How to read a price history

Every deal page on DealTeacher has a price history: the dates we saw the item for sale, the price, and the store. It’s the most useful thing on the page, and it takes less than a minute to read. Ask three questions.

1. Is today’s price lower than every price on the list?

The Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 16” has nine dated prices at Lenovo. It was $1,099.99 on Aug 31, 2026, dipped to $999.99 in September, then went up to $1,349.99 on Oct 2. It fell to $999.99 on Oct 5 and $849.99 on Oct 13 and Oct 21. On Oct 26, with code EARLYBFDEALUS, it’s $799.99.

That’s $50 under the lowest price on the list. A new low, on a list that long, is what an A looks like.

Notice the Oct 2 price, too. A store can raise a price for a few days and then “cut” it. If you only saw $1,349.99 crossed out, $999.99 would look like 26% off. The history shows $999.99 was a price it had already sold at.

2. Does today’s price keep coming back?

The Milwaukee 25 ft magnetic tape 2-pack A+ is $19.97 at The Home Depot. Its history has six dates: Oct 27, Nov 10 and Dec 16, 2025, and Sep 26, Oct 6 and Oct 26, 2026. Every one of them says $19.97. We haven’t seen it lower.

That’s a good price, and it’s a B. But it’s a price that keeps returning, so the call is Wait: buy it when you need tapes, not because a sale tag showed up. Nothing about the history says it’s about to go away.

3. Are there enough dates to tell?

The Kobalt self-lock 25 ft tape 2-pack has three: $12.98 at Lowe’s on Oct 13, 2025 and on Nov 29, 2025 (Black Friday weekend), and $11.98 now. Lowe’s says the sale runs through Dec 30.

Three dates is thin, so we lean on what they show: today’s price beats the Black Friday 2025 price by a dollar. That’s enough for a B and a Buy, without pretending we know more.

When a history has only one or two dates, treat any grade on it with care. A short history can’t tell you whether a price is normal.

What to skip over

• The crossed-out price. It isn’t part of the history unless the item actually sold at it. See how to spot a fake discount.
• Other sizes and colors. A history is for one exact model. A 14-inch and a 16-inch laptop with the same name are different histories.
• Member-only prices. We note those separately, because not everyone can pay them.

The short version

Lower than everything on the list: buy. Same as a price that keeps coming back: wait for when you need it. Too few dates: be careful. The grade on each deal page does this for you, and the history shows you why. If you want to see how this plays out across every deal we’ve graded, read the graded-deals report.