What is the lowest total you would pay today?
We search stores, coupons, cashback and open-box offers, and show only prices with a date on the page.
People ask whether Amazon prices can be trusted. We have not run a price-tracking study of our own, and nothing on this page claims one. What follows is what other people have published, with the dates, the sample sizes and the limits, so you can judge it yourself.
Published evidence shows that Amazon’s crossed-out “was” prices have often been higher than anything it recently charged: a 2017 Consumer Watchdog survey of 1,000 products found 61% of reference prices above every price in the prior 90 days. A 2025 Washington Post columnist found almost no real savings in a small sample during a sale. None of it proves every Amazon price is too high.
Correction. An earlier version of this page described price-tracking tests that Zroppix did not run. We removed those numbers. Everything below comes from the sources linked, which we read on the dates shown, or is labelled as our own advice.
Evidence 1: “was” prices in 2017
Consumer Watchdog’s July 2017 report describes a June 2017 survey of 1,000 products on Amazon.com. It reported that Amazon showed a reference price on 46% of them, that 61% of those reference prices were higher than any price Amazon had charged in the previous 90 days, and that 38% were higher than any price in the history the group could observe. On average the reference price exceeded the highest price the group observed by 70%. It also found that strikethrough list prices matched a price Amazon had actually charged recently, while “before sale” prices were the most misleading.
Limits: this is a 2017 survey by an advocacy group, and Amazon’s practices may have changed. It measured reference prices, not what shoppers paid.
Evidence 2: a Prime sale in October 2025
Geoffrey Fowler’s Washington Post column (syndicated November 3, 2025) describes a small, informal test. He compared about 50 non-grocery items he had bought over the previous six months with their prices on October 8, 2025, the second day of Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days. His potential savings came to 0.6 percent. One TV stand rose from $275 on October 2 to $379 during the sale. An Oral-B toothbrush was listed as 39 percent off at the same price as in August. Amazon replied that its discounts compare prices to “actual prices that customers have recently paid on Amazon or that competitors have recently offered.”
Limits: about 50 items he happened to buy is not a random sample, and it covers one sale event.
Evidence 3: an allegation about price-setting
In unredacted court filings reported in 2023, the FTC alleged that Amazon used an algorithm called Project Nessie to raise prices and get other sites to follow, and that it earned “more than $1 billion in excess profits” (per NBC News). Amazon’s spokesperson said the algorithm was old, was mischaracterised, ran on a subset of products and was scrapped because it “didn’t work as intended.” These are allegations in a lawsuit, not findings.
What none of this proves
- That most Amazon prices are too high. No source here measures that.
- That every discount badge is fake. Some are real, and you can only tell by checking.
- That the 2017 and 2025 results describe today’s listing for the product you want.
How to check a price yourself
- Write down the exact model, the seller and the shipping.
- Find a dated lower price: a price-history page, a retailer page or a deal post with a date and a link.
- Compare the total you would pay, not the percentage off.
- Check other stores and the manufacturer for the same model.
- If you cannot find a dated earlier price, treat the “was” price as unverified. Read how to tell if a deal is real for the full checklist.
We make Zroppix, and its checker shows dated prices from stores and cashback sites. It cannot see every price, and it cannot promise a price will drop.
Sources: Consumer Watchdog (July 10, 2017); Geoffrey Fowler, Washington Post (syndicated Nov 3, 2025); NBC News on the FTC’s Amazon filings. All read November 1, 2026.
How this post was made. Rewritten on November 1, 2026 by the Zroppix team with AI assistance (Claude, from Anthropic) to remove tests we had not run. The facts come from the pages linked here, and we say where a source is secondhand. This page has no affiliate links. We make Zroppix and sell Zroppix Pro, a paid plan.