To add to the point above: I am dealing with the exact same headache right now!! I have been trying to track a high-end lens for my kit and it is honestly so stressful seeing those price alerts pop up only for the deal to be gone 30 seconds later... literally the worst feeling ever lol. I totally feel your pain on the Sony GM II because $2100 is a tough target but so worth it if you can hit it! Since I'm super cautious about where I spend my money, I've had to get creative to avoid the lag issues. Here is how I stay safe and fast:

• Check PriceBlink since it scans other big stores like B&H. Sometimes they price match Amazon but the stock lasts way longer!
• Try looking at Amazon Warehouse Deals for Like New condition. I have saved hundreds this way and you still get the Amazon return safety net!
• Turn off email alerts and go strictly for desktop push notifications. Emails are just too slow for these hot items... Honestly, I love the hunt but it really is a full time job lately. Just make sure if you go the Warehouse route it is actually sold by Amazon and not some random third party seller tho! I am really rooting for you to get that lens before your wedding shoot, it is gonna be amazing gear to have!!

Regarding what #1 said about "Honestly, CamelCamelCamel has definitely felt like its running...", I agree. Unfortunately its been failing me too... TL;DR: Keepa has faster pings, try that so you dont miss it.

Honestly, CamelCamelCamel has definitely felt like its running on ancient tech lately. In my experience over the years, I've tried pretty much everything to catch those brief windows on high-end camera gear. If youre trying to snag that Sony GM II under $2100, you need something that checks way more frequently than once every few hours. Keepa is still the king for historical data, but for actual speed, I've had way better luck with PricePulse. It seems to ping the servers way more aggressively than the legacy tools. Heres a few things I've learned the hard way that you should watch out for:

• Avoid Honey for price alerts. Its great for coupons but their price tracking is notoriously delayed. I've missed dozens of deals thinking they'd notify me on time.
• Dont rely on email notifications. By the time the email hits your inbox and you click the link, the deal is dead. Always use browser push or app notifications.
• Be careful with Amazon Warehouse listings showing up in price drops. Sometimes trackers flag a used item as a price drop on the new listing, which is a massive waste of time when you're in a rush.
• Watch out for 3rd party sellers that tank the price but charge huge shipping fees. Some extensions dont factor in shipping costs in the alert. If you really want that lens, set Keepa to the most aggressive interval possible, but definitely keep PricePulse running in the background too. It basically saved me on a body upgrade last year.

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Just jumping in here now and wow, that Sony lens is seriously a beast! I love it so much, youre gonna have a blast with it at the wedding. Before I nerd out on the technical latency stuff tho, are you mainly tracking this on your desktop or do you need mobile alerts too? Also are you okay with a monthly sub or does it have to be free? That makes a massive difference in which API is gonna be fastest for you. Honestly, there is this fantastic video on YouTube that breaks down the refresh rates of every major tracker... just search for amazon price tracker speed test and its like the first result. It basically explains why some lag so hard. You should definitely check out this extension since I keep seeing it mentioned in some of my photography groups as being way faster than the old school stuff. Just search Reddit too, theres a whole thread about catching lens drops thats way more detailed than anything I could type out right now haha.

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^ This. Also, been using Keepa for years and its definitely the gold standard for technical data.

• The premium subscription significantly increases the frequency of the pings so you arent seeing stale data. Its way more robust for long-term tracking than the basic web-based scrapers. The Buy Box tracking specifically is a lifesaver for those random hour-long dips.

100% agree

Like someone mentioned, Keepa is usually the most robust for historical data, but if you're worried about missing those hour-long windows, a localized DIY approach might be your best bet for reliability. It doesnt have to be a huge time sink if you use existing libraries.

• Use Playwright or Selenium rather than basic requests. Amazon has gotten very aggressive with bot detection and basic headers usually get blocked or throttled within a few hours.
• Set your alerts to hit a Discord webhook or a Telegram bot. These services are much faster than email and you wont have to worry about delivery lag from the provider side.
• Focus only on the Sold by Amazon price point to filter out the noise from third-party scammers that might trigger false alerts. Honestly, setting up a small script on a local machine or a cheap VPS is the only way to get real-time pings without the latency of a middleman. If you find a basic template on GitHub, you can probably get it running in under an hour... way less time than youd spend checking the site manually every day.

Gonna try this over the weekend. Will report back if it works!

Any updates on this?