Launched this week
Spycost
Fell for a discount again?
457 followers
Fell for a discount again?
457 followers
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.
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.
Congrats on the launch, Hlib.
Ran a quick manual QA pass over the site out of habit. One thing worth
checking right now: your Pricing section stays on "Loading available
plans..." and the plan data isn't in the served HTML, so the Pricing
link in your header currently leads to a section with no prices.
Found a few other bits too. Happy to send the write-up over if useful -
free, no strings.
Spycost
@day_qa thanks a lot for taking the time to check this and point it out. I really appreciate it. I’d be happy to take a look at what you found. Could you send the write-up to me on LinkedIn? https://www.linkedin.com/in/hlib...
Price history tracking should be built into every e-commerce site but it never will be because it's bad for business.
Spycost
@ringo_td5 yes, I completely agree. Price history should be a basic part of e-commerce, but realistically most stores will probably never add it themselves because it goes against the way many discounts are designed to work.
What surprises me is how few people realize how much our buying decisions are shaped by price changes, crossed-out prices, urgency labels, and “limited time” deals. Often it’s not about helping us make a better decision, it’s about pushing us to buy faster.
That’s exactly why I’m building Spycost: to give people the missing context and make these pricing tricks easier to see.
"Raise the price first, then slap a discount on it" — feels like scammers all over the world are running the exact same playbook. I've honestly stopped trusting those flashy discount labels on shopping sites; too many times the "deal" was just the inflated price wearing a costume.
So I'm definitely going to give Spycost a try. Hoping this little spy-duck can see through the fake discounts for me and actually guard my wallet for once. Congrats on the launch, Hlib!
Spycost
@kryptonite_wei Thanks so much! This is exactly the frustration behind Spycost: once stores train you to doubt every flashy label, a “discount” stops being helpful and starts becoming noise.
Spycost is meant to bring the decision back to the price history: was this actually cheaper before, is it near a real low, or did the reference price suddenly jump? I hope it helps you ignore the pressure and buy only when the deal is genuinely worth it.
Strong pain point, beautiful solution, and a great launch :)
Good job, amigo.
Next Feature Idea: call bullshit on "only X seats left, etc" :P
Spycost
@knolladrian Thanks, Adrian! I love that feature idea. Fake scarcity like “only X seats left” sits in the same dark-pattern family as fake discounts, and it would be powerful to show people when that pressure is just noise. Where do you see this tactic most often: travel, SaaS, marketplaces, or somewhere else?
@glebarios From my experience, the Travel industry is the unchallenged champion of the fake scarcity tactic :)
Spycost
@knolladrian That’s a good point, and honestly a very good idea. I’ll look into this more closely and consider adding travel-specific support to Spycost, since fake scarcity seems especially common there.
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?