How PixelRates works
An independent comparison site only has value if you can trust it. Here's exactly how we source prices, rank sellers, and make money.
Independently sourced prices
We pull every price from the seller's live storefront ourselves and spot-check it with test-orders against real checkout. Sellers cannot submit their own numbers. That is exactly what makes their own “best price!” claims untrustworthy.
All-in pricing
We model every fee a seller charges: variable %, fixed per-transaction, small-order minimums, per-payment-method, per-delivery-method, hidden currency-exchange (FX) spreads, and coupons. The number we rank and show is the number you pay. Quantity discounts are modelled too: change the amount and the ranking recomputes on each seller's real rate for that order size.
Marketplace prices
For marketplaces (many competing listings, not one shop price), we show the listing the marketplace itself surfaces by default: its featured listing, or the first listing under its default sort, provided that listing can actually fill our default order size; otherwise we take the next one that can. We never hand-pick a headline-friendly listing, and the Visit button lands on the exact listing we priced.
The PixelScore
A single 0-5 score per seller, aggregated from the seller's real ratings across Trustpilot, Reviews.io and each marketplace's own seller rating, plus our own verified-buyer reviews. Every source is normalized to a 0-5 scale and weighted by how many reviews it represents, so a store with thousands of reviews counts for more than one with a handful. Marketplace satisfaction ratings are weighted more lightly than dedicated review platforms, and a source with only a few reviews is left out. It is recomputed from the live data, the same way for every seller.
Ban-risk & scam radar
Buyers submit ban reports backed by proof (proof of purchase on the account + proof of the ban). Verified reports feed a per-seller, per-delivery-method ban-risk score. Sellers with spikes in undelivered-order reports are auto-flagged and de-ranked, even when they're cheapest.
Sponsored, never disguised
We do not sell placements today. If sponsored placement ever launches, sponsored listings will be pinned above the ranking, always labelled “Sponsored” and styled distinctly, and the objective ranking beneath them will never be affected by payment.
How we make money
Referral fees from sellers, disclosed and never a ranking factor; we do not sell advertising today. We're an information service; we don't sell currency or process payments, and we're not affiliated with any game publisher.