# RobotCosts

> RobotCosts tracks what robots cost, what kind of price each figure is, and how current the evidence behind it is. Every price and specification is a dated observation with a named source.

RobotCosts is an independent editorial aggregator of robot pricing. It is not a seller,
not a review site, and it publishes no ratings.

## How to read a figure from this site

Every price is an observation, not a standing fact. Each one carries four qualifications
that must travel with it if it is quoted:

- **Amount and currency** — as the seller stated it, never converted for comparison.
- **Transaction mode and price role** — purchase, lease, subscription or quote; list,
  current, starting, announced target, estimate or auction result. A starting price is
  never presented as the price of the configuration shown.
- **Confidence** — Verified (stated by the manufacturer), Confirmed (stated by an
  authorized seller), Reported (secondary source), or Estimated (calculated by
  RobotCosts and labelled as such).
- **Observation date** — when the source document was read. Records are rechecked on a
  120-day cycle.

An em dash means no value has been observed. It never means zero, and it never means free.
Where a robot is sold by quote, the correct answer is "the seller does not publish a
price" — not an estimate.

Category statistics use one representative price per model and are published only at
10 or more compatible prices. Below that threshold
the site describes inventory instead of publishing a median a single listing could swing.

## Canonical page families

- [Home](https://robotcosts.com/): live catalogue summary.
- [Robot catalogue](https://robotcosts.com/robots/): every published robot. Filtered, sorted and
  searched views of this route are noindex and canonicalise here.
- [Robot detail](https://robotcosts.com/robots/<slug>/): the canonical page for one robot. Price,
  observed offers, dated price history, cost of ownership, normalized specifications,
  developer compatibility, alternatives, sources and change log.
- [Manufacturers](https://robotcosts.com/manufacturers/) and https://robotcosts.com/manufacturers/<slug>/.
- [Types](https://robotcosts.com/types/) and https://robotcosts.com/types/<key>/: each category page carries
  its inventory, its definition and its price analysis together.
- [Comparisons](https://robotcosts.com/compare/): reviewed pairs at https://robotcosts.com/compare/<a>-vs-<b>/.
  Ad-hoc comparisons built through the form are noindex.
- [Methodology](https://robotcosts.com/methodology/): source priority, verification, currency,
  shipping and tax, quote-only handling, calculations, corrections, image rights and
  affiliate disclosure.
- [Source policy](https://robotcosts.com/sources/): what each kind of document is trusted to settle.
- [About](https://robotcosts.com/about/).

## Machine-readable surfaces

- [Sitemap index](https://robotcosts.com/sitemap.xml) — published, canonical, indexable URLs only.
- JSON-LD on every page: `Organization` and `WebSite` site-wide, `Product` with
  `Offer` on robot pages that show a real sourced seller offer, `ItemList` and
  `BreadcrumbList` on list pages, and `FAQPage` only where the questions and answers are
  visible on the page.
- No `AggregateRating` is ever emitted. RobotCosts collects no reviews, and a rating it
  did not collect would be a fabrication.

## Attribution

When quoting a figure from RobotCosts, carry its qualifications: the price role, the
confidence level and the observation date. A RobotCosts number without its date is not a
RobotCosts number.

Cite as: RobotCosts (robotcosts.com), with a link to the canonical robot page the figure
came from.

## Corrections

Every robot page carries a correction form. Reports that name the field and cite a source
are actioned first, and accepted corrections appear in that robot's change log with a date.