How we calculate
Every number on RAMPrice is one of three kinds — exact, calculated, or estimated — and every price on the site tells you which it is. This page is the full method.
1. Where offers come from
Offers are ingested from marketplace and retailer data sources on a schedule. Each source is an explicit integration — marketplace APIs and official affiliate product feeds — never unauthorised scraping. Every offer stores the time we last saw it, shown on product pages, and offers we can no longer see drop out of the comparison rather than lingering at stale prices.
2. How messy listings become comparable products
Marketplace titles are messy. Our normaliser parses each listing into structured attributes (generation, capacity, kit configuration, speed, CAS latency, form factor, ECC/registered, voltage) using conservative rules: a field the parser is not confident about is left blank and shown as “—”, never guessed. Listings that cannot be confidently identified are excluded entirely. Identical products across marketplaces are folded into one product page so you compare the item, not the listing.
3. The landed price
For your selected destination, each offer’s landed price is built from:
| Component | Kind | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Item price | exact / calculated | As listed; converted at the ECB-style reference rate shown in the breakdown (rate and date included). |
| Shipping | exact / estimated | Stated by the source where available; otherwise a category-level parcel estimate, labelled as such. |
| Import duty | estimated | Rule-based on destination and product category, respecting de-minimis thresholds. Memory modules are duty-free (ITA) in every market we compare. |
| Import VAT / GST | estimated | Destination rate applied to goods + shipping (+ duty), respecting each country’s thresholds and collection rules. |
The total’s label is the weakest of its parts: if anything in it is estimated, the total says estimate. Domestic purchases with stated shipping are exact. Cross-border rows carry an import badge, because the marketplace or carrier may collect charges at checkout or delivery, and card issuers add their own FX margin we cannot see.
4. Ranking
The default sort is the landed total, ascending. The per GB column divides the landed total by kit capacity for value comparison. Ranking is never sold. No source pays for position; affiliate commission (see disclosure) does not enter the sort in any way — an untagged offer that is cheaper ranks above a tagged one that is dearer, always.
5. Price history
We record a history point whenever an offer’s price changes. History charts show item prices converted at the current reference rate — converting each historical point at its historical rate would imply a precision about your card’s FX that we don’t have. The caption on every chart says this too.
6. What we don’t know
- US state sales/use tax on imports (varies by state and is rarely collected at the border) — excluded and noted.
- Courier brokerage/handling fees on some express imports — not estimable per-shipment.
- Your card’s FX margin — typically 1–3% above the reference rate.
- Promotional coupons applied at checkout.
When these matter to a decision, the breakdown says so. If you spot a number that looks wrong, the fastest fix is the contact address on the about page.