How to get a price drop alert for any product
You've found the thing you want, but not at the price you want to pay. Prices go up and down, and the drop you're waiting for might only last a day. Rather than checking the page every evening, you can get an email when the price falls. This guide covers the main ways to do that, where they fall short, and how to make sure you only hear about drops worth acting on.
Start with what the shop offers
Some shops let you add an item to a wishlist and email you when it goes on sale. If yours does, turn it on. It costs nothing. Bear in mind that these emails are often marketing emails, so they may arrive late, bundle in other offers, or land in a promotions folder.
The common options
Beyond the shop itself, people usually use one of these:
- Price comparison and price history sites. Useful for big retailers and popular products, but they only cover the shops and items they track.
- Browser extensions. Some show price history or alert you to drops while you browse. Many only work on particular shops, and alerts may depend on your browser being open.
- Setting yourself a reminder. Free, but you have to remember to look, and you can miss a short sale.
- A page change monitor. It checks the product page itself, on any public site, and tells you when the price changes.
A change monitor is the most flexible for small independent shops and unusual products that comparison sites don't list.
Only hear about the drops you care about
The risk with watching a product page is noise. Prices wobble by small amounts, delivery dates change and reviews get added. You don't want an email for each of those.
In ChangeGist you can add an alert rule in plain English, for example:
- “Only tell me when the price drops below £20”
- “Only when the price goes down”
- “Only if it's on sale and the size 10 is available”
Changes that don't match the rule are still saved to the page's history, but you're only emailed when one does. The email says what happened, such as “Price dropped from £24 to £18”.
Big retailers and marketplaces
Large retailers and marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay often limit automated visits and use bot protection, and many of their pages load prices with JavaScript. That makes them harder to watch than a small shop.
ChangeGist checks pages on those sites gently: at most once a day, and up to 3 such pages per account. That's usually enough to catch a price that has moved, but it won't catch a deal that only lasts a few hours. For those sites, the retailer's own wishlist alerts or a dedicated price history site may be quicker.
How to set it up well
- Use the product page itself, not a search or category page.
- If the page has several sizes or colours, pick the one you want first and copy that address, if the link changes.
- Watch just the price area if you can, so changes elsewhere don't count.
- Add an alert rule with your target price.
- Name the page clearly, such as “Walking boots, size 9”, so the email makes sense at a glance.
How often to check
Most prices on smaller shops change a few times a month at most, so checking every few hours is plenty. On the free trial pages are checked hourly. If you're watching for a sale event, such as a seasonal sale with a known start date, checking more often in that week can help.
What it can't do
A page monitor sees what a logged-out shopper sees. It won't see member-only prices, discount codes sent by email, or prices that only appear in your basket. It also can't buy the item for you, so be ready to act when the alert arrives.
Be considerate
Only watch public pages, keep checks at a sensible pace, and respect each site's rules. ChangeGist respects robots.txt, and never sells your data or uses it to train AI.