Spycost - Fell for a discount again?
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Remember the last time you bought something at a discount, only to see it later for the same price without the discount? Or when the product costs more today than it did yesterday. Did you feel cheated? Are you ready to look behind the screen of manipulation and lies? Spycost helps you see when you’re paying more while thinking you’re paying less. It gives you the full price picture, so you can decide whether it’s actually worth it.
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Spycost
Spycost
@sasha_buratynskyi thank you! The goal was to keep Spycost very simple visually. I didn’t want users to feel buried under hundreds of charts, numbers, and distracting elements. The idea is to show the price story clearly, so it’s easy to understand when a deal is actually worth it.
The duck came from the name itself: Spy + Cost. In other words, a little spy watching prices for you.
And yes, the goal is worldwide coverage. So far, we’ve tested around 100 different stores across different regions, and Spycost worked successfully with 95 of them. Popular stores and global brands are supported well, so you can track prices from almost any online shop.
Spycost
@adana thank you! I felt the same problem myself. Discounts often make it harder to tell whether I’m making a good decision or just reacting to the label. Spycost started as a small attempt to make that a bit easier to see.
@glebarios I'll definitely give it a try!
Spycost
@tehreem_fatima5 thank you so much for coming over from LinkedIn and taking the time to check it out! You captured the problem really well. Fake discounts often don’t just change the price, they change how we feel about the purchase and push us into acting faster than we normally would.
That was one of the main reasons I started building Spycost: to make the price context more visible, so buying decisions can be based less on pressure and more on what actually makes sense. Really appreciate your support, Tehreem!
@glebarios What signals does Spycost use to decide whether a discount is real or just a pricing trick?
I really like the idea, especially because the problem is so relatable. Price history can change the whole buying decision when you are planning a purchase instead of reacting to urgency.
Spycost
@vahid_davoudi Thanks, Vahid. That is exactly the behavior I wanted Spycost to make visible.
The main signal is price history, not the discount label itself. Spycost looks at how the current price compares with previous prices, recent lows, the usual price range, and whether the price was increased shortly before a “discount” appeared. If the sale price is basically the normal price, or only looks good because the reference price was inflated, that is where it starts to look suspicious.
I do not want it to make the decision for the user. The goal is to show enough context so you can tell whether it is actually a good moment to buy or just urgency dressed up as a deal.
@glebarios Thanks Hlib, that makes a lot of sense. I like that Spycost does not just trust the discount label, but compares it against the real pricing pattern. Showing context without taking the decision away from the user feels like the right approach.
Is there a browser extension that allow me to see price history for specific product directly on PDP?
Project look interesting, good luck 🍀 with launch
Spycost
@spiri7 thank you! Not yet, but a browser extension is already in the backlog and it’s one of the priority next steps for Spycost. The idea is exactly that: to let you open a product page and quickly see the price history directly there, without needing to switch context.
FuseBase
Spycost
@kate_ramakaieva thank you so much, Kate! Really appreciate the support. Right now Spycost is focused on the mobile app, and the browser extension is definitely one of the next priority steps. The idea is to make price tracking useful directly while shopping, without needing to switch context.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
I had to add this product into my "Interesting" collection because I love discounts :D
Spycost
@busmark_w_nika thank you! I’m really glad the concept felt interesting to you. Discounts are hard to resist, and that’s exactly the kind of moment I wanted Spycost to make a little clearer. There are also a couple of bigger updates ahead, so price tracking should become even easier and a bit smarter soon.
This is painfully relatable. a discount can make something feel urgent even when it was never a priority in the first place, and finding out later that the "sale" price was basically normal makes it even worse :)
I like that Spycost does not try to decide for the user, it just shows the real price history so the choice is based on context instead of pressure. Curious how it handles stores that constantly change product URLs, variants, or create fake reference prices to make discounts look bigger.
Spycost
@andrasczeizel thank you! I’ve been thinking a lot about how often shopping decisions are shaped by urgency rather than real value. A discount can feel like information, but sometimes it’s just pressure wrapped in a nice label.
That’s what I’m trying to explore with Spycost: not to tell people what to buy, but to give them a calmer view of the price over time. When you can see the history, it becomes easier to pause for a second and decide with a bit more confidence.
Spycost
@nadiia_prokofieva thank you! Spycost isn’t limited to a fixed list of retailers. It’s designed to work with the vast majority of online stores, and so far it has worked well across different shops and regions.
Right now the focus is reliable tracking for specific products, but I definitely want to expand this in the future so you can track not only one exact product, but a whole product class too, for example coffee machines with certain parameters across multiple brands and stores.
Hey @Spycost Team, congrats on launching!
This resonates with me. Last November, I waited weeks for a deal on a coffee machine. When the discount finally appeared, something seemed off. I checked a screenshot I had taken earlier, and the "sale price" was the same as it had been a month earlier. They had increased the price just to reduce it again. I really felt manipulated. I wish I had Spycost then. I'm definitely going to try your tool.
Spycost
@vitalii_rybka thank you, Vitalii! That coffee machine example is exactly the kind of situation that pushed me to build Spycost. The frustrating part is not only the price itself, but the feeling that the “discount” is designed to rush you into a decision without the full context. I hope Spycost helps you catch those moments earlier and buy only when the deal is actually real. Would love to hear what you think after trying it.
the duck-as-a-spy branding is doing a lot of work here, it's memorable. question on the price history itself - when I add a product I just found today, do you backfill history from somewhere, or does the chart only start from the moment I add it, so the "is this actually a good deal" signal takes a while to become useful?
Spycost
@galdayan thanks! Right now we don’t backfill old data: the price history starts accumulating from the moment you add a product.
I know that can feel inconvenient at first, because the “is this a real deal?” signal needs a bit of time. But I also think that’s part of the value: it makes buying less impulsive and more transparent.
From my own observations, large retailers, especially in electronics, change prices almost daily. We just usually don’t notice it. For example, I’m tracking an Elegoo 3D printer, and over the last month they changed the price 7 times, with a difference of around €40 between the highs and lows. The changes often follow the same pattern, so I’m planning to add AI that can predict likely price drops in advance.
@glebarios that Elegoo example sells it well, 7 price changes in a month is way more volatility than I would've guessed. makes sense to lean into the transparency angle rather than trying to fake instant backfill data
Spycost
@galdayanexactly, that’s the tradeoff I’m trying to be honest about. I’d rather show a smaller amount of reliable data than invent confidence from a messy or unverified backfill.
The first snapshot is useful as a starting point, but the real value grows as Spycost keeps watching the same product over time and shows how often the price actually moves. That transparency is what I want the product to be built around.
@glebarios that's the right philosophy honestly, a fake backfilled history would just erode trust the first time someone catches an inconsistency. building the value around watching forward is the more honest and probably more durable approach anyway
Congrats on the launch, Hlib — the spy-duck is perfect for this. One thing I’m genuinely curious about: when I add a product, do I see its price history from before I started tracking (so I can judge today’s “deal” right away), or does the history only build up from the moment I add it?
Spycost
@andrei_rebrov1 thanks a lot! Right now Spycost doesn’t backfill old price data: the history starts accumulating from the moment you add a product.
I know that means the “is this actually a good deal?” signal needs a bit of time to become useful. It can feel less convenient at first, but I also think it makes the purchase less impulsive and more transparent. Instead of trusting a discount label, you start seeing how the price really behaves over time.
From my own observations, big retailers, especially electronics stores, change prices almost every day. We just usually don’t notice it. For example, I’m tracking an Elegoo 3D printer, and over the last month its price changed 7 times, with around €40 between the highest and lowest prices. These changes often follow repeatable patterns, so I’m planning to add AI that can help predict likely price drops in advance.
@glebarios Honestly, the way you frame it, the no-backfill choice grew on me — watching how the price actually behaves beats trusting a discount label, even if it needs a little time to warm up. The Elegoo example makes it click: 7 changes and ~€40 spread in a month is exactly the movement nobody notices. And AI that flags likely drops sounds like the perfect next layer on top of that. Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Hlib — congrats again!
Finally something that actually calls out fake discounts! So tired of "limited
time" sales that are always running. This is the kind of tool that makes
shopping way less stressful.
Spycost
@georg_werner Exactly, those endless “limited-time” sales are one of the things that pushed me to build Spycost. The idea is to make the real price history visible, so shopping feels less like guessing and more like making a clear decision. What kind of pricing trick do you notice most often when shopping online?
One thing that would make Spycost really useful for me is a simple browser extension that automatically flags price drops and fake discounts while I shop, instead of me having to look things up manually each time.
Spycost
@aysunvcyf thank you so much for checking out Spycost! I really appreciate the support. I built it from a pretty personal frustration with confusing discounts, so it means a lot to see people connect with the idea.
A browser extension is also one of the next priority tasks. The goal is to help you spot price changes and get warnings directly while shopping, without having to leave the product page or break your flow.