How RestockOwl collects its data
RestockOwl reads the public pages of Apple's online stores in 21 countries and regions. Refurbished listings are checked every 10 minutes in the United States, the United Kingdom and 5 other countries, and every hour in the rest, and every change is recorded. This page says what each number on the site means and how precise it is.
Last updated:
- Apple country stores covered
- 21
- between checks of a refurbished store in 7 countries, an hour in the rest
- 10 min
- of restock history shown publicly
- 90 days
- for every time in the restock history
- UTC
Where the data comes from
Everything on RestockOwl comes from pages that Apple publishes on its own online stores. We have no private feed from Apple.
- Refurbished listings. The refurbished section of each country's Apple online store: which configurations are listed, in which colors, and at what price.
- New prices. The price of the same configuration, new, on the same country's Apple online store. Every saving on the site is measured against it.
- Education prices. Apple's education store for the same country.
- Apple Store pickup. Whether a new iPhone, iPad or Mac can be picked up at each Apple Store, and the pickup date Apple quotes for it. Store pages show current availability only: we have kept pickup records since late September 2026, but the site does not show a restock history for stores yet.
RestockOwl is run by Marfik Inc. and is not Apple: it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple, and it does not sell, reserve or ship anything. Every purchase happens on Apple's own site or in its stores.
There are pages for 21 country stores: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Poland. A country shows data once collection for its store is switched on.
How often we check
| Data | How often | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Refurbished listings, whole store | Every 10 minutes in 7 countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Singapore); every hour in the othersOne pass reads the store's whole refurbished section, prices included. | One pass reads the store's whole refurbished section, prices included. |
| Refurbished configurations that users are watching | Much more often, as often as about once a minuteThis is why some restock times are precise to the minute and others are not. | This is why some restock times are precise to the minute and others are not. |
| Apple Store pickup | By model and country, usually every 1 to 3 hoursA result that has not been re-checked for a set time is no longer shown. That time is usually between 1 and 6 hours, set by how quickly the country's stores are being covered, and can be longer for a country with no recent checks on record. | A result that has not been re-checked for a set time is no longer shown. That time is usually between 1 and 6 hours, set by how quickly the country's stores are being covered, and can be longer for a country with no recent checks on record. |
| Pickup for a configuration and city that users are watching | More often than the regular schedule | |
| New prices | About once every 24 hoursA new product's availability is shown with the time it was last verified. | A new product's availability is shown with the time it was last verified. |
| Education prices | Each one is shown for at most 30 days after it was verifiedIt is then measured again, and is not shown until that succeeds. | It is then measured again, and is not shown until that succeeds. |
| Exchange rates | At least every 6 hoursUsed only by the global price ranking. | Used only by the global price ranking. |
These are schedules, not guarantees. Apple limits how fast its pages can be read, and a check can fail. When that happens the next one simply comes later.
A watched item that has stayed in stock for days may be checked less often. It goes back to the fast schedule as soon as it is seen out of stock.
"Watching" means that a user has an active restock alert on that configuration.
Pages on RestockOwl are built ahead of time and cached. A page usually trails our records by a few minutes to a little over ten minutes, and a page that is rarely visited can trail by more. Data pages state when their data was last updated.
What the restock history means
Each configuration page shows its restock history for the last 90 days. This is exactly what is counted.
- A restock is a configuration being seen in stock after a check that saw it out of stock or not listed, or being seen for the very first time.
- Colors are counted together. When several colors of one configuration appear in the same check, that is one restock for the configuration. The per-color figures count each color on its own.
- Sell-out time is how long a restock stayed listed: from the check that first saw it to the check that first found it gone. The headline figure is the median, and it is shown only when at least 5 listings in the window have sold out.
- The list is capped. A page lists at most 200 records, newest first. Counts and medians still use all of them.
How precise a time is depends on how often that configuration was being checked when it happened. Every figure carries one of three labels, and one case needs extra care:
- To the minute. Both the start and the end were seen by the frequent checks that run for configurations users are watching.
- To the check interval. The start or the end was seen by a regular whole-store pass. The real moment lies somewhere in the one interval before the recorded time (10 minutes or an hour, depending on the country). Such durations are rounded up to a whole number of intervals and written with "about".
- First sightings are an exception. When a listing was already in stock the first time we saw it, or when we pick it up again after a gap in our checks, the recorded start is the time we first saw it. The real restock can be much earlier. These records also carry the "check interval" label, so read their start as "no later than". Everything that was already listed when our refurbished records began in late August 2026 is of this kind.
- Unknown. We cannot tell which kind of check recorded it. The duration is rounded to the hour and the page says the precision is unknown.
A summary built from several restocks takes the least precise label among them.
When our checks of a store stop for longer than 3 check intervals (and at least 30 minutes), we do not guess what happened in the gap. A listing that was in stock when the gap began is closed as "interrupted" at the last time we confirmed it. It gets no duration and is left out of sell-out times. If it is still listed when checks resume, that is recorded as a continuation, not as a new restock.
Only the last 90 days are public. Our refurbished records begin in late August 2026, and the first day differs by country, so a store tracked for less than 90 days has a shorter history than the window.
Times in the restock history are in UTC. Pickup dates on store pages ("today", "tomorrow", a date) refer to the store's local date.
Prices and savings
- A saving is the country's own new price minus the refurbished price, in the same currency. We never compare against another country's price: when we have no new price for that configuration in that country, no saving is shown.
- Several listings, one price. When a configuration has more than one refurbished listing, the price and saving shown are those of the lowest-priced one among the listings that are in stock and recently confirmed.
- Possibly out of date. A refurbished listing we have not been able to confirm for about 3 check intervals is marked as possibly out of date. It is not counted as in stock and does not set a "from" price.
- Tax. Prices are shown the way Apple lists them in each country: before sales tax in the United States and Canada, tax included everywhere else.
Education prices are worked out rather than read from one page. For each hardware configuration we measure the difference between Apple's regular price and its education price in that country, and subtract it from the current regular price. A measurement is used for at most 30 days after it was verified. It is then measured again, and no education price is shown until that succeeds. The same applies when the regular price no longer matches the one it was measured against.
A new product's availability and an education price do not expire on their own, so each is shown with the time it was last verified.
The global price ranking
For one configuration, the ranking converts each country's price into a single currency and sorts the countries from cheapest to most expensive.
- Tax is not adjusted. United States and Canada prices are before sales tax; all other countries include tax. The ranking compares the listed prices as they are and says so on the page.
- Exchange rates come from a public reference-rate service (Frankfurter, which publishes central banks' daily reference rates, or CurrencyBeacon) and are refreshed at least every 6 hours. Each ranking page prints the provider and the date of the rates it used. We do not convert with rates more than 4 days old; the ranking is unavailable instead.
- Missing currencies. A country whose currency has no rate is left out of the ranking and named on the page.
- Rounding. Converted amounts are rounded to two decimals, and to whole units for Japanese yen and Korean won.
- Refurbished order. In the refurbished table, listings that are in stock and recently confirmed come first, so a row further down can show a lower converted price.
A converted price is for comparison only. It is not what you would pay: buying in another country can add import duty, shipping and card fees, and the warranty terms, keyboard layout and power plug can differ. None of that is in the ranking.
Limits
- It can be late. Stock can sell out between two checks. A page usually trails our records by a few minutes to a little over ten minutes, and a page that is rarely visited can trail by more. In stock on RestockOwl means in stock at our last check.
- It can be wrong. Apple changes its pages without notice and we can misread them. A configuration can be matched to the wrong model, or a price can be missed.
- It is not everything. We see whether something is listed, not how many units Apple has. We cannot see stock that Apple does not show on its public pages.
- Apple's site is the authority. Always check the price and availability on Apple's own site before you decide.
Contact details for reporting a mistake will be published when the site launches. More questions are answered in the FAQ.