How it works

Two sources. A slow crawler on a home server works through Harbor Freight's category pages about once a week, and every contributor's browser extension writes down what Harbor Freight's pages show them while they shop. A separate inbox subscribed to Harbor Freight's emails catches the coupons that only show up there.

A price from the extension only counts once a second contributor sees the same thing, or when it matches what we already had. One person can't move a price on their own, and reports that can't be right (a sale price above the regular one, a $4 floor jack) get thrown out.

The calls

Buy means today's price is at or near the lowest it's been in 90 days and noticeably below its usual price.

Wait means it's at its usual price and it has dropped at least 10% below that at some point in the past year. The page tells you how low it went and how often.

A coupon announced ahead of time also makes it Wait, when it starts within two weeks and beats today's price. Those are all on the Coming soon page.

Fair is everything in between.

Steady means the price hasn't moved in months. Waiting won't get you anything.

New means we've watched it for less than four weeks, which isn't enough to say anything honest.

"Usual price" is the median of the last 180 days, counting coupons anyone can use. Inside Track Club prices are tracked separately; tick the member box on the search page to judge everything by member pricing.

What it can't see

Store-only markdowns and clearance tags. Percent-off coupons count when their title names a brand or kind of tool ("30% off All DAYTONA Floor Jacks"), and they're matched by item name, so check the fine print. The blanket ones ("20% off any single item") exclude half the store; those show up on the search page as a list but don't count toward any item's price.

Not affiliated with Harbor Freight. Item numbers and product names belong to them.