How to play Costcodle
Costcodle is a price guessing game with one rule that decides everything: a guess wins when it is within 5% of the item's stored reference price. This page covers a full round, the exact meaning of each colour and arrow, what the product card does and does not show, and how the daily and unlimited modes differ.
A round, step by step
- Read the product card. It shows a product photo, the item name and the package wording (for example 24 x 16.9 oz or 72 ct). The card does not show a price.
- Enter a positive dollar amount. Type it in the field or add to it with the +$1, +$5, +$20 and +$100 chips. Cents are allowed; the field steps by 0.01.
- Read the reply. A colour and an arrow say how far away your guess was and which way to move. The reply also appears as a text label, so the game does not depend on colour alone.
- Repeat. You have six guesses in total. The badge counts them as n/6.
- Finish. A green reply ends the round as a win. A sixth guess without green ends it as a loss and reveals the stored price.
What each reply means
The comparison is |guess − target| ÷ target. Both cut-offs are shares of the hidden target price, not of your guess. For a fixed $50 target, the full board looks like this:
| Reply | Condition | Guesses that produce it |
|---|---|---|
| 🟩 Within 5% (WIN!) | difference ≤ 5% of target | $47.50 to $52.50 inclusive |
| 🟨 ↑ HIGHER (Warm) | above 5% and up to 25% of target, target above guess | $37.50 to $47.49 |
| 🟨 ↓ LOWER (Warm) | above 5% and up to 25% of target, target below guess | $52.51 to $62.50 |
| 🟥 ↑ HIGHER | more than 25% of target, target above guess | below $37.50 |
| 🟥 ↓ LOWER | more than 25% of target, target below guess | above $62.50 |
The band is closed at 5%: exactly $47.50 or $52.50 against a $50 target is still a win. At 25% it is also closed, so $62.50 is yellow while $62.51 is red.
Every amount is rounded for display only; the game compares the number you entered. The camera-style arrow is a direction, not a distance, which is why the next step is to work with ranges rather than nudging by a fixed amount. The strategy page turns each reply into a usable interval.
What the reference price is
Each of the 152 catalog items stores one fixed reference value. Those values have no verified collection date, are not live store prices and are not shopping advice. A price that appears in a news article or on a receipt cannot be used to prove the stored value wrong; the game only compares your guess with its own stored number.
Product photos come from public sources and are shown for identification. Packaging changes, and a photo may show a single unit of a multipack. The written name and package size are the reliable part of the card.
Reading the package, not just the photo
Bulk items are the reason two players can make the same guess and get different colours: they are picturing different quantities. The name usually carries the count and the size, such as Kirkland Signature Butter Croissants, 12 ct, Ore-Ida Pepperoni Bagel Bites, 72 ct or Coca-Cola de Mexican Glass Bottles, 24 x 16.9 oz. A count of 24 can mean 24 small cans or 24 large bottles, and the reference price follows the package, not the count alone.
The strategy page has a worked unit-price table built from this catalog, including two cases of water at the same $5.99 that hold different amounts.
Daily and unlimited
| Daily | Unlimited |
|---|---|
| The item is chosen from the UTC date, so everyone sees the same item on that date in this edition. | The item is drawn at random from the same 152-item catalog. |
| The finished result is saved for that date; reloading reopens it. | Each new round draws again, so items can repeat. |
| One daily round per UTC date. | No round limit while the page stays open. |
| Neither mode has a date picker or an archive of past puzzles, and neither reproduces another site's daily answer. | |
Switching mode starts a new round and clears the guesses on the board. A daily result is written only when that round finishes, so leaving a daily round halfway returns you to the start of the day's item rather than to your previous guesses.
Controls and local data
- Keyboard: focus the price field, type the amount and press Enter to submit.
- Touch: the chips add or clear amounts; each control has a minimum 44px target.
- ? opens the short rules summary, 📊 opens your statistics and the speaker button toggles sound.
- Statistics: played, win percentage, current streak and best streak. Completed daily results, statistics and the sound choice are stored in this browser only, do not sync between devices, and can be removed by clearing site data.
The game needs JavaScript. With scripting disabled, this rules text and the privacy notes still load but the board does not.
Boundaries worth remembering
- Only a positive number is accepted; empty, zero and negative input is rejected with a prompt.
- A repeated guess is not blocked, but it uses one of the six attempts.
- Six guesses do not guarantee a win on every item in this catalog; the strategy page explains why with the actual numbers.
- This is an independent fan-made puzzle, not affiliated with or endorsed by Costco Wholesale Corporation.