EU hardware pricing is a mess, same GPU costs 30%+ more depending which country you're in, built a tool to expose it
Got frustrated with how inconsistent hardware pricing is across EU countries, no real transparency, no easy way to compare, retailers just charge whatever they can get away with depending on the market. So I built a tool myself to track it properly instead of relying on retailers to be honest about it.
Started with GPUs, now covers RAM, CPUs, and SSDs too, 158 GPUs, 190 RAM kits, 31 CPUs, 75 SSDs across 20+ European stores, updated every 6 hours.
Average price premium over the cheapest EU country, same GPU models:
- Italy: +25.3%
- Poland: +21.3%
- Finland: +12.1%
- Spain: +11.9%
- Belgium: +11.5%
- France: +11.4%
- Austria: +8.0%
- Netherlands: +7.6%
- Germany: +2.5%
Germany is consistently the cheapest, likely thanks to genuine retailer competition (multiple stores fighting for the same customers) rather than any single company just being generous.
Some real gaps in the live data right now, same exact product:
- ASUS ProArt RTX 5080 16GB OC: €2,050 (FR) vs €1,805 (DE), €245 gap
- Gigabyte RX 9070 XT Aorus Elite: €1,077 (FR) vs €940 (DE), €136 gap
Even after €15-20 shipping from Germany to elsewhere in the EU, the savings are usually significant. Still within the EU, so no customs fees, same 2-year legal warranty no matter where you buy.
No ads, no signup, no tracking of you, just the data: pricesquirrel.com
Source isn't open, but happy to answer questions about the methodology if people are curious. Open to feedback or store suggestions too. :)
15 replies
Price Squirrel is such a great name.
hahah thanks, tried to be creative
No way to change the language? It's forcing bad Finnish translation for me
hehe, pystyy muuttamaan asetuksista englanniksi :) käännökset on tehty tekoälyllä, joten siks ne on aika huonoja. en nyt ensisijaisesti kohdista suomeen tota työkalua koska käyttäjävolyymi on niin matala niin en oo jaksanu korjailla vielä kun solona tota sivua kehitän
Joo löysin asetuksen, oli aika hyvin maastoutunu :D Vois siirtää kieliasetukset sinne lipun alle tai viereen tai sitten kysästä kieltä kun ekaa kertaa avaa sivun
This is an amazing tool, would you consider adding the US and Australia if it's not too much work?
Australia always gets shafted with prices way above the US (the country everyone benchmarks against here).
thank you, appreciate it! in the future probably yes. (currently it's strictly for EU to see price gaps between countries)
How can the spread be that large even with Schengen and the common market? It's crazy that it's worth taking a day trip to Germany just to buy stuff.
Convenience, knowing what the market will pay, and praying on those who do not know better are the "not nice" reasons.
The only somewhat good reason can be slightly slower stock turnover, I see it at suppliers where most often the price rise coincides with new stock coming in (but not all the time)
great tool but
💀
What tool?
How is Germany consistently the cheapest and also +2.5% as well as #2 in the EU?
Also, you should add https://www.computeruniverse.net/ to your scraper. Great prices, very low international shipping fees
I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but a Youtuber I follow explained that some countries (like mine) lack some big 'players' that can go for example "Hey Asus, I wanna buy of cards" and score a good price, which would result in lower prices for customers too.
it's mainly because of competition differences. for example france: LDLC buys up most of smaller retailers and that's why they can keep the margins high and competition is minimal, so there's no competition to drive prices down
to clarify: for each GPU, whichever country has the lowest price for THAT specific model scores 0% for it. Germany doesn't win every single model, but wins the most, and averages out to just 2.5% above the floor across all 147 comparable GPUs, that's what "consistently cheapest" means here: usually at or very near the floor, not literally winning every single comparison.
and thanks for the Computeruniverse suggestion too. German stores have a good scrape-protection, so thats why some good ones are missing from the tracker. But will add it in the future for sure! :)