How Deal Scores Work
Every deal on Steals+ gets a score from 0 to 100. It's not a vibe check — it's a formula. Here's exactly how we calculate it, and why some deals earn the Steal Alert badge.
Score tiers
The four factors
1. Discount Depth
40 ptsThe biggest factor. How deep is the actual discount? We look at the calculated percentage off.
Deals under 15% off are automatically removed. Most "sale" prices at that level are just noise.
2. Community Signals
25 ptsDeals validated by real people score higher. We trust the crowd.
Slickdeals frontpage deals have already passed community voting, so they get a flat 20 points.
3. Source Trust
20 ptsNot all sources are equal. We weight based on editorial quality and track record.
Sources not in this list get a baseline of 8 points.
4. Freshness
15 ptsNew deals score higher. The best deals sell out fast — we reward recency.
Deals with urgency signals in the title ("lightning deal", "today only", "flash sale") get a +3 bonus, capped at 15.
What we filter out
Before scoring, we automatically remove deals that aren't worth your time:
- Under 15% off — if we can calculate the discount and it's below 15%, it's not a real deal
- Older than 48 hours — stale deals are likely expired or sold out
- Suspicious pricing — if the original-to-sale price ratio is over 50x, it's a parsing error, not a deal
Example: scoring a real deal
Example deal
Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones — $228 (was $399, 43% off)
Posted 3 hours ago on Slickdeals frontpage
If this same deal had 500+ Reddit upvotes instead, it would score 92 — a Steal Alert.