How it works
Is this sale actually good? We check.
Data-driven verdicts from 2 years of Steam price history. Every week, when the Steam sale changes, we pull the price history of each discounted game and give it one verdict.
Why not just look at the discount?
"-75%" tells you how far the price fell from list. It doesn't tell you whether that's a good price for this game. Plenty of games hit 75% off every few weeks; others have never gone below 30%. So we compare today's price with what the game actually sells for when it's on sale.
What we look at
- Usual sale price — the list price times the median discount across the game's sales in the last 24 months.
- All-time low — the cheapest it has been, adjusted for list price changes.
- How often it goes on sale, and when the next big Steam seasonal sale starts.
- How much you'd save by waiting — the gap between today's price and the all-time low. Under $3 isn't worth waiting for.
The five verdicts
- Buy Now
- A new all-time low, or matching the low while clearly beating its usual sale price.
- Good Buy
- At or near its all-time low — but it hits this price most sales, or you'd save under $3 by waiting.
- Fair Deal
- Right around its usual sale price. Nothing special, nothing bad.
- Wait
- Pricier than its usual sale. The next sale will likely beat this.
- Not Now
- Well above its usual sale price, or its weakest discount on record.
- Not Enough Data
- Fewer than 2 sales in the last 24 months — not enough history to call it.
Rules, not opinions
Verdicts come from a fixed rule set — the same data always gives the same answer. No AI picks the verdict, and no publisher pays for a spot. We only use AI to help write the narration for our videos, after the verdict is decided.
Where the data comes from
- Prices and price history: Steam US store (USD) and IsThereAnyDeal.
- Reviews and Steam Deck ratings: Steam. Community compatibility reports: ProtonDB (ODbL).
Cart or Wait? isn't affiliated with Valve, IsThereAnyDeal or ProtonDB.