Price insights
Methodology and Data Sources
Savings Ahead publishes two kinds of price information: official price trends for product categories, and list prices for individual products in our catalogue. This page explains where each comes from.
Price trends over time
Changes in prices since 2010 come from the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted, published monthly by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our server downloads the index values directly from the BLS public data API and refreshes them every month; the figures on this site currently run through September 2026.
- We use the annual average of the monthly index values for each year, once the year has ended. Where BLS did not publish a month, the average uses the months that were published, as BLS itself does (October 2025 was not published because of the federal government shutdown, so 2025 averages use 11 months).
- A category's change is the change in its annual average index between two years. "After inflation" compares that change with the all-items index.
- We track 19 categories that match the departments of our catalogue, for example Televisions, Other appliances (small appliances such as vacuums and coffee makers), Toys and Personal care products.
- The CPI adjusts for changes in quality. When a product improves at the same price, part of the improvement counts as a price fall. This is why electronics show large declines.
- CPI categories are broad. They describe what happened to prices across a category, not to one brand or model.
List prices in our catalogue
Each product page shows the manufacturer's list price (MSRP). For products from our original store catalogue we also show the typical price the product sold for. For the products added from 2015 onwards, the list price is an approximate MSRP for the years the product was most popular, and it is marked "approx." on the page. Retail prices differ between stores and change often, so always check the final price where you buy.
Price ranges by category are calculated from these list prices (median, middle half and full range). Categories with fewer than 10 priced products are not included.
What we don't do
- We don't record daily prices from retailers, so we don't publish price histories for individual products.
- We don't sell the products and are not paid to rank them.
Corrections
Found a mistake? Contact us and we'll check and correct it.