How we make money (and why it costs you nothing)

ChipSniffer is free, has no ads and sets no tracking cookies. Still, the bills have to be paid. This is how we do it:

Affiliate commission

If you click a button such as “Go to shop” and then buy something at that shop, we often receive a small commission from the shop, usually 1 to 4 percent of the purchase amount. Such a link is called an affiliate link. You pay nothing extra: the price is exactly the same as when you go to the shop yourself.

We work with (or are applying for) the partner programs of: AfB shop, Alternate, Alza, Amazon, Azerty, Back Market, bol, Caseking, computeruniverse, Coolblue, Coolmod, Cyberport, eBay, eMAG, Fnac, Komplett, LDLC, MediaMarkt, Megekko, Mindfactory, Morele, notebooksbilliger.de, PcComponentes, Proshop, reBuy, refurbed, Rue du Commerce, Webhallen, x-kom. Affiliate links are marked with rel="sponsored" in the code. Marktplaats links are not affiliate links.

The commission is tracked by the shop or an affiliate network (such as Awin, Daisycon, TradeTracker, Adtraction or Partnerize). They set a cookie on their own website after you click through. Read their privacy policy for details.

How we decide the order

The order of offers on a product page is not for sale. We always sort by these criteria, in this order:

1. In stock comes before out of stock.
2. Product price including VAT, from low to high.
3. If prices are equal: total price including shipping.

Whether a shop pays us commission does not count. Shops we have no agreement with can simply have the lowest price too. In lists we sort by the lowest new price by default; you can change that yourself.

“Lowest price” always means: new

The price we show large for a product is the lowest price for a new item that is in stock. Second-hand and refurbished offers are always shown separately with an orange label, so the lowest price is never misleading. If a product is out of stock everywhere, we say so.

How current are the prices?

We fetch prices several times a day from shops' official product feeds and from marketplace APIs. A price can therefore be a few hours behind. The price at the shop always prevails. Every price shows when we last checked it, and offers that haven't been updated for more than 48 hours are hidden.

Where do the prices come from?

Only from sources intended for this: product feeds that shops offer to partners through affiliate networks, and official APIs (such as eBay's and Amazon's). We only read websites automatically when the shop's terms clearly allow it; at the moment we don't do that for any shop. That's why we show no Marktplaats prices, only a link to their search results.

We don't make anything up. As long as the connection with a shop isn't active yet, we show no price for that shop. The price history starts on the day we first really measured a price; days without a measurement stay empty.

Per country, only shops that deliver there

ChipSniffer has a separate version for every country of the European single market: the 27 EU countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. In each country you only see offers from shops that deliver to that country and whose partner program covers it. Prices are shown in the country's currency. If a shop charges in another currency, we convert at the European Central Bank's daily reference rate and mark it with ≈. Shipping costs abroad are often unknown; we say so when that's the case.

No ads, no sponsored placements

There are no banners on ChipSniffer and shops can't buy a better position. Should that ever change, it will be clearly marked as “Sponsored” on the offer and we'll update this page.