Price methodology: what our prices mean

Savings Ahead does not sell products, so the prices on this site are reference prices, not offers. This page explains what each price means and how our price figures are calculated.

Prices on product pages

• List price (MSRP): the manufacturer’s suggested retail price recorded in our original catalogue.
• Typical price: for original catalogue products, the price the product typically sold for when we stocked it. Where it is at least 3% below the list price we show the difference as a percentage.
• List price ≈ (approximate): for compiled records, the list price commonly published for the model while it was popular, rounded. We show no sale price for these products.

Prices are in US dollars and do not include tax or shipping. They are not updated daily and are not today’s retail price: the retailer sets the price you pay.

Price guides and price ranges

Our price guides use the list prices of the products in a category, counting one model per product line so that sizes and colours of one product don’t count many times. We report the lowest and highest list prices, the median (the middle price), and three tiers: budget (the lowest third of list prices), mid-range (the middle third) and premium (the top third). Statistics use real list prices from the catalogue (nearest rank), not averages that no product actually costs.

Price trends and inflation

Price trends on our price insights pages come from the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPI measures the average change in prices paid by consumers for a category; it is not the price of a specific product. Our price insights methodology lists the CPI series used for each category and how changes are calculated.

Price analysis on product pages

• How the price compares: the product’s list price is compared with the other products in the same category in our catalogue, counting each product line once and leaving out accessories (such as attachments, cases and replacement parts) unless the category is made of them. We show the median, the middle half of prices (25th to 75th percentile), the nearest cheaper and dearer products, and the lowest and highest list prices. We only show this when the category has at least 8 comparable products.
• In today’s dollars: the list price is carried forward from the first year the product was popular to the latest full year of CPI data, in two ways: with overall inflation (CPI-U, all items) and with the CPI for the product’s category. The second figure shows what a comparable product would cost if it had followed its category’s prices; it is not a prediction of this model’s price.
• Safety record: recalls that list the model number, recalls matched to the brand, and the number of CPSC recalls since 2010 whose title or product names mention the type of product (the words we search for are shown on the page), with the most common hazards.

Black Friday price check and gift guides

The Black Friday price check compares a deal price you enter with the list prices in our catalogue for that kind of product. Gift guides group products by list price. In both cases a lower price at a retailer is common, especially during sales.

How we work: Overview · Editorial policy · Product data · Price methodology · Update policy · Corrections · Advertising · Contact & ownership