# Was Price

> Check one sale price before you buy. Put the deal price, the store's printed 'was' price and the prices you have actually seen for the same item on a price ladder, see the discount against prices the store really charged, and get a buy-now, wait or skip verdict with a walk-away price.

URL: https://was-price.skillsafe.ai/

## What the page does (free, in the browser)

- The deal: item, store, currency, today's price, the 'was' price on the tag, the date seen, when the promo says it ends, how much you need it (need, want, impulse), the most you would pay, and the promo text.
- Prices you've seen (up to 60): date, price, where, note - typed, pasted as `date | price | where | note` lines, or dropped as a .csv/.txt file.
- The ladder: an SVG ladder with one rung per recorded price and one peg per time you saw it, tags for the 'was' price, today's deal, the lowest recorded, the 30-day low, the typical (90-day median) price and your cap, the area over your cap shaded, and two brackets comparing the advertised drop with the real one.
- Price checks: the discount against the 30-day low, the 90-day median and the lowest recorded; whether the 'was' price was really charged (charged, rarely, never); whether the price climbed 8% or more in the 30 days before the sale; over-cap; sparse history. Rules of thumb, not laws.
- Promo scan: countdowns, stock counts, 'was'/'compare at' reference prices, best-price claims, event labels, free gifts and bundles, strings attached (codes, cards, payment plans), 'up to' discounts - each quoted verbatim.
- Exports: Markdown deal check, prices CSV, deal JSON, ladder SVG, and an .ics calendar reminder to recheck the price. A watch list (saved to the account when signed in) with "recheck today", which moves the last price into the history.

## The metered task

One task, `verdict`, billed in SkillSafe credits to a signed-in account. Input: `task`, `item`, `store`, `currency`, `deal_price`, `was_price`, `seen`, `ends`, `need`, `cap`, `copy`, `prices`, `facts` (JSON-encoded). Reply: one JSON object with `verdict` (`buy_now`, `wait` or `skip`), `verdict_why`, `title`, `honest_discount`, `anchor`, `tactics`, `wait_plan`, `walk_away_price`, `checks`, `caveats`. The page checks every reply against its own arithmetic before showing it.

API docs: https://was-price.skillsafe.ai/api.html

## Limits

Was Price never looks up prices: every price is one the shopper enters, and the sample deals are made up. It does not name stores or brands.

## Source

The checker is built on the SkillSafe skill @kostja94/discount-marketing-strategy (https://skillsafe.ai/skill/@kostja94/discount-marketing-strategy): discount and promotional pricing strategy - promo codes, coupons, seasonal and Black Friday sales - read here from the shopper's side of the counter.