead time estimate. [Or] find an 'Approved' Reseller who doesn't take pre-orders, and watch them like a hawk."

"Scalpers will always exist," Upton adds of those buying up stock specifically for resale at a hefty markup. "We work hard to ensure that most volume goes to legitimate resellers, but these people are inventive, and of course their prices will settle at the market-clearing level."