Dealert - Track Product Sales

Review by eFreeware

If you shop online often enough that checking deal forums has become part of your routine, Dealert is built for you. It keeps a watchlist of products and checks the web for discounts on your behalf, then tells you when something turns up. The appeal is the removal of the manual sweep through several sites every day.

The app comes from developer Kevin Foreman and has been on Google Play since December 2018, with more than 10,000 installs and a 3.8 average from 131 ratings. It is free to download, carries no ads, and offers in-app purchases. For anyone who tracks a handful of gadgets, parts or household buys and would rather be told than keep looking, that combination is easy to try.

How the deal tracking works

Dealert runs on a simple loop. You add products you care about, and the app periodically searches the internet on its own to see whether any of them has dropped in price. When it finds something, you get a notification so you can act before the offer disappears.

The watchlist is unlimited, which matters more than it sounds. Many people start with one or two items and end up tracking a dozen: a monitor, a graphics card, a coffee machine, a gift they are waiting to buy. There is no stated cap on how many products you can follow, so the list can grow with your shopping habits rather than forcing you to prune it.

The other half of the app is browsing. Dealert aggregates deals from across the web and presents a fresh set each day, so you can look through what is on offer without having set up a single alert. That gives the app two ways in: passive browsing for people who enjoy the hunt, and active watching for people who only want to hear about specific items.

The sites it pulls deals from

The deal sources are the backbone of a tracker like this, and Dealert draws from a recognizable set. On the general deal side there are Slickdeals, Techbargains, Dealnews, BensBargains, DealsPlus, eDealInfo, GottaDeal and Fabulessly Frugal. For technology buyers in particular, Newegg was once part of that mix.

Two Reddit communities are included as well: r/BuildAPCSales and r/GameDeals. Those are useful additions for anyone assembling a PC or watching for game discounts, since both communities post offers that do not always surface on the bigger deal sites. The developer notes that more sources are planned.

One change is worth flagging for anyone who has used the app before. A recent update removed Newegg because its feed stopped working, alongside performance and stability improvements and updated libraries. The developer is upfront about that, and it is a reminder that a tracker is only as good as the feeds it can reach.

Alerts, browsing and feedback

Notifications are the core of the experience. The promise is that when a deal is found for something on your list, you hear about it right away rather than discovering it after the fact. That is the difference between a tracker and a bookmark folder: the app does the checking on a schedule, and you only see the results that matter.

The daily browsable feed serves a different mood. Some days you know exactly what you want; other days you are curious what is discounted. Dealert covers both, and the developer describes the browsing side as curated rather than a raw dump of everything found.

There is also a built-in feedback mechanism. If something is not working, or you have an idea for a feature, you can contact the developer directly through the app. That is a small thing, but it tells you the app is being shaped with input from the people using it.

What it asks of you

Dealert is free to download and shows no ads, but it does offer in-app purchases. That is the honest shape of the deal: you can install it and use it without watching advertisements, and there are optional paid elements available inside.

The bigger requirement is patience with the model itself. The app searches on its own schedule, so alerts arrive after a search rather than the instant a price changes. That is how automated tracking works, and it is why the app is best treated as a background helper rather than a live ticker.

The source list is another consideration. Dealert covers a specific set of deal sites and two Reddit communities, and the Newegg removal shows that feeds come and go. If the products you follow tend to be discounted somewhere outside that group, the app may not catch them.

The app was last updated in late November 2020, which is worth knowing before you commit to it as a long-term tool. The recent changes were maintenance-focused: performance work, library updates and stability fixes rather than new features.

Who gets the most from Dealert

The clearest fit is someone who already checks deal sites regularly and wants that habit automated. If you keep a mental list of things you would buy at the right price, Dealert turns that list into something the app watches for you.

It also suits PC builders and gamers, given the inclusion of r/BuildAPCSales and r/GameDeals alongside the mainstream deal sites. Watching for a graphics card, a power supply or a game discount is exactly the kind of narrow, repeated search that automated tracking handles well.

More casual shoppers can still get value from the daily browsing side, treating Dealert as a place to see what is discounted rather than a watchlist tool. The two modes mean the app does not demand that you set anything up before it becomes useful.

A tracker for people who already hunt deals

Dealert does one job and does it in a straightforward way: it watches products for you and tells you when a deal appears, while also offering a daily feed for browsing. The unlimited watchlist, the spread of deal sources and the absence of ads make it easy to recommend to anyone who shops online often.

The caveats are the ones built into the idea. The source list is fixed to the sites and communities it supports, and there are in-app purchases alongside the free download. None of that undermines the core function, but it shapes who will be happiest with it.

If you are the type of shopper who keeps a running list of things to buy when the price is right, this is a sensible addition to your phone. If you rarely track prices and prefer to buy when you need something, the daily browsing feed is the part you would actually use.

What's new in version 1.5.2

- Significant performance improvements. - Updated various libraries. - Removed Newegg as their RSS feed is no longer working. - Stability improvements.