# Amazon Real Deal Finder: Today's Price vs Its Price History (`wellbuilt_zythem/amazon-real-deals`) Actor

Amazon.com products by search or ASIN with today's price, the discount Amazon claims, and the real price history from the Internet Archive: lowest, highest and average over the years. A verdict per product: real deal, good price, usual price or above usual. Schedule it to catch drops.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/wellbuilt_zythem/amazon-real-deals.md
- **Developed by:** [Carlos Escanez](https://apify.com/wellbuilt_zythem) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.60 / 1,000 amazon real deal finder: today's price vs its price histories

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Amazon Real Deal Finder: Today's Price vs Its Price History

Amazon shows "-36%". Against what? Usually against a list price almost nobody paid. This Actor checks each product's price today against its **own price history**, rebuilt from the copies of the product page kept by the Internet Archive, and gives one verdict per product:

| Verdict | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `real_deal` | Today's price is at or under the lowest archived price (within 2 %). |
| `good_price` | At least 10 % under the product's average archived price. |
| `usual_price` | Within 10 % of its average. The "discount" is the normal price. |
| `above_usual` | More than 10 % over its average. Wait. |
| `not_enough_history` | Fewer than 3 archived prices. Delivered, not charged. |

Give it searches ("robot vacuum") or ASINs, and it returns one row per product with today's price, the discount Amazon claims, the real discount against the average, the historic low with its date, the high, the average, how many archived prices it saw, and the price in your last run.

### What you get per product

| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| `verdict`, `isRealDeal`, `verdictReason` | `real_deal`, `true`, "At or under its lowest archived price (599.99 on 2026-06-02)" |
| `price`, `listPrice`, `claimedDiscountPct` | 599.99, 699.99, -14 |
| `realDiscountPct` | -7.7 (against its average; 0 when today is not under the average) |
| `historicLow`, `historicLowDate`, `historicHigh`, `historicHighDate` | 649.99, 2026-06-02, 699.99, 2026-01-02 |
| `historicAverage`, `historicMedian`, `historyMonths`, `historyFrom`, `historyTo` | 674.99, 674.99, 2, 2026-01-02, 2026-06-02 |
| `vsHistoricLowPct`, `vsAveragePct` | -7.7, -11.1 |
| `previousRunPrice`, `changeSinceLastRunPct`, `isNewSinceLastRun` | from the memory between your runs |
| `rating`, `ratingsCount`, `boughtPastMonth`, `bestSellersRank`, `bestSellersCategory`, `inStock`, `soldBy`, `coupon` | today's page |
| `title`, `brand`, `image`, `url`, `searchQuery`, `archiveCopiesFound`, `scrapedAt` | |

Products Amazon refused to serve come back as `not_read` with the reason, free. Products without enough archived prices come back with today's data and no verdict, free.

### Input

| Field | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `searches` | | Keywords or amazon.com search links. |
| `products` | | ASINs or product links. Checked first. |
| `pagesPerSearch` | 1 | 1 to 5 result pages per search. |
| `maxProducts` | 40 | Products checked against the Archive per run, up to 150. About 30 s per product, 3 at a time: 40 products take about 7 minutes. |
| `minClaimedDiscountPct` | 0 | 20 = only check products Amazon shows at 20 % off or more. The rest are delivered without verdict, free. |
| `period` | month | One archived price per month or per week. |
| `maxPointsPerProduct` | 24 | 3 to 60 archived prices per product. |
| `onlyDeals` | false | Deliver only `real_deal` and `good_price`. |
| `stateStoreName` | amazon-real-deals-memory | Memory between runs: one name per list you track. |

### Pricing

One `deal_check` event per product that gets a verdict. Products with fewer than 3 archived prices, products over `maxProducts` and products Amazon refused are delivered free. Plus Apify compute, about $0.002 per product checked.

### Where the history comes from, and its limits

The Internet Archive keeps copies of Amazon product pages taken at irregular dates. Popular products have a copy most months going back years (measured on 40 well-known products: median 30 months of prices); a new or obscure product may have one copy or none. The verdict says how many archived prices it rests on (`historyMonths`); with fewer than 3 there is no verdict. The average is the average of those copies, not of every day in between.

Today's data is read from amazon.com without login or proxy; Amazon refuses some requests with a robot check, and the Actor retries and reports what it could not read. No reviews are read.

### Schedule it

Run it daily on the same searches with the same `stateStoreName` and each row also tells you the price in the previous run and whether the product is new to the search. Turn on `onlyDeals` to get only what is worth looking at.

### Related Actors

- [Amazon Price Drop Tracker](https://apify.com/wellbuilt_zythem/amazon-price-drops): the same products without the Archive history, cheaper, for daily tracking of large lists.
- [Amazon Price History](https://apify.com/wellbuilt_zythem/amazon-price-history): the full archived history per product, point by point, with the link to each archived copy.

# Actor input Schema

## `searches` (type: `array`):

Keywords as you would type them on amazon.com ("air fryer"), or an amazon.com search link with your filters already set. Every product found is checked against its price history, up to "Max products".

## `products` (type: `array`):

Amazon.com ASINs or product links, one per line: "B01AKGRTUM" or "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AKGRTUM". Checked before the search results.

## `pagesPerSearch` (type: `integer`):

Result pages to read per search, 16 to 48 products each. 1 to 5.

## `maxProducts` (type: `integer`):

Products checked against the Internet Archive per run, at most 150. Reading the history takes about 30 seconds per product (3 at a time), so 40 products are about 7 minutes. Products over the limit are delivered without a verdict and not charged.

## `minClaimedDiscountPct` (type: `integer`):

0 checks every product. 20 checks only products whose page shows a discount of 20 % or more against the list price, which is where the inflated "deals" hide. Products below the threshold are delivered with today's data and no verdict, free.

## `period` (type: `string`):

Month: one archived copy per month (the default). Week: one per week, for products the Internet Archive saved often.

## `maxPointsPerProduct` (type: `integer`):

Most recent archived prices kept per product, 3 to 60. 24 months is two years. A product with fewer than 3 archived prices gets no verdict and is not charged.

## `onlyDeals` (type: `boolean`):

On: only products whose price today is at or under their historic low (real deal) or at least 10 % under their average (good price). Off: every product, with its verdict.

## `stateStoreName` (type: `string`):

Key-value store that remembers prices between runs, so each row also says what the product cost in your last run. Use one name per list you track and keep it the same every run.

## `resetState` (type: `boolean`):

Start the memory from scratch in this run.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Not needed: measured without proxy from Apify. Optional if you prefer your own. The Internet Archive is always read without proxy.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searches": [
    "robot vacuum"
  ],
  "pagesPerSearch": 1,
  "maxProducts": 4,
  "minClaimedDiscountPct": 0,
  "period": "month",
  "maxPointsPerProduct": 12,
  "onlyDeals": false,
  "stateStoreName": "amazon-real-deals-memory",
  "resetState": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "searches": [
        "robot vacuum"
    ],
    "pagesPerSearch": 1,
    "maxProducts": 4,
    "maxPointsPerProduct": 12,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": false
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("wellbuilt_zythem/amazon-real-deals").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "searches": ["robot vacuum"],
    "pagesPerSearch": 1,
    "maxProducts": 4,
    "maxPointsPerProduct": 12,
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": False },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("wellbuilt_zythem/amazon-real-deals").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "searches": [
    "robot vacuum"
  ],
  "pagesPerSearch": 1,
  "maxProducts": 4,
  "maxPointsPerProduct": 12,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}' |
apify call wellbuilt_zythem/amazon-real-deals --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,wellbuilt_zythem/amazon-real-deals"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/0BLxYXUbm84umhPsj/builds/SDp1CMhuxY1e5N2qc/openapi.json