How the Insider Reviews team vets deals and finds the best real discounts

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

With so many online stores advertising "good deals," we on the Insider Reviews team seek to shed light on what is actually worth your money. More often than not, prices are inflated to exaggerate discounts, and the truly good deals are hidden in plain sight.

Every day, we scour the internet for the best sales, coupons, and promotions — not only on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. That's why we have a library of knowledge to reference when it comes to highlighting what's hot and what's not.

How we find deals at Insider Reviews

When you find a deal shared on Insider Reviews, you can rest assured it's not only a good price but also a vetted product. Everyone on our team has a different process, but it usually starts with a tried-and-true item. That can be a vacuum from one of our buying guides or a popular streaming service beloved by our readers. Once we've done the research, we can look into the price itself.

By scouring other deals aggregation websites and major retailer sale pages (like Amazon and Walmart), we're able to pull out highlights with our keen eye for brands and cost. From there, we'll assess the discount based on the product's history, inflation, and time of year — because life doesn't always wait for Black Friday to roll around with an all-time low. When the price isn't groundbreakingly low but still decent, we'll always share the details so you can make an informed purchase.

We also maintain relationships with major brand partners to get the scoop on sales before they go live, so we can bring them to your attention as soon as possible. This is how we can also coordinate for exclusive discounts for our readers, on everything from mattresses to e-bikes.

What we look for

There are two major conditions for a deal to be Insider Reviews-worthy. It must be:

1. A product we've tested or researched for quality
2. A discount matching or beating recent price drops

Assessing the latter takes a grain of salt. Pricing history from trackers like Camelcamelcamel and Keepa can include third-party seller fluctuations but exclude noteworthy drops, such as Amazon's Lightning Deals. We are careful to take these into account when choosing what to share.

All-time lows are an easy shoo-in, but most of the year, you'll find items at prices they often drop to. A good example is the Apple Watch Series 11; at the time of writing, it's advertised as a discount at $320, but a quick price history lookup shows it's almost always on sale for $299. Not only would we not surface the $320 listing in our articles, but we wouldn't spotlight the $299 price. Instead, we'd advise not paying any more than that price point.

Meet our expert deals team

Everyone on the Insider Reviews team has extensive experience covering deals within their vertical, from style and beauty to home and kitchen. Our deals team, however, is especially well-versed in deals across all product categories.

Sarah Saril, Editor of Deals and Tickets

Sarah Saril, as the Deals and Tickets Editor, is the team's resident deals expert, covering discounts on tickets, TVs, laptops, couches, makeup, and everything in between. She's provided resources for the rest of the Insider Reviews team, emphasizing the importance of price history research and reliable retailers.

Formerly a Deals Writer at Wirecutter, a New York Times Company, Sarah has almost a decade of experience with deal events. Holidays like Black Friday, Prime Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, and more are her specialty. She has appeared on multiple TV and radio outlets to share her shopping advice, including CBS Streaming, Fox5DC, ABC News, and more.

Outside of the holidays, she spends every day window shopping for Insider Reviews readers. While she is sure to spotlight incredible low prices, she also shares decent deals year-round for readers who can't afford to wait until Thanksgiving season.

Lillian Brown, Senior Associate Editor of Streaming

Lillian Brown is the Senior Associate Editor of Streaming on the Business Insider Reviews team. She covers all things streaming services and is a member of the deals team, where she writes and edits stories on the latest discounts across a variety of products.

Lillian started her career at The Boston Globe, where she wrote about arts, lifestyle, and entertainment. Her work has appeared in Vulture, TV Guide, Esquire, Time, Apartment Therapy, and The Daily Beast, among other online publications.

After spending the past couple of years with the deals team, Lillian is constantly on the lookout for new discounts and comparing them to previous sales to ensure she's always recommending strong deals on quality products. She covers sales year-round, especially in the subscription service and tech space, and supports deal coverage during tentpole shopping events, including Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Prime Day.