Does Lowe's Have Penny Items? Lowe's vs Home Depot Clearance

Does Lowe's have penny items?

Not really. At Home Depot, a penny item is an item a store has marked down to $0.01, usually as a signal for staff to pull it. Missed units can still ring up for a cent, and there's a big community that hunts for them.

Lowe's works differently. It has plenty of clearance, but shoppers rarely report Lowe's items ringing up at a penny, and there's no well-known Lowe's penny system to follow. If you want pennies, Home Depot is where people look.

That doesn't make Lowe's a bad place for deals. Its clearance can be just as deep. It just works a little differently.

How Lowe's clearance works

From what shoppers and deal sites report:

• Yellow clearance tags mark items the store wants gone, much like Home Depot.
• An "N" under the barcode usually means the item is discontinued. The price may still drop, so you might wait if it's not something you need now.
• Appliances get reduced in steps. Shoppers report already-reduced appliances being marked down again every week or two.
• A back-aisle or clearance area often holds marked-down items, commonly 50–75% off.
• Mistint paint sits by the paint desk, often a few dollars a gallon, just like Home Depot's oops paint.

Lowe's doesn't publish a guide to its tags, so treat these as patterns, not rules.

How Home Depot clearance works

Home Depot clearance is set store by store. The same item can be $40 at one store and $9 at another a few miles away. Prices drop in steps, and the last digits of the price often tell you where an item is in that process. See Home Depot price endings and the markdown schedule.

A lot of Home Depot clearance is also untagged. The shelf shows the old price while the register rings up less. That's hidden clearance, and it's a big part of why Home Depot is popular with deal hunters.

Lowe's vs Home Depot clearance at a glance

Which store should you shop?

Both, if you can. They're often close to each other, and they clear out different things at different times.

• Hunting pennies or hidden clearance? Start with Home Depot. Our guide on how to find penny items at Home Depot walks through it step by step.
• Shopping for an appliance? Check open-box and scratch-and-dent at both. See Home Depot appliance clearance.
• Shopping seasonal? Both clear out holiday decor, grills and patio furniture at the end of each season. Our seasonal clearance calendar covers Home Depot's timing.

Price trackers: Lowe's vs Home Depot

People often search for a "Lowe's price tracker" or a "Home Depot price tracker." Most online trackers only follow the website price. That misses store clearance, which is where the deepest deals are.

For Home Depot, PennyLoot checks the clearance prices at the stores near your ZIP and flags penny, near-penny and hidden-price items. More on how that compares to other tools in our Home Depot price tracker guide and our penny app comparison.

One rule for both stores

Be kind to employees. Neither store has to sell you a clearance item at the wrong price, and at Home Depot, a penny item can be refused. Read Home Depot's penny policy and our penny shopping etiquette tips before you go.