Price monitoring
Proxies for price monitoring
A monitor records whichever storefront answered it, and retailers answer by location. Pin each market you report on to a static IP in that country, run the broad sweep over rotating residential traffic, and keep the cost steady enough to leave running.
Where it breaks
What goes wrong first
Retailers price by market, by currency and sometimes by visitor. A monitor reading from the wrong place records a price nobody in your market was shown.
- Prices and promotions that differ by country and currency
- Stock and delivery estimates tied to where the visitor appears to be
- Marketplaces that throttle repeat visits to the same listings
- Daily jobs that fail quietly and leave holes in the history
How the hive handles it
Built for price monitoring
One fixed origin per market
Order an ISP IP in each market you report on and every check for that market leaves from there. The order form offers country, region, city and carrier selection where stock allows.
A named carrier for picky storefronts
Some storefronts treat hosting ranges with suspicion. An ISP IP sits on a consumer carrier, and the order form tells you which one before you pay.
Rotation for the wide sweep
Listing pages across dozens of competitors are a volume problem. Residential traffic rotates across household connections, so repeat visits to one catalogue do not all arrive from the same caller.
A budget that holds still
The price you configure is the price at checkout, locked for 12 months from the day you buy, so the rate in the monitor’s budget is the rate you pay for that whole term.
What we would buy
The line to start on, and the one to fall back to
Prices come from the catalogue checkout reads. No geo surcharge and nothing added at the payment step.
First choice
from $1.50 / IP
ISP
Static residential IPs on named carriers. Buy one. Get it now.
A static IP per market, on a named carrier, gives every check the same local origin day after day, so a change in the feed reflects a change on the shelf.
- One unit at checkout
- $3.20 / IP
- Location at checkout
- By country, region, city and carrier
Fallback
from $1.75 / GB
Residential
Rotating residential IPs, priced per gigabyte, no expiry.
For sweeping many retailers where the exact market matters less, rotating traffic reaches a breadth that a handful of static IPs cannot.
- One unit at checkout
- $5.50 / GB
- Location at checkout
- Rotating, no location picker
A typical setup
From signup to steady state
Step 1
List the markets you report on and order one ISP IP in each
Step 2
Send market-exact checks through the static IPs and broad sweeps through residential
Step 3
Store the fetched page beside the parsed price, so an odd reading can be checked later
Step 4
Hold the IPs on a term that matches your reporting cycle, from 30 to 365 days
Rules before purchase
Allowed
Public web data collection
Prices, product listings, reviews, availability, job postings, public company data: anything a logged-out visitor can see. Respect the target’s rate limits and do not degrade their service.
The whole allowed-use policy12-month rate lock
Your rate holds from the day you buy, and follows the list price down.
Traffic never expires
No monthly reset. What you buy waits until you spend it.
Questions
Price monitoring, answered
Can I monitor prices in a specific city?
On ISP, the order form offers country, region, city and carrier selection, and on datacenter country, region and city, for the locations in stock when you order. Residential has no location picker.
How many IPs does a market need?
Start with one per market. Add more when a single origin begins to hit the retailer’s per-visitor limits. ISP sells from a quantity of one, so there is no pack to buy up front.
Is monitoring competitor prices allowed?
Yes. Prices, listings and availability that a logged-out visitor can see are public web data, which the allowed-use policy permits. Keep within the target’s rate limits.
Will my rate change while the monitor runs?
Not for 12 months from purchase. If our list price drops in that time, your rate drops with it.
Start free
Start price monitoring on ISP
Sign up, configure ISP, and pay what the configurator showed. The smallest top-up is $10 and there is no minimum order.