How AlternativePrice works
We measure one thing well: the real, all-in price of a game or app across countries and legitimate stores, and whether you can actually buy it. Here is exactly how, and the standards we hold ourselves to.
What we measure
Two numbers, together. The landed cost (local price plus tax, currency conversion and an estimated card fee) and a buyability verdict (can you actually pay it). A low price that you cannot complete is not a deal, so we never show one without the other.
Where the data comes from
We read prices from official storefronts (Steam and the App Store regional price APIs) and from reputable game-key marketplaces (via CheapShark). Currency conversion uses the European Central Bank reference rate (through the Frankfurter API) and, for currencies the ECB does not publish, a market rate from an open exchange-rate feed. We do not scrape behind logins or paywalls, and we follow a documented scraping-and-legal policy.
How landed cost is calculated
For each country we take the local price, put tax on the same basis across countries, convert at the ECB reference rate (or a market rate where the ECB publishes none), and add an estimated ~2% card foreign-transaction fee for purchases in another currency. The result is the number that actually lands on your statement. The full breakdown is in the landed-cost guide.
What each verdict means
Any card, no foreign account. The price is openly available to you (your home region, or a global storefront / key marketplace).
A free store account set to that country, then any card works. Common for Steam and the App Store regional prices.
The price usually wants a card issued in that country, or a regional gift card. Often not strictly checked, so it is an extra step, not out of reach.
The headline price on any result is the cheapest one you can genuinely complete, not simply the lowest number. We also flag when a low price is only low because of a temporary sale, so you can tell a flash sale from a lasting regional price.
How fresh the numbers are
The public country pages are a point-in-time snapshot, so they read the same until we rebuild them. The cheapest country rotates often as sales start and end and exchange rates move, so the live ranking and the direct buy link live in the app. Each guide notes the snapshot it was reviewed against.
Our standards
Honesty over hype. We show the real completable price and label the extra step when there is one. We never publish instructions for faking your location or region, because that crosses from smart shopping into a terms violation.
Affiliate disclosure. Some store links, and a VPN link where one is genuinely useful, may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Ranking is always by landed cost and never by what pays us, and a VPN is only ever surfaced when it actually changes the price you can pay.
Corrections. If a price or a verdict looks wrong, tell us and we will fix it. Methods evolve; this page is updated when they do.