Buy now or wait? SD card prices are shooting through the roof – here’s how to navigate the ‘memory crisis’

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Industry analysts paint a gloomy picture

Atlas S SD card in a Canon 60D outdoors
(Image credit: OWC)

SD and micro SD cards have been reliable, cheap memory for years, but prices have shot through the roof in 2026. You can thank a 'global memory crisis' – a perfect storm of an AI 'memory tax', production pivot, strategic underproduction, and increasing component costs.

Take the standard SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO SDXC Class 10 V30 UHS-I card. As recently as Black Friday last year (November 28 2025), it cost less than £20, with a record-low price of £14 the previous year. Guess how much it costs now? Around £50 at the time of writing.

I've included a price tracker chart below for said card, and the 2026 price increase of approximately 100% is typically lower than most other standard-speed and capacity SD cards.

If you're in the market for a high-speed, high-capacity SD card, price hikes are even more extreme, up to 300%. That's even if a card is in stock – many historically readily available cards are out of stock or no longer available.

A price history chart for a SanDisk SD memory card

This reliable, long time favorite memory card of mine has seen a huge price spike in 2026 (Image credit: Camel Camel Camel / Amazon)

So what should you do? Buy now at these inflated prices before they further increase? Ride it out with the cards you already have in the hope that prices will come down again soon? It's a widely discussed topic, and there's no easy answer.

If you're in desperate need of a new SD card, you're going to have to suck up the extra layout, and now is likely the best time for what could be the next 18 months.

Industry analysts predict prices will continue to climb through the middle of 2026, and relief could be as long as 18 months away, once infrastructure is in place to increase global supply amidst an AI boom.

But if you're doing OK with the supply you have, and believe you will be for the next 18 months, I'd argue against panic buying and make do with what you have.

Knowing the above, it should come as no surprise that there are no record-low prices for SD cards right now. But I've put together some of the most readily available cards that are least affected by the hikes, and of course, these are only cards that I would recommend as reliable, based on my own experience.

If you didn't already know, Amazon features a price tracker for products it sells and ships, with 30-day and 90-day options – the latter clearly demonstrates the 2026 price hikes.

And a word of warning, if you do see great deals on SD cards from unknown brands, I would be highly cautious – the marketplace will likely fill with counterfeit, fake, unreliable capacity cards. Avoid.

For further information, check out our in-depth guide on how to navigate the memory crisis.

Best SD cards

We've reviewed multiple SD cards for speed, performance and reliability, and only recommend cards that we would happily use ourselves. (Image credit: Future)

Today's best SD card deals

SanDisk 128GB Extreme SDXC card
SanDisk 128GB Extreme SDXC card: £33.49 at Amazon

The least affected card by the price hikes, this SanDisk Extreme card, specifically the 128GB, 180MB/s, V30, UHS-I, Class 10, U3 version, is practically the same price that it was in December. Sure, it's not a record-low price, but the price increase since the global spike is negligible.

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Lexar 256GB Professional Silver
Lexar 256GB Professional Silver: £51.04 at Amazon

In the last 90 days, this U3 Lexar card with a 140MBs write speed has increased from approximately £40 to £50, making it another card to avoid the worst of the price hikes. It's available in 64GB to 1TB version, but the 256GB, available via the link, is the best GB to Pound Sterling ratio. If you'd like more grunt, Lexar sells a 'Silver Pro' version with twice the speed, but it's twice the price since 2025.

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Kingston Canvas Go! Plus
Kingston Canvas Go! Plus: £24.54 at Amazon

For a cheap and cheerful SD card, try the Kingston Canvas Go! Plus. The 128GB version costs just 50p more than the 64GB version, with both SDXC, Class 10 UHS-I U3 V30 cards offering a 170MB read speed. Amazon's price checker illustrates this card cost around £17 in December 2025

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Timothy Coleman
Timothy Coleman
Cameras Editor

Tim joined the TechRadar team as Cameras Editor in 2023 and has enjoyed more than 15 years as a tech journalist specializing in camera gear. He's previously worked at Amateur Photographer, for a photo accessory manufacturer and as a freelance photographer and video producer, with clients including Studio 44 and Canon. He also started a media team in Nairobi, Kenya, where he lived for a few years volunteering for a faith-based organisation. Tim is married, father of three children, and loves being active, primarily running since hanging up his football boots.

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