Best Flight Price Tracker for Australia: Google Flights vs Hopper vs Kayak vs SavvyFlyer

If you're chasing a cheap fare from Australia to Asia, a good price tracker does the watching for you. But which one? We put the four best-known options side by side — honestly, including where each beats the others and where ours falls short.

Short answer: no single tracker does everything. Google Flights and Kayak are the best places to search broadly; Hopper offers app-based "buy or wait" predictions (with paid extras to watch); and SavvyFlyer is the only one that scores today's fare against that specific Australia→Asia route's own price history. Here's the rundown (as of August 2026 — features change, so check each site for the latest).

The four tools, head to head

Google Flights

• Coverage: global, all routes
• Price signal: "prices are low / typical / high", plus a price graph and date grid
• Australia: works, prices in AUD
• Alerts: email (specific or any dates)
• Books flights? No — hands you off to the airline or agent
• Cost: free

Verdict: Unbeatable coverage, the best date grid in the business, and free. The catch: its "low / typical / high" read is a generic global judgement, not tuned to what a Sydney–Denpasar fare specifically tends to do — and it no longer books flights itself. Best for broad, flexible searching.

Hopper

• Coverage: global, but app-only (no desktop)
• Price signal: "buy now or wait" prediction
• Australia: app available, but tuned for North America
• Alerts: push notifications (in-app)
• Books flights? Yes — in-app
• Cost: free, plus paid add-ons

Verdict: Genuinely predictive advice in a polished app, and it books for you. But it's app-only, built around North American travellers, and monetised through paid extras — the Price Freeze deposit is non-refundable and "Carrot Cash" nudges in-app bookings. Useful, with eyes open. Best for app users who want a predictive nudge. (And on whether waiting for a sale ever pays on Australia–Asia routes: we tested it.)

Kayak

• Coverage: global
• Price signal: a seven-day "will prices rise or fall" forecast
• Australia: yes — kayak.com.au, in AUD
• Alerts: email price alerts
• Books flights? No — redirects you elsewhere
• Cost: free

Verdict: Huge inventory, a handy short-term forecast, price alerts, all free. But the forecast is short-horizon and global — it won't tell you whether today's fare is cheap against months of that route's own Australian history. Best for wide search plus a quick forecast.

SavvyFlyer

• Coverage: around 40 Australia→Asia routes, 8 destinations
• Price signal: the Savvy Score, 0–100, vs that route's own price history
• Australia: built for it — Australia→Asia only, in AUD
• Alerts: email when a fare is genuinely cheap
• Books flights? No
• Cost: free

Verdict: The only one of the four built specifically for Australians flying to Asia, scoring each fare against that exact route's own history rather than a generic model — and the score is independent, never influenced by commission (how it works). The honest limits: it's new with only a few months of data, it covers Australia→Asia routes only, and it doesn't book flights. Best for Australians timing a trip to Asia.

So which should you actually use?

They're complementary, not either/or. Use Google Flights or Kayak to search broadly and see the fare landscape and flexible dates. Then use SavvyFlyer to answer the question the metasearch engines don't really tackle — is this fare genuinely cheap for this Australia→Asia route, right now? If you'd rather have one app that predicts and books together, Hopper does that — just mind the paid extras. For most Australians planning an Asia trip, the winning combo is a metasearch engine to find the flight and SavvyFlyer to time the booking.

📊 Savvy Take: No single tracker wins. Google Flights and Kayak are the best free places to search; Hopper predicts and books in-app (watch the fees); and SavvyFlyer is the only tool that scores today's fare against that specific Australia→Asia route's own history — so it's the one that tells you whether $650 to Bali is actually a deal. Search with a metasearch engine; time the booking with SavvyFlyer.

Comparison as of August 2026; each tool's features change, so check their own sites for the latest. SavvyFlyer earns nothing from the links on this page: the Book button opens Google Flights and pays us nothing. If that ever changes we will disclose it here, and it will never affect the Savvy Score.

Frequently asked questions

Which flight price tracker is best for Australians flying to Asia?

They’re complementary, not either/or. Google Flights and Kayak are the best places to search broadly and see the fare landscape; Hopper offers app-based “buy or wait” predictions and books in-app; and SavvyFlyer is the only one of the four that scores today’s fare against that specific Australia→Asia route’s own price history. For most Australians planning an Asia trip, the winning combination is a metasearch engine to find the flight and SavvyFlyer to time the booking. (Comparison as of August 2026 — features change, so check each site for the latest.)

Does Google Flights tell you whether a fare is cheap for your route?

Not specifically. Google Flights shows a “prices are low / typical / high” read plus a price graph and date grid, but that judgement is a generic global one rather than tuned to what a Sydney–Denpasar fare specifically tends to do. It also no longer books flights itself — it hands you off to the airline or agent. It is best for broad, flexible searching.