Vendor Prices Are Climbing. Here's What's Really Behind It.

A clear-eyed briefing on the market-wide pricing shifts shaping the 2026 cycle, the broader forces driving them — including the surge in AI infrastructure demand — and the work CMS does to keep your numbers as competitive as the market allows.

If it's felt like every vendor letter this year has carried a price increase, you're reading the market correctly. Several of the largest names in the industry have raised prices within the same window this cycle, rather than staggering them through the year, and the drivers behind those increases are unusually broad.

This briefing sets out, in straightforward terms, what is actually changing, why, and the structured way our team works to keep your commercial position as strong as the cycle allows.

What's Driving The 2026 Cycle

There's no single cause. The current cycle reflects several pressures landing at the same time.

•  Supply chain friction that hasn't fully unwound since 2020.

•  Sustained currency movement against the dollar.

•  Vendor strategy adjustments. Bundles, tier consolidation, support uplift.

•  The rising cost of running global support and licensing operations.

•  The long tail of post-pandemic component repricing.

•  And, increasingly, the demand profile created by enterprise AI.

Connectivity, networking, security, and core hardware have all seen meaningful uplift in recent months. Cisco and Meraki are the most public examples this cycle, with documented list price changes landing in September 2025, March 2026, and a further UK channel uplift on 18 April 2026 of between 13 and 33 percent across Catalyst switches, 8000 series routers, and Meraki MV and MS hardware. Dell announced commercial PC, workstation, and monitor increases from 30 March 2026, citing AI memory and storage shortages. UK wholesale connectivity, is moving more quietly, via CPI-linked indexation that lands at quote level rather than as a single headline announcement.

It would be unusual to find a refresh quote in 2026 that hasn't been touched in some way. What you paid last year is not what you'll pay this year. The adjustment is real, and it's industry-wide.

The AI Factor.  Why Memory And Compute Are Moving Hardest

The single most underappreciated driver this cycle is the demand profile created by AI workloads. Hyperscalers and large enterprises AWS, Google, Meta, Microsoft are projected to spend in the region of 635 billion US dollars on infrastructure in 2026 alone. That buying behaviour is reshaping pricing and availability across the wider hardware market, including for businesses that have nothing to do with AI directly.

Memory-dense and GPU-equipped configurations are taking the biggest hit. Standard server refreshes are absorbing meaningful RAM and CPU premiums. Even endpoint kit is feeling the ripple. The supply that used to be there for the asking is now allocated to AI buyers further up the queue.

If you'd like the broader context on what AI is doing to your operating environment, our enterprise AI briefing is the companion read (link below).

What We're Seeing Across Vendor Quotes This Cycle

• Connectivity contracts returning with cumulative CPI-linked uplifts that are visible

• Networking refresh quotes higher than the previous comparable cycle, particularly on switching and wireless.

• Security and endpoint stack renewals creeping up as vendors consolidate features into higher tiers.

• Microsoft licensing changes nudging customers toward bundles that offer better value but require considered selection.

• Server and workstation refreshes carrying a noticeable RAM and CPU premium, traceable to AI-driven component demand.

• Hardware lead times stretching across the board, not concentrated in any one product family.

•  Vendors increasingly reserving the right to re-price between order and shipment. Cisco has shortened the conversion window on approved compute quotes, and HPE has extended its order cancellation right up to the day of shipment.

Lead Times Have Stretched. The Half That Doesn't Get Talked About.

The half of the picture that doesn't get loud enough airtime is what's happened to lead times. Switches, access points, firewalls, and certain server lines are all taking noticeably longer to land than they did this time last year. Memory-dense and GPU-equipped configurations are taking longer still, with allocation shifting toward AI buyers further up the queue.

A refresh that used to fit comfortably inside a single quarter increasingly needs the better part of two to land properly, including build, ship, install, test, and sign off. That isn't a panic point. It does mean planning earlier matters more than it used to. The conversations that used to start in May for a September go-live now sensibly start in February.

Where Businesses Get Caught.  And How To Avoid It.

The price change itself is rarely what trips a business up. It's the absence of a plan to absorb it. The pattern, when it goes wrong, looks like this.

•  An invoice arrives carrying a number nobody on the leadership team had been pre- warned about.

•  A project date slips because the hardware that was assumed to be a four-week wait turned out to be twelve.

• A budget gets rewritten under pressure, in front of a board, with very little time to model alternatives.

• A renewal gets signed at list price because the negotiation window had already closed, or the approved quote expired before the order was raised.

All four are avoidable. They simply need someone watching the calendar with you, raising the conversation early, and modelling the impact before it becomes urgent.

What CMS Does On Every Account.  As Standard.

Our role is to ensure you receive the strongest commercial outcome the market makes available, regardless of which way list prices are moving. Four mechanisms operate as standard on every CMS account. They aren't a paid extra they're how we keep the cycle calm, and how the saving lands with you, not with us.

•  Forward calendar visibility on every renewal and refresh, surfaced months before the conversation has to happen.

•  Multi-vendor benchmarking on every quote of meaningful size. We don't pass it through one number we test it.

•  Direct, named relationships with the distribution and vendor teams that hold the better pricing. The approved discount is rarely the best discount.

•  A clear written record of what we secured and what was on the table, so you can see the work, not just the result.

Three Patterns That Catch Businesses Out

• Renewing on autopilot when a refresh would have offered better value once supply timing and component pricing were factored in.

• Treating each vendor renewal as a discrete event rather than as part of one consolidated annual budget conversation.

• Leaving the negotiation window too short, so list price becomes the only realistic option on the table.

Where We Stand

To restate it plainly. These increases are not CMS price changes. They're vendor and market driven, affecting the entire industry. What CMS does is sit on your side of the table when the vendors come knocking. We absorb where we can, negotiate where it's possible, plan ahead where pricing is fixed, and explain it honestly where it isn't.

Whether the market is rising on AI demand, holding steady, or softening, our commitment is the same. You receive the best pricing we can secure, presented honestly and in good time.

Less drama. Less budget impact. A 2026 plan you can defend.