Best UK Price Trackers Compared: camelcamelcamel vs PriceRunner vs Trolley

Every "was £199, now £99" claim on a UK retail site is a story. A price tracker is how you check whether it's true. Below we compare the three tools we actually use before a deal goes in the newsletter — camelcamelcamel, PriceRunner and Trolley.co.uk — and explain how to read a price history without fooling yourself.

Why price trackers matter in the UK

Since the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act tightened the rules on reference pricing, retailers are more careful about the wording — but "RRP", "was" and "typical price" still do a lot of heavy lifting. A price tracker replaces the claim with a chart: what the item actually sold for, week by week.

Three patterns show up again and again:

• The pre-sale nudge. Price quietly rises for a fortnight, then "drops" back to what it always was.
• The permanent sale. An item that has been "20% off" for nine months straight.
• The genuine low. A real dip below the twelve-month average, usually short-lived.

Only the third one is worth your money.

camelcamelcamel

The long-standing Amazon-only tracker, with a UK site at camelcamelcamel.co.uk.

Best for: anything sold by Amazon UK.

What it does well. Charts go back years, and they separate Amazon's own price from third-party new and used prices — which matters, because a headline "lowest ever" is sometimes a marketplace seller with slow delivery. Price-drop email alerts and the Camelizer browser extension are free and genuinely useful.

Where it falls down. Amazon only. It won't help you compare against Currys, Argos or John Lewis, and it occasionally lags on very new listings.

PriceRunner

A comparison engine first, a tracker second, covering thousands of UK retailers.

Best for: finding out whether Amazon is even the cheapest option.

What it does well. Broad retailer coverage, price history on most product pages, and product-level reviews. If you're buying a specific model of dishwasher, it's the fastest way to see the whole market at once.

Where it falls down. Coverage is deepest on tech and appliances, thinner on fashion and homeware. Retailer listings depend on commercial relationships, so a shop that isn't listed isn't necessarily more expensive.

Trolley.co.uk

A UK grocery price tracker covering the major supermarkets.

Best for: weekly shopping and stocking up on non-perishables.

What it does well. Tracks individual grocery lines across Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons and others, with history charts that expose the "half price" cycle most branded goods run on. Excellent for deciding whether a multibuy is genuinely cheaper per unit.

Where it falls down. Groceries only, and loyalty pricing (Clubcard, Nectar) complicates like-for-like comparisons.

Which one should you use?

Honest answer: use all three, because they don't overlap much. Two minutes across the right tool is the difference between a bargain and a well-marketed markup.

Try the tools we use

Affiliate disclosure: The links above are not affiliate links and we earn no commission from these tools. Some links elsewhere on UK Deals to Die For may be affiliate links — if you buy through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. That never influences what we write or feature.

How to read a price history properly

1. Look at twelve months, not thirty days. A short window makes an ordinary price look like a low.
2. Ignore single-day spikes. Pricing algorithms glitch; one £340 blip doesn't make £280 a saving.
3. Compare against the median, not the peak. If the item usually sits at £120 and the "was" price is £180, the £180 is the fiction.
4. Check who's selling. On Amazon, the lowest price is sometimes a third-party seller with a three-week lead time.
5. Factor in delivery and returns. A £6 cheaper price with £4.99 delivery and paid returns isn't cheaper.

The honest limitations

Price trackers tell you about price. They don't tell you whether you need the thing. The most expensive purchase is still the one you make because a chart said the moment was right — and the second most expensive is buying a worse model because it happened to be at a genuine low.

They also can't see everything: bundle deals, cashback, student discounts and loyalty pricing all sit outside the chart. Treat the history as evidence, not a verdict.

Our verdict

If you only install one thing, make it the camelcamelcamel browser extension — most impulse buys start on Amazon, and it puts the truth on the page before you click Buy. Add PriceRunner when you're researching a specific model, and Trolley if your grocery bill is where the money actually goes.

All three are free. None of them pays us anything, which is the main reason we're comfortable recommending them.

Before you buy anything today

We do this check on every deal before it goes out — so you don't have to. Join the free morning email and you'll get a handful of UK deals that have already survived a price-history check, with the fake ones called out by name.

Some links elsewhere on this site are affiliate links, and we may earn a small commission if you buy through them. It never costs you extra, and it never decides what we feature — including this article, where we earn nothing at all.