Find what to buy with Best Pick

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Best Pick answers a shopping question with one product. Bearly reads expert reviews, store listings, and owner reviews, gives each product it finds a quality score, and picks the one that gives the most quality for its price. The card shows the product, why it was picked, and a button that opens it at the store.

It works in an ordinary chat on the web, including in a phone’s browser, and in the desktop app.

Ask for a pick

Describe what you want to buy. Say what must be true, such as a budget or a size, and what you’d prefer.

A chef's knife for a home cook who's tired of dull cheap knives, under $120.

Bearly uses Best Pick on its own when you ask what to buy. To make sure it does, type /bestpick, select Best Pick under Research, and describe the product.

While Bearly works, the card shows your request and what it’s looking for. Anything marked Assumed is a default Bearly chose because your request left it open. The card also counts the expert reviews Bearly has read and the store listings it has checked, and shows how long the pick has taken. A pick stops after 90 seconds. If none is ready by then, select Try again.

The product appears once the pick is decided. Why this one and What owners say can fill in shortly after. If evidence that arrives later rules the pick out, such as a recall, the card goes back to researching. It then shows a different pick, or says nothing is worth recommending and why Bearly withdrew the earlier pick.

One pick runs at a time in each chat. Ask again once the current card finishes.

Read the card

From top to bottom:

Best Pick and the product category run across the top.
The product photo sits beside the brand, the product name, and the price. Swipe the photo, or select the dots or thumbnails under it, to see more photos. Select the photo to open it full screen.
Under the price, one line names the country whose stores Bearly checked, such as Stores in Canada. Every price on the card is in that country’s currency.
One line says what the product is and who it suits. View at followed by the store’s name opens the product on the store’s site. Beside it, the card says when Bearly checked the price, and that the store’s checkout price is the one that applies.
A short list sums up the evidence: Experts (how many expert reviewers recommend it, named on a wider screen), Owners (the average store rating out of 5, and how many ratings it comes from), Praised (what owners praise most), and either Failure (the way it breaks that owners report most) or Problem (the complaint owners report most). Praised, Failure, and Problem show the share of owners who mention it. Anything with no evidence behind it is left out.
How it compares charts every product Bearly weighed against the pick, by price and quality. Quality is scored 0 to 100 from expert tests and owner reviews, and each product’s vertical line shows how sure that score is. The pick is labeled Best Pick. Point at or tap a mark to see its name, price, and score. Some charts draw a line through the pick and shade the area where a product would give more for its price. No product lands there. A dashed line marks your Budget. Select All followed by the number of products to see them in a table.
Spend less and Spend more name a cheaper and a pricier product with their prices and the difference. On a phone, select What each one trades to see what you’d give up or gain. When another product came close, Close call names it with its score next to the pick’s. If the close call is also the cheaper or the pricier product, that row says so. A card with fewer than two products to chart lists these under Other options.
Why this one gives two or three sentences with the numbers behind the choice. On a phone, select Read the rest for all of it. When no expert review recommends the pick, as is common for handmade or custom-made goods, this section says the pick rests on owner ratings.
What owners say lists what owners praise and the Reported problems, each as a share of the written reviews Bearly read. A warning sign marks the failure owners report most. On a phone, select What owners say to expand it. When Bearly couldn’t read enough owner reviews, it says Not enough reviews to summarize.
Sources says how much Bearly read. Select it to see the Expert reviews, Stores, and Forums behind the pick, with dates. Recommends it marks the expert reviews that recommend the pick. Select a source to open it.

Refine the pick

Reply in the same chat, or select a chip under the card:

Cheaper asks for something that costs less. Worth spending more asks what a bigger budget gets you.
Not this one rules out the current pick.
Up to two suggestions for that kind of product, such as a quieter model.
Assumed followed by a value is a default Bearly chose. Select it to rule that default out, or reply with the value you want.

Something under $80, and it has to be dishwasher-safe.

Each refinement shows a new card in Bearly’s reply. Bearly keeps what you asked for earlier, looks first at the products it already found, and searches again only when none of them fit. The pick stays when it still fits and still comes out ahead. When Bearly can answer from those products, its reply says whether the pick changed and why. To drop an earlier requirement, say so.

Chips work only on the newest card in the chat. On older cards they’re turned off.

Choose the country

Best Pick shops in one country at a time and shows prices in its currency. It uses the country you name, such as “ship to Vancouver” for Canada. If you don’t name one, it keeps the country of the last pick in the chat. For the first pick in a chat, it uses your device’s time zone, and the United States when the time zone doesn’t name a country.

To switch countries, say so in the same chat:

Show me stores in the UK instead.

Bearly searches again for that country, because the products it already found are priced in another currency. A budget you set in the other currency is dropped, so say your budget again in the new currency. The same goes for a budget you give in a different currency from the stores’, such as US dollars when you ask for stores in Canada: Bearly sets it aside and asks for it in the stores’ currency.

Messages on the card

What you see	What it means
Nothing found is worth recommending. With a budget, it reads like Nothing up to $150 is worth recommending.	No product had enough evidence from separate sources, or nothing met every requirement. The line below it says which. Chips that start with Raise to or Drop loosen the request.
Doesn’t meet one thing you asked for: followed by a requirement	Nothing met every requirement, so Bearly set aside the ones listed, starting with the one you stated last. Bearly couldn’t confirm that the pick meets them. A price limit is never set aside.
Best Pick doesn’t cover this category.	Bearly doesn’t pick medications, supplements, infant car seats, or firearms. The line below it says why.
Review and store sites stopped responding. or Review and store sites took too long to respond.	The sources Bearly reads stopped answering, or no pick was ready within 90 seconds. Select Try again.
Store sites stopped responding.	Bearly read the reviews but got no prices from any store, so it couldn’t pick a product. The line below it says what it read. Select Try again.
This pick didn’t finish.	The pick was stopped, hit an error, or the app closed before it finished. Select Try again.
Your allowance ran out before the pick finished.	Your plan allowance is used up. The chat shows your usage options under the card. Add credits or wait for the allowance to reset, then select Try again.
A dimmed price with Price on and a date	The price is more than a day old. Select Check current price to check it again. When Bearly can’t read that store’s listing again, the date shows alone.
Couldn’t confirm it’s in stock right now	You can still open the store to check for yourself, or select Check again when it’s offered. A price taken from a store’s search results always shows this, because those results don’t confirm stock.
Couldn’t check it right now.	Bearly couldn’t read the store’s listing again. The price shown is from the last check.
Limited store coverage in followed by a country	Bearly has fewer store sources in that country, so it picked from the stores it could reach. Prices and stock come from fewer stores than elsewhere.

Limits

Best Pick recommends; it doesn’t buy. The store’s page sets the final price and stock.
View at opens the store’s own product page. Bearly doesn’t add affiliate links.
Bearly doesn’t test products. It weighs published expert reviews, store ratings, and owner reviews, and lists its sources on the card.
Best Pick is for new physical products. It doesn’t cover services, travel, cars, homes, or used and refurbished items.
Best Pick reads store listings in 46 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and many countries in Europe. In other countries it checks fewer stores, and the card says store coverage is limited.
Prices in another currency are left out, never converted, so every price on a card is one a store in that country charges.
When a store listing says how many come in a pack, the card shows the price of one item under the price. When listings offer packs of different sizes, View at opens the one that costs least per item.
A pick keeps up to eight must-haves and eight preferences. Past that, each new one replaces the oldest one that isn’t a price.
Each pick uses your plan allowance. See Manage billing and review usage.
In a chat you can view but not edit, you can still open the store and the sources, but chips and price checks are turned off.
Scheduled Routines don’t make picks.

Turn Best Pick on or off

There’s no chat setting for Best Pick. Administrators of managed organizations control it from Organizations → organization name → Policies → policy name → Web & Research → Best Pick, which also needs Web and Chat web search on. See Set organization policies.

Turning Best Pick off stops new picks, and /bestpick no longer appears. Cards already in chats still show, but their chips and price checks stop working.