I'm finally at a spot where I can start to dabble in hobbyist maker electronics... and then the price of everything from Raspberry Pi's to mini-ITX computers to everything in between has skyrocketed.

You might actually look into embedded space like the ESP32. Plenty to learn there and the hardware is dirt cheap to get into.

The comment about the USB-C port was Interesting. I don't know about others, but personally I'd happily pay a few bucks more to get a USB-C port instead of a micro. I can't stand USB micro. I'd almost rather have a USB-A port rather than a micro.

Yeah. I just bought 6 ESP32-S3 with external antenna for €48... So yeah, the ESPs are still very affordable.

But it's true that Raspberries and similar boards have become very expensive. It might be worth looking at the second hand market. Personally I have started replacing most of my old Raspberry Pi 3b projects with used Intel NUCs, where each NUC can replace several Raspberry Pis in performance.

"And we're building it for our most important clients...

Our corporate customers."

Buy used.

I picked up a Dell Small Form Factor desktop for $50.

Or pickup an old business Mini for a similar price.

From a power perspective, they're in the same wattage range as a Pi (under 20w), but have much more performance if needed.