It separates the dollars and cents

DOT

"Here’s a helpful hint for the clue: "Look for a small mark that often appears between numbers in prices." This hint guides the solver toward thinking about punctuation or symbols used in monetary notation without directly stating the answer. It’s easier than the original clue but still requires a bit of deduction."

The clue "It separates the dollars and cents" leads to the answer "DOT" through a clever play on the notation used in monetary values. In written currency, a dot (or decimal point) is used to separate dollars from cents (e.g., $1.50). The word "dot" itself refers to the small round mark (.), which is the literal separator in this context.