How to see price history on Facebook Marketplace

What Marketplace shows you about price changes

Facebook gives you three clues, and none of them is a history.

• The crossed-out price. When a seller edits a listing to a lower price, Marketplace shows the new price with the old one struck through beside it, in search results and on the listing page. It only ever shows one old price, so a listing that went from CA$900 to CA$750 to CA$600 just reads “CA$600 CA$750”.
• The price-drop notice. Save a listing with the Save button and Facebook can notify you when the seller lowers the price. You find saved listings under Marketplace → You → Saved on a computer, or the profile icon in the Marketplace tab of the app. Many buyers find these notices patchy, and they say nothing about earlier cuts.
• The listed date. The listing page says when it was listed (“Listed 3 weeks ago in Etobicoke”). That is the date of this listing, not the first time the item went up for sale. A seller who reposts gets a fresh date.

What’s missing is the part that helps you buy: how often the price has moved, by how much, and when. A listing that has dropped twice in three weeks belongs to a seller who wants it gone. You can’t see that on Marketplace.

How to track a price by hand

For one or two things you are watching, a simple log works on any device.

1. Save the listing. Tap or click Save so you can find it again, and so Facebook can send its price-drop notice.
2. Write down the price and the date. A phone note or a spreadsheet with the title, link, price, date and seller is enough. Take a screenshot too, because sellers can edit the text and photos.
3. Check on a set day. Once a week suits furniture and appliances. For things that sell fast, like bikes in April or snowblowers in November, check daily.
4. Add a line for every change. After two or three cuts you can see the pattern: how much the seller drops each time, and how often.
5. Search for the title now and then. If the listing disappears from your Saved list or shows as unavailable, search for it. It may have been reposted rather than sold.

Here is how that looks for an illustrative sectional sofa:

Marketplace would show “CA$600 CA$750”. Your log shows the seller is cutting about every ten days and has already come down a third. That is a seller who will hear an offer.

Hand tracking stops working the moment you browse a whole category. You can’t log forty desks.

Reposts reset the history

Some sellers never edit the price. They delete the listing and post the same item again. A new listing goes back to the top of anything sorted by newest, looks fresh to buyers, and loses the crossed-out price and the old listed date. Sometimes it comes back at the same price, sometimes lower.

To spot a repost:

• Same photos. The same angle, the same rug, the same cat in the corner. Most reposts reuse the original pictures.
• Same seller. Click the seller’s name on the listing to see their other listings. Two copies of the same item, or a seller who lists the same thing every week, tells you a lot.
• Search the photo. On a computer in Chrome, right-click a photo and choose Search with Google Lens. On a phone, screenshot the listing and open it in the Google app’s Lens. You may find the older listing, or the same photo somewhere it shouldn’t be, which is also a common scam sign.
• Your Saved list. If a saved listing turns “unavailable” and an identical one appears a day later, that is a repost.

A repost isn’t dishonest by itself. Plenty of sellers relist because the first one got no replies. But it does tell you the item hasn’t sold, which is useful when you make an offer. If reposts clutter your searches, see how to hide sold, seen and reposted listings.

Price history on every listing with Sift

Sift is a free browser extension for Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji. It runs in Chrome, Edge and Brave on a computer, and it remembers every price it sees while you browse.

• The drop on the photo. When a listing’s price falls, a small badge appears in the corner of its photo: ↓ 25%, measured from the highest price Sift has seen.
• The history on hover. Point at the badge, or tab to it, to open the history: the current price and drop, a step-line chart, up to four dated changes (“Sep 12 CA$600 → CA$450 −25%”) and a footer such as “Tracked since Sep 3 · lowest CA$400”. If Sift only knows what Facebook’s crossed-out price says, it tells you that instead (“Facebook shows it was CA$600”).
• Reposts can’t hide. When a seller deletes a listing and posts it again, Sift marks the new one ↻ Reposted and shows when it was first listed and at what price.
• A list of every drop. The Price drops page in Sift’s settings lists every listing you have scrolled past that got cheaper since.

Two honest limits. Sift’s history starts the first time it sees a listing, so it knows nothing from before you added it, and it only sees listings that turn up in your own searches. And it is a desktop tool: it doesn’t run in the Facebook app or a phone browser.

Everything stays on your computer. Sift has no account and no server; you can clear the history from its Data page.

Use the history to negotiate

Price history is the most persuasive thing you can bring to a negotiation, because it is the seller’s own numbers. A listing that has already been cut twice, or reposted three times, has a seller who is tired of it.

Keep it friendly and specific. Something like:

Hi, is the sectional still available for pickup this week? I see it’s been up for a few weeks. I could come Thursday after 6 with cash for CA$500.

You don’t need to say “I’ve been tracking your price”. Mentioning that it has been listed for a while is enough, and the number you offer shows you know where it is heading. For first messages that get replies and how much to offer, see how to negotiate on Facebook Marketplace. To check whether the current price is fair in the first place, use the five-minute price check.

Price history on Kijiji

Kijiji doesn’t show past prices either. An ad shows when it was posted, and sellers can repost or pay to bump an ad to the top, which makes old ads look new.

On a computer you have two options. The Kijiji History extension shows price changes, description changes and repost times on Kijiji ads. Sift does the same price-drop badges, history and Reposted marks on Kijiji that it does on Marketplace, alongside its filters. For the rest of the Kijiji routine, see how to find the best deals on Kijiji.