Methodology
How the ranking actually works
We divide the price you would actually pay by the amount of the active ingredient you actually get. Whichever product gives you the most of that ingredient per dollar goes first. Nothing else moves a product up or down: not commission, not brand, not how much a retailer pays anyone.
The unit, per category
Chosen because it is the thing you are really buying
- Protein Powder cost per g protein
- Creatine cost per g creatine
- Pre-Workout cost per serving
- Energy Drinks cost per fl oz
- Nutrition Bars cost per g protein
Worked example. A tub at $89.99 with 74 servings and 25 g of protein per serving contains 1,850 g of protein, so it costs 4.9 cents per gram of protein. A $39.99 tub with 24 servings and 21 g per serving contains 504 g, so it costs 7.9 cents. The cheaper tub is the more expensive protein, and the ranking says so. Every product page prints this arithmetic for its best offer, so you can check it rather than trust it.
Worked example: energy drinks. A twelve-pack of 12 fl oz cans at $24.00 holds 144 fl oz, so it costs about 17 cents per fluid ounce. A single 16 fl oz can at $2.50 costs about 16 cents per fluid ounce. The single can has the higher sticker price and the higher price per can, and it is still the better value, which is why energy drinks are ranked per fluid ounce rather than per can. A can whose size we have not recorded is left out of the ranking instead of being assumed to hold twelve ounces.
Which price we use
The ordinary one-time purchase price. If a working coupon lowers what you pay, we rank on the price with the code and say which code it was.
We do not rank on subscription prices, membership prices, bundle prices, or a “from $X” figure taken off a page listing several sizes. Those are real prices, but they are not prices everyone can pay, and mixing them into a ranking makes the ranking a fiction.
Freshness
An offer we have not confirmed in the last 48 hours is removed from the rankings and from search. Every price on the site shows when we last confirmed it. If a check fails, we keep the last price we verified rather than overwriting it with a guess, and the timestamp does not move.
When we claim a discount
Four thresholds, all of them enforced in code
A percentage-off claim needs a comparison price, and a comparison price is only meaningful if it describes the same thing. We compare a price only against prices we have recorded for the same pack count, size, variant and flavour. A single bar is never compared with a box of twelve; a 1 lb tub is never compared with a 5 lb tub.
- 7 days of our own recorded history before we will call anything a drop.
- < 5% is not badged. A difference that small is noise, not news.
- > 70% is treated as a data fault and not shown. Supplements are discounted hard, but a drop past that line has always turned out to be a mistake in our data rather than a bargain.
- No badge at all when there is no trustworthy comparison price. We show the price with no percentage. A deal without a badge is still a deal.
What we never use as a comparison price
A retailer's list price, MSRP, or crossed-out “compare at” figure. That number is chosen by the seller and can be set to whatever makes the discount look biggest. We record it, and we never show a saving against it. Every comparison price on this site is a price LiftRadar itself observed.
What we do not do
- We do not test products, and we never imply that we have.
- We do not host reviews, ratings or scores of our own invention.
- We do not recommend a worse product because it is cheaper. Value is cost per unit of what is in the tub, not the lowest sticker.
- We do not know whether you bought anything. Following a link is not a purchase, and we never treat it as one.
Getting it wrong
Prices and nutrition figures are collected automatically from retailer listings, and both can be wrong. Confirm at the retailer's checkout before buying. If something on this site is incorrect, tell us at [email protected] and we will fix the record.