Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip is the most expensive SoC it's made yet

It looks like 2026 flagship smartphones will be even more expensive than the already expensive smartphones of today, as Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor costs more to make than previous gen Snapdragon chips.

In a new post on X from Abhishek Yadav, we have some price estimates for each of Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon smartphone processors, ranging from the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 through to the just-announced Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5... and boy, things are getting more and more expensive with each generation of mobile chip released.

Qualcomm is reportedly charging between $240 and $280 per Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, and this doesn't include the royalties that the companies have to pay to Qualcomm to use their chips... so it is a little more than that on top. Qualcomm started out charging $120-$130 for its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 a few years ago, but the price has slowly been rising and now it's closer to $300 per chip (once again, without OEMs paying royalties).

Qualcomm has reportedly paid a 24% premium to have its new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor fabbed at TSMC, as the Taiwan semiconductor leader is increasing prices on its older 3nm "N3E" and 3nm "N3P" process nodes, with wafers costing an estimated $25,000 and $27,000, respectively.

For its next-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 -- if Qualcomm doesn't confuse consumers even more with another unnecessary name change -- we can expect even higher prices, as Qualcomm will be fabbing its new Gen 6 chip on TSMC's bleeding-edge 2nm process node. We should expect each chip to cost over $300 and probably closer to $350 to $400 at this point, making 2027 flagship smartphones cost even more than they do today, and will cost in 2026... not good.