Dynamic pricing leaves fingerprints. The price moves hour-to-hour instead of week-to-week; weekends flatten against midweek; shoulder nights get tiny bumps three to six days out. None of these are conclusive alone — together they are usually enough.
Three signals worth tracking
Velocity. If the rate for a given date has changed more than twice in the last 48 hours, something is rewriting it.
Spread. A flat spread (weekend = midweek + 5%) is a strong signal a tool is publishing a smoothed curve.
Hold. If a property’s price drops the moment a similar one’s availability closes, two systems are watching each other.
What to do about it
You do not beat a dynamic pricer by undercutting it. You beat it by knowing when your calendar is the constraint you should be optimizing for — anchor nights, last-minute gap nights, multi-night discounts. Those are the levers the model is least likely to find.