How we track prices
Phone deals change all the time. To help you tell a genuinely good price from a normal one, we record the cheapest deal for every phone once a day and show how it has moved.
What we compare
We only compare like with like. Each price history is for one phone in one storage size and condition, on one type of deal and contract length – for example, a new iPhone 17 256GB on a 24-month contract. Colour and network don’t matter: we take the cheapest in-stock deal from any network, in any colour.
The price we track is the cost as advertised: the upfront cost plus the monthly cost for every month of the contract. It doesn’t include price rises the network has announced for later in the contract. Those rises are counted from today’s date, so including them would make prices look as if they were changing when the deal itself hasn’t. The totals in our deal lists do include those rises, so they can be a little higher than the price-history figures.
How often we check
We check retailer data feeds every morning and save that day’s cheapest price. Past days are never changed. If we miss a day, there is a gap in the history rather than a guessed price.
Price drops
We show a “price drop” when the cheapest deal is at least £10 lower than it was 7 days earlier, comparing the same storage sizes and contract lengths. If we have less than 7 days of history, we compare with the first day we have, and say which day that was.
We only show the lowest price we have seen once we have at least 30 days of history, and we always say how many days that covers. We never describe a price as an “all-time low”.
Things to bear in mind
- Prices come from retailers’ data and can change at any time. Always check the price on the retailer’s website before you buy.
- A cheaper price can come from a different network or a tariff with less data, so compare the deals themselves before you decide.
- When a phone is out of stock everywhere, we don’t record a price for that day.