Compare prices online
Show us the item — a photo, a barcode, a few words or a link — and find out what it should cost before you pay. The result opens the places selling it right now, with what it actually completes at alongside.
Example estimate
Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera
$190
Usually sells for $120 – $320
Your result appears here.
Where the comparison looks
Each result links straight into a search for the exact item it identified. Which of these show up depends on the category, so a coin does not send you to a clothing marketplace.
| Where | What you see there |
|---|---|
| eBay, cheapest first | Everything listed right now, sorted by price including postage. |
| Google Shopping | Shops and sellers side by side, for anything still in production. |
| Amazon | What a new one costs, so you know what the used discount is worth. |
| Facebook Marketplace | Local pickup, usually the cheapest option for bulky things. |
| Mercari | Private sellers, often under eBay prices. |
| Etsy | Vintage and handmade, where the same piece varies a lot in price. |
Paying less without buying the wrong thing
Most of the money saved on second-hand buying comes from patience and from checking that the cheap one is really the same item.
- Sort by price including postage. A cheap item with expensive shipping is not cheap.
- Check the model or style code, not the photo. Reprints, reissues and regional variants look identical.
- Compare like with like: boxed and complete against boxed and complete.
- Watch an item for a week before buying. Asking prices drop; sold prices tell you how far.
- For anything faked often, buy from a seller who can show provenance, or pay for grading.
Asking prices and sold prices are different numbers
Almost every price comparison you can run online shows asking prices: what sellers hope to get. That is useful for finding where an item is available and for seeing the spread, but it systematically overstates what things are worth, because listings that never sell stay visible indefinitely while the ones that sold disappear from view. A page full of expensive listings can coexist with a market where the item routinely completes for half of that.
This is why the result here pairs the places selling an item right now with a link to what the same item has actually completed at. Use the sold figure as the anchor and the live listings to find the cheapest route to it. If the cheapest current listing sits close to the typical sold price, that is a fair buy; if every listing sits well above it, waiting is usually right, because eventually one of those sellers takes the market price.
When buying used does not make sense
Comparing against the current new price is part of the exercise rather than an afterthought. For current-generation electronics the used discount is often small enough that a new unit with a warranty and a full-life battery is the better purchase, and the result links to the retail price precisely so you can check. The same applies to anything needing consumables, calibration or a service before it can be used: the sticker price is not the cost.
Used wins decisively in the other direction: discontinued items, anything built better than its modern equivalent, and the many categories where the second-hand market has fallen so far that a good example costs a fraction of its replacement. The comparison is worth running both ways rather than assuming either one in advance.
Set a target before you start looking, write it down, and compare every listing against that figure rather than against the other listings. Comparing listings only to each other is how a whole page of overpriced examples starts to look like the going rate, and it is the most common way a careful shopper still overpays.
Questions about comparing prices
How do I compare prices from a photo?
Photograph the item, or scan its barcode if it has one. It is identified first, then valued, and the result links to the places selling the same item right now, sorted cheapest first where the site allows it.
What is a fair price to pay?
For anything used, the typical sale price in the result is the honest benchmark. Paying under it is a good buy; paying over it only makes sense when the condition, completeness or warranty is better than the average sale.
Is a used one worth it over buying new?
Compare the used range against the current new price, which the result links to. For electronics the used discount is often small enough that a new one with a warranty wins. For discontinued or collectible items there is no new price to compare.
Why do asking prices vary so much for the same thing?
Condition, completeness and seller impatience, mostly. A boxed, complete example genuinely is a different product from a loose one, and some sellers list at a price they hope for rather than one anybody pays.
Does this find discount codes?
No. This compares what the item is worth against what it is being sold for. It does not hunt for coupons, and it has no affiliate reason to push one shop over another beyond the marketplace links shown.
Selling rather than buying? Start from what it is worth, or see what a pawn shop would offer.