Why the Lowest Tracked Price Matters More Than the Discount Percentage
By Lowstamp Editor · 2026-06-20
I once bought a game with a -75% badge on it and watched the same game go cheaper two months later in the Winter Sale. That's when it clicked. The discount percentage only tells you how much came off that day's list price. It says nothing about whether the price is cheap for this game. The number that does say that is a different one: how low this game has gone before. Its tracked low.
What the tracked low is
It's the lowest price a game has reached in the records we keep. If a $59.99 game has been through a few sales and once dropped to $17.99, its tracked low is $17.99. To judge whether today's price is good you need something to compare it with, and nothing is more solid than a price the game actually sold at.
The tracked low on Lowstamp is the lowest price since we started recording in June 2026. It's not the cheapest the game has ever been. Older games may have sold for less before that, which is why every game page says when its records begin. The number gets more accurate as the history grows.
Why the discount percentage can't be trusted on its own
The percentage shows how much came off the list price. The catch is that the seller sets the list price. Selling a $19.99 game at half off for $9.99, and raising the list price to $39.99 then selling it 'at 75% off' for the same $9.99, takes exactly the same money out of your pocket. Look at the badges alone and the second one looks like a far better deal.
Then there are games that are on sale all year. At some point after launch they settle at something like 75% off and basically stay there. For those, 'on sale now' is no reason to hurry, because the next sale will almost certainly show the same price. The badge can't tell these two cases apart.
The seller can't touch the tracked low
List prices go up and down, but the fact that a game once sold at a certain price can't be erased. That's why comparing today's price with the tracked low lets you decide without being pushed around by badge copy. If a shopkeeper yells '$70 off the $100 price, now just $30!' but the thing sold for $20 last year, $30 today isn't a good price.
- Check today's price.
- Look up the tracked low for this game.
- If today's price is at or near the low, buy.
- If it's well above the low, wait, no matter how big the percentage looks.
- If you're not in a hurry, see whether the next big sale sets a new low.
What it looks like on Lowstamp
Each game shows its list price, today's price and tracked low on one line, and the gap between today's price and the low becomes the stamp. There's also a chart that plots a dot only on days the price changed, so you can tell from the shape alone whether a game sits high and dips only during sales, or stays the same price all year. Star the games you're watching and at the next sale you only have to check whether the low moved.
When it's fine to wait
Steam's big sales are in summer and winter, with smaller week-long ones in spring and autumn. Tracked lows tend to get reset during the big ones, so if today's price is well above the low, waiting for the next big sale is usually the better move. Valve announces the dates in advance, and the sale schedule guide on this site keeps them up to date.
If you buy and then feel you misjudged it, Steam refunds anything under 2 hours of playtime bought within the last 14 days. And I wouldn't chase a cheaper-looking copy on some key reseller. No refunds, plus a real chance of account trouble, and in my experience buying on Steam at the tracked low ends up cheapest anyway.
Not the percentage. How close what you're paying is to the lowest this game has been.
The discount percentage can be made to look big just by inflating the list price. The tracked low is a price that already happened, so it can't be faked. Look at how close today's price is to that low before you look at the red badge, and sales stop leading you around.