How to Track Amazon Prices (Beyond CamelCamelCamel)

CamelCamelCamel is the default answer for Amazon price tracking, and for good reason. It has years of price history on millions of products, it's free, and it's been around since 2008. If you only ever buy from Amazon, it's a reasonable tool.

But it has real limits. And if any part of your shopping goes beyond Amazon, you need something else.

How CamelCamelCamel Works

CamelCamelCamel pulls price data from Amazon's product pages and stores it over time. You can view a price history chart, set an email alert for a target price, and see whether the current price is high or low relative to history.

The main limitation: it only works on Amazon. Every other retailer (Walmart, Best Buy, Target, DTC brands) is invisible to it.

What CamelCamelCamel Misses

Third-party seller prices. Amazon product pages often show a "fulfilled by Amazon" price alongside third-party seller prices. CamelCamelCamel tracks the primary listing price but doesn't always capture the lowest third-party price.

Amazon Warehouse deals. Warehouse deals (open-box, refurbished) are separate listings that CamelCamelCamel doesn't track.

Price parity across retailers. When Best Buy matches Amazon's price or undercuts it, you won't know from CamelCamelCamel.

Non-Amazon products. If a product is only sold directly by the brand, CamelCamelCamel has nothing.

Amazon's Own Price Tracking

Amazon shows a "Typical price" label on many product pages, which gives a rough historical baseline. It's not a full price history chart, but it's a quick sanity check. If the current price is below the "typical price," that's a genuine signal.

Amazon also has a built-in wish list that shows when prices drop on items you've saved. The alerts aren't aggressive (no email by default), but the wish list is a passive way to monitor a few items.

How to Track Amazon Prices More Completely

For full price history with alerts, paste the Amazon product URL into Slasher. You get a price chart, a target price input, and an email alert when the price drops to where you want it.

The bigger advantage: Slasher works on any URL. So if you're comparing the same product on Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, you can track all three and buy from whoever is cheapest at the moment you're ready.

Reading Amazon Price History

A few things to look for in any Amazon price history chart:

Lightning deal spikes. Products sometimes get brief flash discounts of a few hours. These show as sharp dips on the chart. If the current price is above multiple recent lightning deal prices, it's worth waiting.

Seasonal lows. Most products have an identifiable annual low. For electronics, it's usually Prime Day or Black Friday. For seasonal products, it's off-season. The chart makes this obvious.

Fake "was" prices. Amazon sometimes shows a crossed-out "list price" that doesn't reflect what the product has ever sold for. Price history immediately exposes these: if the product has never sold above a certain price, the crossed-out number is fiction.

The Cross-Retailer Play

Amazon isn't always cheapest. For electronics especially, Best Buy, Costco, and even Target regularly undercut Amazon by $20-50. The way to catch this is to track the product at all retailers simultaneously.

This is the core play: don't shop Amazon specifically, shop the product. Let price history across all retailers tell you where to buy.

For more on tracking products on other retailers, see How to Track Price Drops on Any Website (Not Just Amazon). For an honest comparison of the tools available, Keepa vs CamelCamelCamel vs Slasher covers the tradeoffs in detail.