For years, Roku has been one of the simplest answers to the question of what’s the cheapest way to make your TV smarter. With its budget-friendly streaming sticks and even affordable TVs like TCL or Hisense, you can easily add a smart TV to your home entertainment setup without breaking the bank. This affordable price was a big part of what made Roku so appealing.
However, the era of cheap Roku appears to be coming to an end. According to The Desk, Roku quietly increased the price of the Roku Ultra from $100 to $150, while the Roku Streaming Stick went from $30 to $40. The culprit is the current memory shortage, fueled by AI data centers buying RAM faster than factories can produce it. Roku isn’t alone either. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Dell and Lenovo all expect to raise prices on laptops and devices as the memory shortage continues.
The reason I’m sitting here talking about Roku, and not the others, is that the situation here is slightly different. Because when I look at where component prices are going, as well as what Roku has already told its investors – not to mention the Fox buyout hanging over the company’s head – I really struggle to see how Roku remains the budget-friendly option it has been in the past.
Roku already warned us this was coming
If this was a short-term supply issue, I probably wouldn’t be as concerned. However, this is not the case. TrendForce expects memory prices to rise another 10-18% in the coming months. Several sectors of the industry are feeling this pressure as the current shortage of RAM and components continues to drive up prices of smartphones, laptops, and more.
And Roku has already told its investors that this is going to happen. In its latest letter to shareholders, the company said it expects “higher memory costs to weigh on device margins in the second half.” Essentially, Roku expects even greater losses on the devices it offers as the prices of the components they need rise.
The company’s CEO says one of the ways they’ve managed to keep costs down for this long is by using less memory while being more open to other types of memory usage in their devices. This means that Roku’s setup uses less power than some competitors’, which is why the devices have been able to stay so cheap because they need less power to operate. However, at some point you reach a limit point, where you can’t scale things back any further without sacrificing the power you need. And Roku seems to have reached this point because it needed to raise prices instead of cutting even more of the materials it needed.
Roku is bought
The other major reason I don’t expect prices to come back down is that Roku won’t make the decision much longer. Earlier this year, Fox announced that it had reached a deal to buy Roku for around $22 billion. That deal is expected to close in 2027, and Fox says it expects to realize about $400 million in savings annually after the two companies combine. That’s a pretty big statement, and it’s certainly not something a large company would make if they didn’t think they were going to make money with their new product.
Being cheaper than the competition made a lot more sense when Roku was still fighting to get into our homes. However, that fight isn’t as important now, as Roku devices are estimated to be in nearly 28% of U.S. households, with 43% of streaming player purchases accounted for in the company’s offerings in early 2026. While Roku has made strides in providing its own content and channels, it’s access to the more than 100 million households using a Roku device that Fox is paying for.
There is no guarantee that prices will continue to rise to the point that Roku is no longer affordable. However, it would make sense that its hold on the market would diminish as cheaper, equally capable devices become available. Of course, none of this makes Roku a bad company, or even one you should stop supporting. The overall simplicity of the platform remains one of the biggest benefits of purchasing a Roku device. At the same time, no one would blame you for deciding to forgo purchasing a new Roku and opt for something less expensive with just as many features.
