As a kid growing up in the 80, the spectrum were for the dorky and unpopular and the c64 was the fancy option with the coolest games and demos (this is all of course within the microcosm of the already nerdy)
AKA the kids whose parents didn't have a lot of money.
Trying to search for local prices back then is tricky, but they look to have been in the same ballpark (£180-200).
The speccy had a launch price of £125 (£175 for the 48k version), the C64 launched at £399 in the UK.
[0] https://archive.org/details/your-computer-magazine-1983-08/p...
[1] https://archive.org/details/your-computer-magazine-1983-08/p...