How to read a price history
What the shape of a price chart tells you, what it leaves out, why the 90-day window matters, and how to tell a real floor from a one-day blip.
· 5-minute read · How pricing works
Guides
Two kinds of writing. Buying guides say what actually separates one product from another in a category, so you know which specification is worth paying for before you look at a single price. Explainers cover the pricing itself: what a crossed-out price claims, what the law requires of it, and how to check one on any site in about two minutes.
Everything here is bylined, edited and reviewed before it publishes. None of it is generated per product from a template, and none of it quotes a current price, a discount or a saving for any product. Where a guide does name a figure it is a band describing where the market sits, or a launch list price from our own catalogue labeled as one. Live prices belong on product pages, where they carry the timestamp we observed them at and a record of how we verified them.
How deal pricing works
The mechanics behind the verdicts, written so they are useful even if you never use this site to buy anything.
How to spot a fake discount
Inflated list prices, permanent sales and pre-event markups: what U.S. law requires of a "was" price, and how to check one yourself.
· 6-minute read · How pricing works
The real price: membership, shipping, tax and card rewards
The gap between the listed price and what leaves your account, how memberships and store cards change the comparison, and why we show cashback portals that cost us revenue.
· 5-minute read · How pricing works
When prices actually drop
The U.S. retail calendar as it really behaves: which events move which categories, why tax-free weekends rarely help with electronics, and why a successor launch beats any sale.
· 6-minute read · How pricing works
Buying guides by category
TVs · 60 products tracked
How to buy a TV without overpaying
The four decisions that change what you see, the spec-sheet words that mean nothing, and why a big percentage off a television usually is not a discount.
· 9-minute read · Buying guide
Laptops · 60 products tracked
Laptop buying guide: the specs that decide how long it lasts
The memory and storage you cannot change later, a weight figure that outranks the graphics card, and the sale window that matters more than Black Friday.
· 9-minute read · Buying guide
Smartphones · 60 products tracked
Smartphone buying guide: timing beats specification
The successor cycle is the most valuable thing a phone buyer can know, and the monthly figure on a carrier page is not a price. How to read both.
· 8-minute read · Buying guide
Headphones · 50 products tracked
Noise-cancelling headphones: what the specs mean
Which headphone specs change what you hear, which ones are marketing, and when this category is actually cheaper than its list price.
· 8-minute read · Buying guide
Refrigerators · 40 products tracked
Buying a refrigerator: fit first, features last
The measurements that decide whether a fridge can reach your kitchen, the specs that matter once it does, and the six windows a year when appliances discount.
· 9-minute read · Buying guide
Robot vacuums · 30 products tracked
Robot vacuums: which specs predict a machine you keep using
Why navigation beats suction, what a pascal figure does and does not tell you, what the dock is really for, and how fast this category discounts.
· 9-minute read · Buying guide
Where the numbers come from
Guides state thresholds — the length of the former-price window, the number of observations behind a verdict — by reading them from the same configuration file the scoring service uses, so a guide cannot describe a rule we no longer apply. The methodology page publishes those weights and thresholds in full, and how we make money explains why a commission cannot move a verdict.