How to save 300 dollars a year using price alerts

Three times a week someone writes asking how price alerts work and whether it's really worth setting them up. So we decided to count concretely. We took 500 users actively using alerts (minimum 10 wishlist + alerts enabled) and analyzed data from the past 12 months.

Result: the average user with alerts saved 300 USD a year compared to prices that existed when they first added a game to wishlist. This matters. I'm not counting "savings from launch price" (which is marketing), only "savings from what the game cost when you first learned about it". The data is hard and reproducible.

How a price alert actually works

The mechanic is simple. You add a game to wishlist, set a price threshold (e.g. "notify when below 20 USD"), our system checks prices every few hours in the four main stores and sends you an email/push notification when the threshold is crossed.

Sounds banal, but here's the whole trick: without an alert, most people check prices of favorite games once every 2-3 weeks, manually. With an alert you get notification within 2 hours of a price drop, usually during an active promo. That's the difference between catching the minimum price and the average price.

Three alert types I personally use

In our comparator you can configure three different alert modes. Each for a different purchase scenario.

"Price threshold" alert. You set a specific price, get notified only when the price falls below. Best for games you've had on wishlist for a long time and know exactly what you want to pay. I use this for AAA games I really care about. Cyberpunk with DLC I set at 30 USD, got the alert in December 2024, bought.

"Discount percentage" alert. You set "notify when there's minus 30 percent from the average of last 30 days". Great for hunting flash promos on games you just added to wishlist where you don't yet know the average price. The algorithm picks the threshold for you.

"Historic low" alert. Notification only when the price drops to the historic minimum in our database. Most restrictive mode. I use it for indies I don't care about that much. Wait for years, but when the alert lands, I know it's absolute bottom.

Statistics from our users

Data for the year (June 2024 to June 2025) on a group of 500 active alert users.

• Average number of games on wishlist: 23
• Average alerts triggered per month: 4.2
• Average time between adding a game and the alert trigger: 47 days
• Average savings per alert: 7 USD
• Total annual savings per person: 300 USD

In other words, alerts do the work for you that would manually take a few hours a week. Thanks to that you buy not when you remember you want to play, but when it's actually cheapest.

Top 10 mistakes when configuring alerts

We've written this in individual emails to dozens of users, so collecting it in one place.

1. Too restrictive price threshold. You set Cyberpunk at 12 USD, the alert never triggers because the game has never dropped that low. Realistic thresholds are 20-30 percent below today's price.

2. No vacation mode. You go on a 2-week trip, during that time an alert fires on a wishlist game, you don't notice, the promo ends before you return. You can disable alerts for the trip or ask a friend to monitor.

3. Unsorted wishlist. Keeping 80 games on wishlist is chaos. Better 15-20 important plus a separate "maybe someday" list.

4. No DLC alert. People often have the base game on wishlist but forget about DLC. Cyberpunk + Phantom Liberty bought separately needs two alerts.

5. Not listening to differences between stores. An alert set only on EEneba skips an offer from GGamivo that's often cheaper. Our system by default checks all four.

6. No seller verification in alert. Alert fires on the price but the seller has 80 percent ratings. Better to set "minimum 98 percent" filter in alert config.

7. Panic reaction. Alert lands, you click immediately, buy, then see two days later the price dropped further. Give yourself 4-6 hours to decide even after the alert.

8. No monthly budget. Alerts come in regularly, you buy everything, end of month and you've spent 150 USD. Set a monthly limit and stick to it.

9. Unclean wishlist. Games from two years ago you stopped wanting still generate alerts. Clean wishlist once a quarter.

10. Ignoring the alert because "maybe it'll drop further". Yes, sometimes it will. But 80 percent of the time, no. If the alert says "historic low", that's usually the bottom.

Tips specific to our platform

Three things specific to RespawnKey that are easy to miss.

Multi-channel notifications. You can turn on alerts to email + browser push + Discord webhook (for power users). Not one, several in parallel.

Time-of-day filter. Promos usually drop between 10:00 and 18:00 CET. You can set the alert only in this window so you don't get notifications at 3 AM (when a flash deal from Asia lands).

Stacking promo codes. Our system accounts for active store promo codes. The base price may be above threshold but after a -10 percent code it drops below, so the alert fires.

What doesn't work

Honestly: alerts aren't magic and there are scenarios where they help nothing.

AAA launches in first 3 months. Price doesn't drop because publishers hold stable pricing under buzz. An alert on a freshly released Elden Ring 2 (if it ships) for half a year will do nothing because the price won't move.

Very niche games. If you pick Japanese visual novels or experimental indies, third-party stores don't have them in catalog. Alerts triggered never.

Bundles. Humble Bundle isn't in our catalog (price structure too volatile). You have to manually monitor bundle-tracker sites.

What to expect in 2026

Our plans for alerts in the coming months:

• Group alerts. Notification when in one store 3+ games from your wishlist drop simultaneously (i.e. the store ran a promo event).
• Predictive alerts. Notification "this game will probably drop next week, basis: historical cycle plus upcoming Steam Sale".
• Friend wishlist sharing. Your wishlist visible to friends, shared alerts, cost splitting for co-op titles.

All of these will be free. Our philosophy: if our tools save you 300 USD a year, we earn through affiliate commission (5-10 percent from the store for referring you to the purchase). Win-win. Your 300 USD of savings costs you exactly 0 USD plus 5 minutes of setup.

That's it. If you don't use alerts yet, the simplest thing you can do today: add 10 games to wishlist and turn on "Discount percentage" 25 percent on each. Come back in 3 months and check how much you saved.

A short anecdote on why I started using alerts

Five years ago I bought Sekiro at full launch price, 70 USD. Three months later I saw it in a third-party store for 25. The wave of regret made me start manually checking game prices every day. Every morning, 15 minutes across four stores plus Steam plus IsThereAnyDeal. After a few weeks I decided this was absurd and started looking for a tool that would do it for me. That's basically how I ended up co-founding this comparator. The version of myself who bought Sekiro at full price needed this tool and didn't have it. So we built it.