# What makes each type of alert fire?

> priceq has eight alert types. Six watch the market, two watch your own shop. Here is what triggers each one and which are on for your account.
>
> en | updated 2026-09-28 | https://priceq.io/help/en/alerts-and-reports/what-triggers-each-alert

priceq checks your products once a day, at 06:30 UTC, and raises an alert when one of eight situations is true. Every alert carries a level: **Critical**, **Warning** or **Info**. Which types are switched on depends on the kind of company you chose when you first logged in.

## Alerts about the market

- **Competitor cheaper**: a shop's latest price is 5% or more below your reference price. The reference is your selling price, or your MSRP when you have no selling price. It only uses prices from the last 7 days. Level: warning.
- **Structurally more expensive**: a shop's price has stayed above your reference price over a span of at least 7 days. While a product from your connected webshop is on sale, priceq compares against its normal list price instead. Level: info.
- **New retailer**: a shop shows a price for your product for the first time in the last 24 hours. Your own shop never counts. Level: info.
- **Sudden price move**: a shop's price moved 15% or more, up or down, between its last two checks. Level: warning.
- **Retailer dropped product**: a shop linked to your product has not delivered a fresh price for 3 days. Your own shop is left out. Level: info.
- **OOS at multiple retailers**: 3 or more shops showed your product as out of stock at their latest check. A shop that publishes no stock information does not count. Level: critical.

## Alerts about your own shop

These two only work once you have marked one source as yours with **Mark as my store**. See [Set up your own store](/help/en/getting-started/set-up-your-own-store).

- **Competitor undercuts me**: the cheapest competitor is 5% or more below your own shop's price. It turns critical at twice your threshold, so 10% by default. Otherwise it is a warning.
- **Stock gap**: your own shop is out of stock while at least one competitor has the product in stock. Always critical.

## Which ones are on for you

A **Brand** or **Distributor** account starts with the six market alerts on and the own-shop pair off.

A **Webshop** account starts with both own-shop alerts plus **New retailer**, **Sudden price move**, **Retailer dropped product** and **OOS at multiple retailers**. **Competitor cheaper** and **Structurally more expensive** start off, because your own shop price already does that job.

You can switch types on or off and change the numbers on the **Rules** tab of the Alerts page. See [Alert thresholds and category exceptions](/help/en/alerts-and-reports/alert-thresholds-per-category). **Competitor cheaper** and **Structurally more expensive** are not listed on that tab.

An alert that is no longer true closes by itself, see [Why did my alert disappear?](/help/en/alerts-and-reports/why-did-my-alert-disappear)