How Our Deal Score Works
A discount percentage only tells you how a price compares to a list price, and list prices are easy to inflate. The Deals Tracker Deal Score rates a deal against the product's own tracked price history, so you know whether today's price is genuinely good or just dressed up.
What goes into the score
- Depth against real history: how far today's price sits below the product's typical price, measured against every price we've recorded for that exact product and how much it normally varies.
- Time-adjusted baseline: each past price is weighted by how long it was the live price and how recently we saw it, so a two-day flash price can't count as much as a long-held everyday price, and stale old prices can't flatter a deal.
- All-time-low proximity: deals at or near the lowest price we've ever recorded earn a boost.
- Real variation required: if a product's price essentially never changes, the "discount" is really the permanent price, and the score stays low no matter what the label claims.
- Renewed and refurbished: used items carry a scoring penalty, since their discounts aren't comparable to a new product's.
- History depth: more price checks mean more confidence. Products we've only just started tracking show a New badge instead of a rating.
Reading the rating
Scores run from zero to five stars, labeled in order: No Deal, Minor, Decent, Good, Great, Exceptional. The further today's price sits below the product's tracked norm, the higher the rating. An Exceptional rating means the price is at or near the best we've ever recorded for that product.
Why you can trust it
We don't sell any of the products we track and retailers can't pay to change a score. Every rating is recomputed automatically from prices we observe ourselves, and the price history behind each score is published in full on every product page, so you can check our math.