Why You're Buying at the Wrong Price
Most of the time when I buy something online, I'm not getting the best price -- I'm getting the current price, which is almost never the lowest it's been. Amazon changes prices multiple times a day on popular items. The "sale" you see might be a normal price from last week with a fake markup applied. Price alerts fix this by letting you name your number and wait.
This works best for things you need but don't need immediately. A new kitchen appliance, a book you can wait a month on, a gaming peripheral you've been eyeing. If you need it today, buy it today. But if you can wait two weeks or two months, setting an alert is almost always worth it.
CamelCamelCamel: The Standard Amazon Price Tracker
CamelCamelCamel (camelcamelcamel.com) is the tool most serious deal hunters use. It tracks the full price history of Amazon products and sends email alerts when a price drops to your target. Here's the exact setup:
- Go to camelcamelcamel.com and create a free account. You need an account to set alerts -- the price history charts are available without one, but alerts require login.
- Paste the Amazon product URL or ASIN into the search bar. The ASIN is the 10-character code in any Amazon URL (it starts with B0 for most products).
- Look at the price history chart before you set anything. You want to know the actual historical low, not just the current price. If something is $89 now but has been $55 twice in the past year, set your alert at $60, not $80.
- Click "Add to Watchlist" and enter your target price. You can set alerts separately for Amazon's own price, third-party new sellers, and used condition prices.
- CamelCamelCamel sends email when the price hits your target. Response is usually within an hour of a price change.
One thing to watch: CamelCamelCamel tracks publicly, so it works best for products that have been on Amazon for a while. Brand new listings won't have much history to go on.
Keepa: More Data, More Control
Keepa is the other major player. It's more data-dense than CamelCamelCamel -- the charts include things like rank history, coupon history, and lightning deal history overlaid on the price timeline. It's a bit overwhelming at first but useful once you know what you're looking at.
Keepa has a free browser extension that embeds the price chart directly on Amazon product pages. You don't have to leave Amazon to see the history -- it shows up right below the product listing. That alone makes it worth installing.
To set an alert in Keepa: create an account at keepa.com, open any product page with the extension installed, and click the Keepa chart to open the full view. From there you can add a price alert with your target price and notification method (email or browser notification). Keepa also has a mobile app if you want push notifications.
If I had to pick one: I use the Keepa extension for checking price history while shopping, and CamelCamelCamel for managing my watchlist since the interface is cleaner.
Google Shopping's Built-In Price Tracking
This one a lot of people miss. When you search for a product on Google Shopping, you'll sometimes see a "Track price" button on the product listing. Click it while logged into your Google account and Google will email you when the price drops. It pulls data from multiple retailers, not just Amazon.
The catch is it doesn't work for every product and you can't set a specific target price -- it just notifies you of any drop. Still useful for products where you want to compare across retailers and aren't sure where the best deal will come from.
Amazon Wishlist Notifications
Add items to an Amazon Wishlist and you'll occasionally get emails about price drops on those items. Amazon isn't consistent about this -- it doesn't notify you every time a price changes, and you can't set a specific target. It's more of a passive safety net than a real alert system.
Better use of the Wishlist: it makes your CamelCamelCamel setup easier. You can import your Amazon Wishlist directly into CamelCamelCamel to auto-populate your watchlist with everything on it.
Visualping for Non-Amazon Stores
For stuff sold on other sites -- Best Buy, B&H, Newegg, specialty retailers -- Visualping is a solid option. It monitors any webpage for changes and alerts you when something on the page changes. You point it at a product page, highlight the price area, and it checks on a schedule you set (hourly, daily, etc.).
Free tier lets you monitor a few pages with daily checks. Paid plans let you do more pages with more frequent checking. I've used it to track camera gear on B&H and it works well -- got notified when a lens dropped $80 and caught it before it jumped back up.
When to Set an Alert vs Just Buy It
If the current price is at or near the historical low, just buy it. Don't set an alert hoping it drops another $5 and risk it going out of stock or jumping back up. CamelCamelCamel's chart makes this easy to read -- if the current price is on the lower end of the range it's been in over the past year, that's a good buy.
Set an alert when the current price is clearly elevated compared to its history, or when you're not in a rush and the historical data shows it cycles lower regularly. Some products drop predictably -- electronics before new model releases, seasonal gear in the off-season, kitchen stuff around major sales events. Know the pattern before you wait.