Hourly, daily, weekly? The honest answer is that checking frequency should match how fast prices actually move in your category — and in most categories that is far slower than monitoring vendors imply.
Match the frequency to the category
- Hourly: marketplace-heavy categories — consumer electronics, games, popular accessories — where sellers run repricers and the lowest offer changes through the day.
- Daily: most independent stores. Fashion, home, hobby, tools, spare parts. A once-a-day check catches essentially every real move.
- Weekly: long-tail products, own-brand items, and anything where you would not change your price anyway.
Why more often is not better
Every extra check adds noise, not information. If you get alerted on a 0.5% wobble at 2am, you will start ignoring alerts — and the alert you ignore will be the one that mattered. Set a change threshold around 2% so you only hear about moves worth a decision.
Frequent checks also make you reactive. Matching a competitor within minutes teaches them that undercutting you works instantly, which is exactly the dynamic you do not want.
When it pays to check more often
- During Black Friday, seasonal sales, and product launches.
- On products you are actively advertising — paid clicks amplify a price gap.
- When a competitor has recently started a price war with you.
A simple schedule that works
- Top 20 revenue products: hourly checks, 2% alert threshold.
- Everything else you track: daily checks, 5% threshold.
- One weekly review of the history, not a daily one.
- Raise frequency temporarily during sale periods, then lower it again.
Prizeee checks tracked URLs hourly and emails you only when a price actually changes, so the schedule above needs no work from you. From €2.99 a month with a 7-day free trial.
Related: how to monitor competitor prices automatically and tools compared.