The Front Desk Review

The Front Desk Review · Research · Updated October 2026

Original data studies

Cross-category findings you can only compute from a sourced, dated record of what things actually cost. Each study below is built from the same dataset that powers every product page — no survey, no wall-clock, no guessing — and each is downloadable as JSON and CSV so anyone can check it.

We track 6,911 products across 782 categories, every price dated and linked to its source. What the data shows that no press release will: in 59 categories a cheaper product meets or beats the priciest one on the specs we track — the steepest badge premium is $12,901 on the Kohler 24RCLA; 582 of the 5867 products we price-track now cost less than the first price we recorded; and independent testers raise more red flags than raves in 23% of the categories deep enough to measure.

As of 2026-10-20 · every figure sourced & downloadable

The studies

Each is a live index — the figures update on every build as new products and prices land. Read the study for the full method and table, or take the raw data.

  • The Premium Tax

    Study

    In 59 categories a cheaper product meets or beats the priciest on tracked specs — the steepest badge premium is $12,901 on the Kohler 24RCLA.

    Read the study JSON CSV

  • The Testing Gap

    Study

    Of the 6,911 products we track, 1,537 have a review on record among the 140 outlets we cite — and 880 carry at least one instrumented measurement on record. A coverage census of our evidence ledger.

    Read the study JSON CSV

  • The Stale List Report

    Study

    Of 216 prices quoted by top-ranking "best of" articles, 12 were confirmed out of date — and 13 of the 25 first-pass calls were knocked out on re-reading, 3 of them because the quotation stored for the row was not the text on the page — control rows 12, 23 and 24: every control row filed under “The quoted sentence is not the sentence on the page”, plus any row whose own note calls the stored quotation a reconstruction.

    Read the study JSON CSV

How the research is built

Every study here is pure and deterministic: it reads the flat, version-controlled dataset on disk and computes the finding — no clock, no random sampling, no editorial thumb on the scale. A number appears only where the data supports it; where it doesn't, the study returns nothing rather than a guess. Each figure carries the date we recorded it and links back to the page it came from, so any row can be checked line by line. Nothing here is sponsored, and no vendor can buy a placement, a score, or a verdict.

Open data & methodology · Our accuracy standard · Corrections log · The Price Index

To cite the research, copy the credit line: