The Future Of Roku As An Affordable Streaming Platform Is Looking Bleak

For years, Roku has been one of the easiest answers to the question of what's the cheapest way to make your TV smarter. Thanks to its budget-friendly streaming sticks, and even its affordable TV sets from the likes of TCL or Hisense, you could easily add a smart TV to your home entertainment setup without breaking the bank. That affordability was a big part of what made Roku so enticing. 

However, the cheap Roku era appears to be winding down. According to The Desk, Roku has quietly raised the price of the Roku Ultra from $100 to $150, while the Roku Streaming Stick has climbed from $30 to $40. The culprit is the ongoing memory shortage, which is being fueled by AI data centers buying RAM up faster than factories can produce it. Roku isn't alone, either. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Dell, and Lenovo are all expecting to raise laptop and device prices as the memory shortage continues.

The reason that I'm sitting here talking about Roku, though, and not the others is because the situation here is slightly different. Because when I look at where component prices are headed, as well as what Roku has already told its investors — not to mention the Fox buyout hanging over the company's head — I have a really hard time seeing how Roku stays the budget-friendly option that it's been in the past.

If this was a short-term supply hiccup then I probably wouldn't be as worried. However, it isn't. TrendForce expects memory prices to jump another 10% to 18% over just the next several months. Several parts of the industry are feeling this pressure, as the ongoing shortage of RAM and components continues to lead to price increases across smartphones, laptops, and more.

And Roku already told its investors this was coming. In its most recent letter to shareholders, the company said it expects "higher memory costs will weigh on device margins in the second half of the year." Essentially, Roku is expecting to see even higher losses on the devices that it's pushing, as the prices for the components they require go up. 

The company's CEO says that one of the ways they were able to keep costs down so long is by using less memory while being more open to other types of memory usage in their devices. That means Roku's setup uses less power than some competitors, which is why the devices have been able to remain so cheap, as they need less power to operate. However, at some point you reach a cut-off point, where you can no longer trim things down anymore without sacrificing the power that you do need. And Roku seems to have reached that point, as it needed to raise prices instead of cutting down on the materials it needed even more.

The other major reason that I don't expect prices to drift back down is because Roku won't be calling its own shots much longer. Earlier this year, Fox announced it had reached a deal to purchase Roku for around $22 billion. That deal is expected to wrap up in 2027, and Fox claims that it expects to see around $400 million a year in savings after the two companies have combined. That's a pretty big claim, and definitely not something that a big company would be doing if it didn't think it was going to make money on its 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. homes, with 43% of streaming player purchases accounted to the company's offerings at the start of 2026. While Roku has made strides in delivering its own content and channels, it's the access to more than 100 million households running a Roku device that Fox is paying for.

There's no guarantee that prices will continue to go up to the point of Roku no longer being affordable. However, it would make sense for its grasp on the market to diminish as cheaper devices that are just as capable 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 buying a Roku device. At the same time, nobody would blame you for deciding to forego purchasing a new Roku and going with something cheaper that offers just as many features.