SaveSleuth Price Monitor

A lightweight WordPress plugin that monitors affiliate product prices on Shopify-based shops and sends you an email alert when prices change.

Built for affiliate marketers who need to keep price tables on their sites accurate without manually checking partner shops every day.

Features

• Automatic daily checks via WP Cron (configurable: hourly / twice daily / daily / weekly)
• Email alerts with a clear before/after price table when any product price changes
• Multi-method price extraction — works reliably with Shopify shops:
  • Shopify product JSON data
  • JSON-LD schema.org/Product
  • Open Graph product:price:amount
  • German price format regex fallback
• Dashboard showing all current prices and last checked timestamps
• Full product management — add, edit, enable/disable, delete products
• Change log — history of all checks with prices and change events
• Test email button to verify your setup
• Zero frontend impact — runs only in admin context, adds no JS/CSS to your site

Screenshots

Installation

1. Download the latest release ZIP
2. In WordPress admin go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
3. Upload the ZIP and activate
4. Go to Tools → 💰 Price Monitor
5. Add your first product in the Produkte tab
6. Configure your notification email in Einstellungen
7. Click Preise jetzt prüfen to run the first check

Adding Products

Go to Tools → Price Monitor → Produkte → + Neues Produkt hinzufügen

Provide:

• Name — human-readable label (e.g. "CBD Oil 10% — ExampleShop")
• URL — direct product page URL (e.g. https://example-shop.com/products/cbd-oil-10)

The scraper will auto-detect the price. Works best with Shopify product pages.

How Price Detection Works

For each product URL the scraper tries four methods in order:

1. Shopify JSON  →  window.__st / price field in page source (most reliable)
2. JSON-LD       →  schema.org Product → offers → price
3. Open Graph    →  <meta property="product:price:amount">
4. Regex         →  German price patterns (29,99 € / 29.99€)

If all four methods fail, the product is logged as an error and you can update the URL or check the page manually.

Email Alerts

You receive an email only when a price changes. The email contains:

• Product name and URL
• Old price → New price
• Direction (▼ decrease / ▲ increase) with amount
• Link to the admin panel

No email is sent if prices are unchanged.

Requirements

• WordPress 5.8+
• PHP 7.4+
• WP Cron enabled (standard on most hosts)

Supported Shop Types

Primarily designed for Shopify shops. May work with other platforms if the product page contains JSON-LD schema.org/Product markup or Open Graph price meta tags.

Configuration

FAQ

Does this modify my site's frontend? No. The plugin only runs in the WordPress admin context and WP Cron. It adds no scripts, styles, or markup to your public pages.

How much server load does it create? Minimal. Once per day it makes HTTP requests to the external product URLs (not to your server) and writes one record to wp_options. Memory usage during the check is ~2MB for a few seconds.

Does it automatically update prices on my site? No — by design. When a price changes you receive an email and decide whether to update your content. This prevents unwanted automatic changes to your pages.

Can I monitor non-Shopify shops? The plugin attempts JSON-LD and Open Graph extraction which many platforms support. Results may vary. For WooCommerce shops the JSON-LD method usually works.

What if a product URL stops working? The error is logged in the Log tab. The plugin will keep trying on each scheduled run.

Changelog

1.0.0

• Initial release
• Dashboard with live price overview
• Multi-method Shopify price scraper
• Email notifications with HTML template
• WP Cron scheduling
• Product management UI
• Full check log

License

GPL-2.0+
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

This plugin is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Contributing

Pull requests welcome. Please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

Built by SaveSleuth — an affiliate deals and product review site for UK, DE and FR markets.