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Every few hours

Get an email when a product drops below your target price

The products in your sheet are checked every 6 hours, each price is logged, and you get an email when one falls below your target.

Runs
Every few hours
Apps
Gmail, Google Sheets
AI
Not needed
Access
Sheets read+write; Gmail gmail.send

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 6 hours, check the price of each product URL in my Watch list sheet, log it, and email me if it falls below my target price.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A small shop owner buys stock and equipment online and waits for good prices on a few expensive items: a new laptop, a coffee machine for the office, bulk packaging. He checks the product pages when he remembers, and usually finds out about a sale after it has ended.

Keeping the products and target prices in a sheet means you set the price you are willing to pay once and hear about it when it happens. Shoppers, buyers for small businesses and resellers use it to buy at the right moment and keep a price history for each item.

What you get out of it

  • You catch sales while they last

    Checks every 6 hours mean a price drop reaches your inbox the same day, not after the offer has ended.

  • A price history for every item

    Each check adds a row to the log, so you can see whether today's price is really low or just back to normal.

  • Set your target once

    Write the price you would pay next to each product and stop checking pages by hand.

  • One list for the whole team

    Anyone with access to the sheet can add a product, which suits offices and small businesses buying on a budget.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 6 hours ClickRuntime reads the product links and target prices from your Watch list sheet.

  2. It opens each product page and reads the current price.

  3. Every price it finds is added as a row in the Price log tab.

  4. When a price falls below your target for the first time, you get an email with the product and the new price.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google through your own Google app (a one-time, 10-minute setup), so it works with your own Gmail
  • Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use

What you get

RunsEvery few hours
Get an email when a product drops below your target pricetoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · Price dropPrice drop: Acme espresso machine now 389.00, below your target of 400.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Gmail and Google Sheets steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
price_drop_alerts_from_a_watch_list_sheet.pyexample
import re
from datetime import datetime, timezone
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, notify

SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    sheets = build("sheets", "v4", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets()
    items = sheets.values().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Watch list!A2:C").execute().get("values", [])
    below = state.get("below") or {}
    log_rows, now = [], datetime.now(timezone.utc).isoformat(timespec="minutes")
    for name, url, target in (r for r in items if len(r) == 3):
        html = http.get(url, headers={"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0"}).text
        m = re.search(r'"price"\s*:\s*"?([0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)?)', html)
        if not m:
            continue
        price = float(m.group(1))
        log_rows.append([now, name, price])
        is_below = price < float(target)
        if is_below and not below.get(url):
            notify.email_me(f"Price drop: {name} now {price}", f"{name} is {price}, below your target of {target}.\n{url}")
        below[url] = is_below
    if log_rows:
        sheets.values().append(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Price log!A:C", valueInputOption="USER_ENTERED", body={"values": log_rows}).execute()
    state.set("below", below)
    return {"checked": len(items), "logged": len(log_rows)}

FAQ

Common questions

Which shops does it work with?
Most online shops that show the price on the product page. Some large retailers block automated checks, and those pages are skipped and noted in the log.
Will I get the same alert every 6 hours?
No. You are emailed when a product first falls below its target, and again only if the price rises above the target and drops below it once more.
Can I watch prices in different currencies?
Yes. Each product is compared with its own target, so a mix of currencies works as long as the target matches the shop's currency.
What permissions does it need?
Sheets read+write; Gmail gmail.send. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (every few hours). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Get an email when a product drops below your target price” from your assistant

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