RAM Prices 2026: Micron’s DRAM Prices Rose About 3.8x in a Year. The U.S. Chip Price Index Fell.

RAM prices are rising because memory makers are charging far more. Micron says its average DRAM selling price rose about 180% in fiscal 2026, and chaining its quarterly disclosures puts the increase at about 3.8 times in the four quarters to September 3, 2026. Micron ties the rise to tight supply, AI data center demand, and the wafers consumed by HBM.

The price shock, quarter by quarter

Micron states, in every quarter’s earnings remarks, how much its average DRAM selling price changed from the quarter before. It does so in ranges (“low-60s percentage range”, “approximately 20%”). We took the midpoint of each stated range and chained the 20 quarterly changes since September 2021 into a single price index. The shaded band uses the low and high ends of every range.

Index of Micron’s average DRAM selling price, quarter ended September 2, 2021 = 100, chained from the sequential price changes Micron reports for each fiscal quarter. Red dots mark quarters with price increases. Hover a dot for Micron’s exact wording.

The index fell 58% from September 2021 to the trough in the quarter ended Aug 2023, during the post-pandemic glut. It has since multiplied about 7.8 times (range 6.8x to 8.8x). Most of that came in two quarters. For the quarter ended February 2026, Micron wrote “Prices increased in the mid-60s percentage range”; for the quarter ended May 2026, “Prices increased in the low-60s percentage range”. In the latest quarter, ended September 3, 2026, Micron’s DRAM prices still rose in the “high-teens percentage range”, so the climb has slowed but not stopped.

The chained index is consistent with the year-over-year figures Micron reports separately. For the quarter ended May 2026, Micron’s 10-Q says DRAM prices rose in the “low-260% range” from a year earlier; our chain gives 257%. For the full fiscal year, Micron’s 10-K says “an approximate 180% increase in average selling prices”; weighting our quarterly chain by revenue and bit shipments gives 180%.

Why are RAM prices going up?

We tested the explanations against what the producers say in their own filings and earnings materials. Three themes recur, in Micron’s words:

HBM (high-bandwidth memory) is, in Micron’s 10-K description, a 3D stacked DRAM architecture suited to AI applications. The wording matters: Micron said in March 2024 that HBM3E “consumes approximately three times the wafer supply as D5 to produce a given number of bits,” so each HBM bit gained costs roughly three bits of conventional DDR5 capacity. That is a supply story driven by AI demand, and it is the producers’ own explanation, not ours. The demand side of the equation is the data center buildout, which we cover separately.

HBM vs conventional DRAM: the twist in the margins

If HBM were the whole story, Micron’s HBM-heavy unit would be its most profitable. It was, until the quarter ended February 2026. Micron’s Cloud Memory Business Unit, which holds HBM for all data center customers, had a 51% gross margin in FQ1 2025, against 27% for the Mobile and Client unit that sells PC and phone memory. By FQ2 2026 the PC and phone unit had passed it, and in FQ4 2026 the order was 90% to 83%.

Gross margin by business unit as reported in Micron’s quarterly earnings releases (fiscal 2026 segment structure, with fiscal 2025 recast by Micron).

Micron explained why in September 2026: it has “completed agreements for the vast majority of our calendar 2027 HBM bit supply with significant price increases year over year, narrowing the gross margin gap with conventional DRAM.” In other words, much of Micron’s HBM was sold under agreements struck in advance (in December 2025 it said it had “completed agreements on price and volume for our entire calendar 2026 HBM supply”), while conventional DRAM prices rose with the market. SK hynix’s April 2024 release made the same supply point, citing industry experts who said HBM “requires higher production capacities than conventional DRAM, resulting in a relative reduction in conventional DRAM supply.”

Micron revenue and gross margin by business unit

Revenue in billions of dollars; gross margin in grey. Fiscal year growth sums the four quarters of each fiscal year from the earnings releases.

Micron has disclosed HBM revenue only at milestones: “over $100 million” in the quarter ended May 2024, “over $1 billion” in the quarter ended February 2025, and “nearly $2 billion” in the quarter ended August 2025, when total DRAM revenue was $9.0 billion. Its fiscal 2026 remarks give no total quarterly HBM revenue figure, though in June 2026 it said it had “already shipped over $1 billion in HBM4 revenue.” SK hynix said HBM was 30% of its DRAM revenue in the third quarter of 2024 and over 40% in the fourth.

The official price indexes mostly missed it

Here is the finding the retail trackers cannot show. The Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price index for U.S. semiconductor and related device makers was -2.2% in Sep 2026 from a year earlier, and its integrated circuit package index was +1.8%. The PPI measures prices received by domestic producers, and Micron says most of its DRAM is made in Taiwan. The memory shock shows up instead in BLS import prices: the import index for semiconductors and other electronic components was up 36.1%, the largest 12-month rise in comparisons going back to Dec 2006; the previous high was 5.6% in Mar 2022.

BLS indexes rebased so January 2025 = 100. Import: chips and components = import price index for NAICS 3344, semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing. Import: semiconductors = import price index for BEA end use 21320. CPI: computers = computers, peripherals, and smart home assistants (U.S. city average). PPI: U.S. chip makers = PPI for NAICS 334413, semiconductor and related device manufacturing. The gap is October 2025, which BLS did not publish for the CPI and import series. Recent months are preliminary and can be revised for four months.

Consumer prices are moving too, but far less. The CPI for computers, peripherals, and smart home assistants rose 9.7% over the year to Sep 2026, the biggest 12-month gain in comparisons going back to Jan 2006 (the previous high was 8.5% in Sep 2021). A device is much more than its memory, and BLS adjusts for quality, so finished-PC inflation will always look smaller than a component spike.

The peers say the same thing

What it means for a 32GB PC or server upgrade

We do not publish a “price of a 32GB kit” here. We found no primary source, licensed for reuse, that reports retail module prices. What we can compute from primary data is the multiple. The last column of the table below shows how many times higher Micron’s average DRAM price was in the quarter ended September 3, 2026 than in each earlier quarter.

Every quarter since September 2021

Price and bit wording from Micron’s prepared remarks for each quarter (the same wording appears in the 10-Q for fiscal Q1 to Q3). Revenue from the Revenue by Technology note in each 10-Q; fiscal Q4 is the 10-K annual figure minus the nine-month total.

Will RAM prices go down in 2026?

Not according to the people selling it. In its September 30, 2026 earnings materials, Micron said “we expect memory and storage supply-demand conditions to be much tighter in fiscal 2027 and 2028 than they were in 2026,” and that it expects the DRAM industry “to remain supply constrained” in calendar 2027 and 2028. It guided fiscal Q1 2027 revenue to $61.5 billion, plus or minus $1.5 billion, against $54.2 billion in the quarter just ended. SK hynix said on October 28, 2026 that long-term agreements cover more than 50% of its 2027 to 2028 production capacity. Micron says it has signed 26 strategic customer agreements, which it estimates at over 35% of its revenue through 2030.

New supply is years out. Micron’s 10-K projects first DRAM wafer output from its first Idaho fab in mid-calendar 2027 and from the second by late calendar 2028. None of this is a forecast by us, and memory has a long history of sharp reversals, including the 2022 to 2023 collapse in the chart above.

What this means for MSPs

Treat memory as the volatile line on every hardware quote. Quote validity of 30 days or less for anything with significant DRAM or SSD content, and say in writing that memory-heavy configurations are repriced at order. Micron warned in March 2026 that DRAM and NAND supply constraints “could cause PC and smartphone units to decline in the low-double-digits percentage range” in calendar 2026, so expect allocation and longer lead times, not only higher prices.

For refresh planning, buy the memory you know you need on the first order rather than planning upgrades later; every quarter of delay since late 2025 has cost more. For servers, Micron said in June 2026 that its higher server forecast was enabled by “a modest reduction in average server DRAM content growth” as customers focus on unit shipments, a signal to right-size RAM per VM host before ordering. If clients are weighing on-premises hardware against cloud providers, build memory price volatility into the comparison. Storage is following the same curve; see our analysis of SSD prices.

Frequently asked questions

Why are RAM prices going up?

Micron attributes its price increases to “tight industry conditions” and favorable mix, and says HBM for AI data centers consumes about three times the wafer supply of DDR5 per bit, which constrains supply of conventional memory. Its average DRAM selling price rose about 180% in fiscal 2026, by its own 10-K.

How much have RAM prices gone up in 2026?

Chaining Micron’s quarterly disclosures, its average DRAM selling price rose about 3.8x (between 3.6x and 3.9x given the ranges Micron reports) in the four quarters to September 3, 2026. The biggest jumps were in the quarters ended February 2026 (mid-60s percent) and May 2026 (low-60s percent).

Will RAM prices go down in 2026?

The producers do not expect it. In September 2026 Micron said it expects memory and storage supply-demand conditions to be much tighter in fiscal 2027 and 2028 than in 2026, and SK hynix said it has long-term agreements covering more than 50% of its 2027 to 2028 capacity. These are company expectations, not guarantees.

Are RAM prices still going up?

Yes, but more slowly. Micron’s DRAM prices rose in the high-teens percent in the quarter ended September 3, 2026, after mid-60s and low-60s percent gains in the two quarters before. BLS import prices for semiconductors and electronic components were still rising in Sep 2026, up 36% on a year earlier.

How much has the price of computers gone up because of RAM?

Less than memory itself so far. The BLS consumer price index for computers, peripherals, and smart home assistants was up 9.7% in Sep 2026 from a year earlier, its largest 12-month rise in BLS data going back to Jan 2006. Producer prices for U.S.-made computers were up 3.0%.

Methodology

References

1. Micron Technology, Quarterly Results (prepared remarks, fiscal 2022 to 2026). Accessed October 2026.
2. Micron, Fiscal Q4 2026 Prepared Remarks, September 30, 2026. Accessed October 2026.
3. Micron Technology, Form 10-K for fiscal 2026. Accessed October 2026.
4. Micron Technology, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended May 28, 2026. Accessed October 2026.
5. Micron Technology, fiscal Q4 2026 earnings release (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1). Accessed October 2026.
6. Micron Technology, Forms 10-Q and 10-K, fiscal 2022 to 2026 (SEC EDGAR). Accessed October 2026.
7. SK hynix, “SK hynix Announces 3Q26 Financial Results,” October 28, 2026. Accessed October 2026.
8. SK hynix Newsroom, financial results releases, 2024 to 2026. Accessed October 2026.
9. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Indexes (PCU334413334413, PCU3344133344131, PCU334111334111). Accessed October 2026.
10. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Import/Export Price Indexes (EIUIZ3344, EIUIR21320). Accessed October 2026.
11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (CUUR0000SEEE01). Accessed October 2026.