Talking tech since 2003

Amazon prices move around a lot — sometimes, a few times in a single day. That gadget on your wish list? It could be fifty bucks cheaper in the morning, but if you don’t view the product page until after work, you’d have no idea.

If only there was a service to alert you right away when the price drops on something you want. Oh wait! There is. It’s called The Tracktor.

roomba-tracktor

Don’t let the barebones look of the site fool you; there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes. The Tracktor watches any Amazon product you desire, and, as soon as it sees a lower price, fires off an email to you. Users have the ability to track more than one product, so you can imagine how many items The Tracktor is watching for all of its users at any given time — it almost makes me wonder how often the site is pinging Amazon (and if it’s in any danger of being blocked).

If you’re someone who only jumps on something that’s discounted (and you don’t mind waiting for that discount to come), The Tracktor lets you pretty much set it and forget it. You can focus on other things and know as soon as the item you want comes down into your price range. It’s a pretty handy tool for the budget-minded, or just those who think something is way too overpriced.

And, by the way, you don’t have to necessarily buy from Amazon; you can use the site to get a low price and then have a local brick and mortar like Best Buy or Target price match. If you keep that in mind when holiday season comes around, you’re bound to keep a little more money in your wallet.

You can check The Tracktor out at thetracktor.com. If you give it a try to track some of your most wanted items, let us know what you think of it by leaving a comment below.

Update: It seems The Tracktor is no longer around, we recently found a new site that works very similarly. Penny Parrot is a modern, privacy-minded Amazon price tracker that’s designed to work well on mobile devices. It features an iOS shortcut to make it easy to check prices from the Amazon app or website.

You've successfully subscribed to BestTechie
Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.
Great! You've successfully signed up.
Your link has expired
Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content.