Meta is raising the price of the Quest 3 and Quest 3S due to memory price rises made worse by Meta

Meta is increasing the price of the Quest 3 and Quest 3S VR headsets. It says this is down to the high costs of components, namely memory, and the change will affect refurbished units, too.

"We’re making this change because the cost of building high-performance VR hardware has risen significantly," Meta says in a blog post. "The global surge in the price of critical components—specifically memory chips—is impacting almost every category of consumer electronics, including VR. To keep delivering the quality of hardware, software, and support you expect from the Quest platform, we need to adjust our pricing."

Here are the new prices, which will be set on April 19, 2026:

That's a $100 price increase for the Quest 3 in the US. It's a $50 increase for both Quest 3S models. In the UK, the Quest 3 is on sale for around £469 today, which will see around an £81 increase.

Memory chips are in high demand right now, due to the explosion in AI infrastructure and product demand. DRAM prices have soared in recent months as a result, with market research firm TrendForce expecting another 45-50% increase in Q2 2026 due to limited supply. Even older RAM chips, such as DDR4 and DDR3 are being affected.

The Quest 3 and Quest 3S use 8 GB of LPDDR5, which isn't a lot, but DDR5 has been hit first and foremost by price hikes.

Meta is one of the big spenders in AI infrastructure. It plans to ramp up spending on datacentre infrastructure related to AI by $135 billion in 2026. That's nearly double what it spent last year. It is also investing more as the year goes on. So, a part of that increased demand for memory chips is in part from Meta itself, though it's joined by other major tech firms and AI companies spending similarly gargantuan amounts of cash.

The Quest 3 512 GB remains cheaper than its launch MSRP. When it launched in late 2023, it was priced at $650. At that time, a cheaper 128 GB model was available for $500. However, one year later, the 128 GB model was removed from sale and the 512 GB model took its place and price—a sign of how affordable storage was at the time.

There's no positive spin for the Quest 3S, however, as it will cost $50 more than it did at launch in a couple of days' time.

The wider context here is that Reality Labs, the Meta division that works on the Quest lineup, has been losing billions of dollars every quarter for years. More recently, Meta appears to be pulling back from the metaverse—its long-term goal for VR—and shifting to a focus on AI. Meta Horizon Worlds disappeared from the Quest store on March 31. Though the company still suggests it's "doubling down" on VR, despite the industry not growing "as much or as quickly as we'd hoped."

In the blog post on the price increase, Meta says: "Meta remains committed to investing in VR and leading the category because we believe this is the future of computing. We have a long-term roadmap full of new hardware and experiences, and this adjustment helps us stay on track to deliver that future."