How ApplianceIQ works
How ApplianceIQ works — and where the data comes from
One page for our data provenance, verification method, ranking formulas, and the disclaimers that keep price claims honest.
Where the data comes from
Prices shown are observed listing prices collected from publicly available retail listings via Google Shopping, refreshed daily. Every displayed price shows when it was last checked and links to its source, and prices older than 72 hours are automatically removed.
Product ratings and review counts are aggregated from publicly available retail listing data and reflect reviews collected across the retail ecosystem — they are not reviews submitted to ApplianceIQ.
Product specifications and spec sheets are sourced from manufacturers and linked to manufacturer-hosted documents; we display only specifications with verified provenance.
Rebate and incentive information is compiled from official government and utility program pages, with program end dates tracked; always confirm eligibility with the program administrator.
Final prices, availability, delivery, and fees are confirmed by the retailer.
How shopping with ApplianceIQ works
Search by model number, category, or package need.
Compare specs, fit, package roles, and verified store prices where coverage is live.
Set your postal code so delivery-area availability and totals reflect stores that actually serve you.
Save alerts, build packages, or follow source-approved store links when eligible data is available.
Verification method
Source-reviewed before public claims
Public prices, retailer links, review signals, confidence-style scores, and tracked-price language stay hidden until verification, freshness, and market checks pass.
Market-specific, not interchangeable data
Products, currencies, retailer links, warranties, rebates, delivery terms, and affiliate relationships are treated as market-specific evidence, not interchangeable data.
Specs can help before offers are live
Specs-first pages can help shoppers compare dimensions, fit, features, and package roles while verified store offers are still rolling out by source and category.
Affiliate links do not override eligibility
ApplianceIQ may earn commission from eligible outbound links, but affiliate status does not make a price, offer, image, or ranking public by itself.
What must pass before a price or store offer appears?
ApplianceIQ treats public price display as a derived eligibility result, not a manual toggle. If observed price rows are missing, unreviewed, stale, mismatched by market, or blocked by source policy, the public page shows a rollout or waitlist state instead.
Which store shows when prices tie?
When more than one store shares the lowest observed price, the store we show is chosen by a fixed rule, in order: stores with a verified delivery service area come first, then the listing checked most recently, then alphabetical store name. The same listings always produce the same result — the featured store is never rotated, sponsored, or random. This ordering applies everywhere a lowest price appears: the product-page price hero, the observed-listings order, category price summaries, and the printable price-match kit.
Ranking and scoring formulas
How ApplianceIQ ranks products
"Recommended" orderings use one published shopper-confidence score (0–100). Every input is listed here, with its weight — there is no secret formula, and ranking never hides a product: quality gates decide what appears, ranking only decides order.
- Review volume (20%) and rating quality (15%) — web review signals; a rating only counts once a model has 50+ web reviews, so tiny samples can't game it.
- Retailer breadth (20%) — how many registered retailers carry a verified price.
- Price position (15%) — how the lowest verified price compares to the category's median verified price.
- Shopper interest (10%) — how many shoppers track the model (activates as alert volume grows).
- Listing completeness (10%) — verified photos and dimensions.
- Deal honesty (5%) and freshness (5%) — a verified genuine deal earns a small boost; recently re-verified prices too. A flagged sale claim simply earns nothing here.
Missing data is neutral: a model without reviews isn't penalized — it simply ranks on the signals it has (usually price and coverage). Structurally excluded: affiliate status, sponsorship, and any retailer relationship — the scoring code has no such input. What we don't have yet: first-party reviews and rating distributions; the review inputs are Google Shopping aggregated web ratings (see "Web review signals"). Ranking labels ("Top reviewed", "Good value pick", "Worth comparing") are earned from these same published thresholds, one per product at most.
Popularity matrix
"Most popular" rankings use a documented weighted score computed in our database (the popularity matrix view) from four inputs, all from aggregated public signals:
- Review volume — the number of aggregated public ratings, weighted most heavily.
- Average rating — the mean star rating across those reviews.
- Retailer breadth — how many tracked retailers carry the model with a verified price.
- Shopper interest — how many ApplianceIQ users are tracking the model.
The score never uses paid placement, affiliate status, or retailer relationships as inputs. Each category page shows its top models by this score with the component signals visible.
Web review signals
Star ratings on ApplianceIQ are Google Shopping aggregated web ratings, captured from the same public listings our price pipeline verifies. They are not ApplianceIQ reviews, and we never present them unlabeled — every rating appears as "web reviews". For each model we use the rating from its single most-reviewed listing; we never add vote counts across listings, because they draw on the same review pool.
- Strong review signal — at least a 4.2 average across 200+ web reviews.
- Good review signal — at least a 3.8 average across 50+ web reviews.
- Limited review data — fewer than 50 web reviews. A perfect score across a handful of reviews stays here; small samples never earn a confidence badge.
- No reliable review data yet — we show nothing rather than an empty star row.
What we do not have yet: rating distributions and verified-buyer status. Because we cannot see how ratings spread, we only badge high-confidence positive signals — a low average with many reviews is shown as its raw numbers, uneditorialized, and tiers like "mixed signal" are deliberately absent until a distribution source exists.
Deal-truth score
When a store advertises a discount, we compare the claimed markdown against the verified market range for the same model across the Canadian retailers we track, and score it 0–10 by how much of the claim the market actually supports:
- Verified deal (7–10) — the price is genuinely below the tracked market.
- Modest deal (4–6) — some real saving, smaller than advertised.
- Sale claim flagged (0–3) — The advertised discount may look stronger than the tracked market supports.
We describe the claim versus our observed market data — advertised percent off versus percent actually below market — and never assert intent. The market range is only computed once a model has verified prices across multiple tracked retailers.
How a price is verified
Every price that appears publicly clears three checks:
- Identity — the listing is matched to the exact model by normalized model number, and the market, currency, and country must match the product.
- Freshness — observations are refreshed daily and any price older than 72 hours is suppressed, so a stale listing never shows.
- Suppression of outliers — a listing far outside the model's own market (below 0.45× or above 2.5× the model median) is treated as an accessory or mispriced row and excluded from ranges, spreads, and medians.
Service-area policy
Prices are tied to retailers that actually serve a shopper's location. When you set a postal code, the price range and "lowest price" scope to stores with a verified delivery service area for that region — a national listing from a store that cannot deliver to you is not counted in your local total. Without a location set, pages show the full tracked Canadian market range so crawlers and shoppers see the complete picture.
How to read our data — disclaimers
Overview
ApplianceIQ provides appliance shopping intelligence based on tracked data, third-party sources, approved feeds, internal research, and user preferences. Our data helps shoppers compare options, but it may be incomplete, delayed, or different from what a store shows at checkout.
Independent platform and third-party names
ApplianceIQ is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or authorized by any store, brand, manufacturer, marketplace, installer, financing provider, warranty provider, or service provider unless expressly stated. Third-party names, trademarks, logos, product names, model numbers, and store names are used for identification, comparison, compatibility, and informational purposes only and remain the property of their respective owners.
What tracked price means
A tracked price is a price ApplianceIQ has recorded from sources we currently track. It may come from store feeds, affiliate feeds, official APIs, approved CSV imports, public product information where legally allowed, or internal/manual research. "Lowest tracked price today" means the lowest product price ApplianceIQ currently sees among the stores and sources we track for a given product — not every store in the market — and it does not guarantee checkout price, stock, delivery, taxes, rebates, installation, haul-away, or fees.
Store-listed price and location estimates
"Store-listed price" is the price shown or provided by a store source when ApplianceIQ last checked or imported the offer. It may change before checkout and may not include taxes, delivery, installation, haul-away, required parts, rebates, financing, or local fees. Location-based estimates use postal/ZIP preferences, available offer data, and store/service signals — they are not quotes. Availability, delivery windows, open-box status, and installation slots can change quickly.
Extra fees and store terms
- Stores may add delivery, installation, haul-away, recycling, parts, permit, financing, warranty, or service fees.
- Taxes and rebates may vary by location, store, product, eligibility, and timing.
- Return, cancellation, delivery, installation, warranty, financing, and price-match policies are controlled by the store or manufacturer.
- ApplianceIQ data is not a quote, advertisement by the store, reservation, price-match promise, offer to sell, or guarantee of availability.
- Prices and estimates shown by ApplianceIQ may exclude taxes, delivery, installation, haul-away, required parts, recycling fees, financing costs, warranty costs, membership requirements, promotions, rebates, or regional fees unless expressly included.
- The final amount payable is confirmed by the store at checkout or through the store's sales process.
Data sources
ApplianceIQ may use data from official APIs, approved feeds, affiliate feeds, store-provided files, licensed sources, manual/admin imports, publicly available product information where legally allowed, and internal research. ApplianceIQ does not knowingly circumvent paywalls, login gates, access controls, robots restrictions, or technical measures to collect data. Public page monitoring, where used, is subject to source policy review, rate limits, and legal/compliance review. Not all stores, brands, products, prices, offers, or regions are tracked.
AI-assisted explanations
AI-assisted explanations, product summaries, comparison guidance, fit checks, store-offer summaries, and price-tracking suggestions may be incomplete, outdated, or inaccurate. They are provided for informational shopping support only and are not professional, legal, financial, warranty, engineering, gas, electrical, plumbing, ventilation, building code, safety, or installation advice.
Installation and safety checks
ApplianceIQ may highlight issues to confirm before buying, such as dimensions, delivery path, electrical requirements, gas type, venting, water line, drainage, mounting brackets, power cords, trim kits, stacking kits, pedestals, and installation availability. These checks are informational only. Users should verify requirements with the store, manufacturer, installer, and qualified professionals before purchase or installation.
Images, media, and review summaries
Product images appear publicly only when they are approved, licensed, partner-provided, or safe fallback visuals. Review scores, confidence signals, and summaries are informational; aggregate review signals may be incomplete and should not be treated as guarantees of reliability or satisfaction.
Final details confirmed by store
Always confirm final pricing, availability, delivery, installation, haul-away, required parts, warranties, returns, rebates, financing, taxes, fees, and product configuration with the store before buying.
Correction, takedown, and data concerns
If you are a store, brand, manufacturer, rights holder, affiliate network, or authorized representative and believe information on ApplianceIQ is inaccurate, outdated, unauthorized, infringing, misleading, or should be reviewed, contact legal@applianceiq.ai or data@applianceiq.ai with the relevant URL, issue description, and supporting details. ApplianceIQ may review, correct, remove, label, restrict, or update data while reviewing the request.
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