You just bought a jumbo pack of laundry detergent for $28. Two days later, it’s on sale for $19. Again.
This happens more than you want to admit. Toilet paper, coffee, laundry detergent, and the snacks your family tears through. You buy it at full price on Tuesday, and by Friday, it’s marked down 30%. You’re not overspending because you’re careless. You’re overspending because tracking sales across multiple stores and websites is impossible to do manually.
This guide covers five tools that actually work. Each tracking different stores because no single app does it all. You’ll learn which tool to use for which store, how to set them up without drowning in notifications, and what these apps can’t do (so you don’t waste time expecting miracles). Most families save $75-$150 monthly once they get this system running, not by clipping more coupons, but by buying the same stuff at better times.
Also See: Set Up Digital Coupon Automation Once and Save Forever
Platform-Specific Price Tracking Tools
Different stores need different tools. Here’s what actually works for each major platform.
camelcamelcamel (Amazon Price Tracking)
camelcamelcamel monitors Amazon prices and sends alerts when items hit your target price. It tracks price history across Amazon, third-party sellers, and warehouse deals.
Set up takes five minutes. Create a free account, install the browser extension, then click the camel icon on any Amazon product page. Set your desired price and alert preference (email or browser notification). The tool shows three years of price history, so you can see if that “sale” is actually the lowest price or just marketing.
Most people set price alerts 15-20% below the current price for staples like diapers, batteries, or coffee. For seasonal items (like back-to-school supplies or holiday decorations), check the price history to see when prices typically drop, then set alerts accordingly.
The browser extension adds a small price history chart to every Amazon product page. One glance tells you if today’s price is average, high, or actually worth buying.
Limitation: Only works for Amazon. Doesn’t catch Lightning Deals or Prime Day pricing until the sale starts. Doesn’t monitor Subscribe & Save discounts or digital coupons. You still need to check those manually.
Keepa (Advanced Amazon Tracking)
Keepa offers more detailed Amazon price tracking than camelcamelcamel, including warehouse deals, international Amazon sites, and detailed seller data. The free version covers basic price tracking. Premium ($19/year) adds product database access and API features most families don’t need.
Set up price alerts on camelcamelcamel: install the browser extension and set alerts for products you buy regularly. Keepa’s advantage is more granular data. It tracks when specific sellers raise or drop prices, shows stock availability history, and monitors price changes across all Amazon marketplaces.
The interface is cluttered compared to camelcamelcamel, but the data is more complete. If you’re serious about Amazon price optimization, use both. Camelcamelcamel for clean charts and quick checks, and Keepa for deep analysis on expensive purchases.
Best for: Families spending $200+ monthly on Amazon who want maximum price intelligence.
Honey (Multi-Store Browser Extension)
Honey automatically searches for and applies coupon codes at checkout across thousands of online stores. It also tracks prices on items you save to your “Droplist” and sends alerts when prices drop.
Install the browser extension, create an account, then click the Honey icon when shopping online. At checkout, Honey tests available coupon codes and applies the best one. For price tracking, click “Add to Droplist” on any product page. Honey monitors that item and emails you when the price drops.
The coupon-finding feature works better than price tracking. Honey catches codes at checkout that you’d never find manually, saving $5-$15 per order at stores like Target, Home Depot, or Ulta. Price tracking is inconsistent. Alerts sometimes arrive days after prices drop, missing flash sales entirely.
Privacy consideration: Honey collects browsing data to power its coupon database. The company was acquired by PayPal in 2020. If you’re uncomfortable with browsing data collection, skip Honey and use RetailMeNot for manual coupon searching instead.
Slickdeals (Price Alert Community)
Slickdeals combines user-submitted deals with price tracking. Set alerts for specific products, stores, or keywords, and Slickdeals emails you when someone posts a relevant deal or when tracked items drop below your target price.
Create a free account, go to “Deal Alerts,” and add keywords (like “Tide detergent”) or specific product names. Slickdeals sends daily digest emails with matching deals. The community votes on deal quality, so genuinely good sales rise to the top while marginal “deals” get buried.
The strength is breadth. Slickdeals covers every major retailer, plus small online stores you’ve never heard of. The weakness is noise. Set alerts too broadly (“groceries”) and you’ll get 40 emails daily. Set them too narrowly (“Tide Original Scent 96oz”) and you’ll miss adjacent deals.
Best practice: Set alerts for product categories or brand names, not specific items. Alert for “Huggies diapers” instead of “Huggies Size 4 144-count box.” Check the daily digest for five minutes instead of clicking every notification.
Flipp (Store Circular Monitoring)
Flipp digitizes weekly store circulars and lets you search across all local stores simultaneously. Clip digital coupons, create shopping lists, and get notifications when items on your list go on sale nearby.
Download the app, enter your zip code, then add frequently purchased items to “My Items.” Flipp sends weekly notifications showing which local stores have those items on sale. The app includes digital circulars from grocery stores, drugstores, and big-box retailers.
The search function is more useful than manually browsing circulars. Type “chicken breast,” and Flipp shows every store with chicken on sale this week, along with prices and sale dates. Build your shopping list based on what’s actually on sale instead of hoping your usual store has good prices this week.
Limitation: Only shows advertised sales, not in-store unadvertised markdowns, and doesn’t integrate with store loyalty programs. You still need to load digital coupons separately in each store’s app.
Manual Tracking Methods for Everything Else
Automated tools miss plenty. These DIY methods catch what apps can’t.
Visualping (Webpage Change Monitoring)
Visualping monitors any webpage and alerts you when something changes. Use it to track specific products that automated tools don’t cover, like specialty retailers, local stores with websites, or items that never go on sale but occasionally come back in stock.
Go to visualping.com, paste the product page URL, and select the section of the page to monitor (price area or stock status). Visualping checks the page daily (free plan) or hourly (paid plans start at $10/month) and emails you when it detects changes.
Set up tip: Monitor the specific price element, not the entire page. Monitoring the whole page triggers false alerts every time the website updates unrelated content like ads or customer reviews.
Best for: Hard-to-find items, specialty brands, local retailers without apps, or expensive purchases where saving 10% matters ($30-$50 savings on furniture, appliances, or electronics).
Spreadsheet + Calendar Combo
Track your own price patterns for items you buy every 4-8 weeks. Note purchase dates, prices, and stores in a simple spreadsheet. After 3-4 purchases, patterns emerge. Target runs sales on paper products every six weeks, Amazon drops coffee prices the first week of each month, and Costco rotates sales on different items every three weeks.
Set calendar reminders two days before typical sales cycles. Check price,s then instead of buying immediately when you run low. This method takes 90 days to build useful data, but it works for any item from any store.
Example: If you bought Tide detergent on January 15 ($18), February 12 ($24), March 9 ($18), and April 13 ($18), you know it goes on sale roughly every four weeks at a specific price point. Set a calendar reminder for every 28 days to check the price before committing to a purchase.
Best for: Families with predictable consumption patterns, people who shop at stores without good app integration (Aldi, local grocers), or anyone who prefers control over automation.
Multi-Tool Coordination Strategy
Using five different tools sounds overwhelming. Here’s how to coordinate them without losing your mind.
Notification Management:
- Set immediate alerts only for items you’d buy within 24 hours of a price drop (toilet paper, diapers, frequently used staples)
- Use weekly digest emails for everything else
- Review digests during meal planning (Sunday evenings for most families)
- Disable all notifications for items you don’t buy at least monthly
Monthly Workflow:
- Spend 30 minutes on the first Sunday of the month reviewing what you bought last month and your current inventory
- Set price alerts on items you’ll need within 30-60 days
- Check Flipp for upcoming sales at your regular stores
- Review the Slickdeals digest for unexpected deals on items already on your radar
The goal isn’t monitoring everything constantly. It’s intercepting 60-70% of regular purchases at better prices by checking before you buy, not after. That’s enough to save $900-$1,800 annually for a family of four without turning price tracking into a part-time job.
Start with one platform where you spend the most: camelcamelcamel for Amazon-heavy households, Flipp for grocery-focused families, or Slickdeals for general deal hunters. Set alerts on your top 10 repurchased items, then add more as the system becomes routine. Check price alerts during weekly meal planning instead of reacting to every notification.
Pair one automated tool with one manual method. Most families get the best results combining Amazon price tracking with local circular monitoring through Flipp, which covers 70% of household spending with minimal tool fatigue. Add Visualping only for specialty items worth the extra monitoring effort. The multi-tool reality is annoying, but buying detergent for $19 instead of $28 each month covers the hassle. Install the camelcamelcamel browser extension right now and set a price alert 20% below the current price on one staple you buy monthly.