Better Value
Should I Buy This? · Module 1

Is the bigger one actually cheaper?

Photograph two products. Better Value reads the shelf tags, converts them to the same unit, and tells you which one wins — before it goes in the cart.

Try Premium free for 3 days See what it saves you

Then $1.99/month or $14.99/year. Cancel any time.
Or stay on the free on-device mode forever — no purchase, nothing leaves your phone.

29¢ a weekWhat the yearly plan works out to
About four secondsTwo photos to a verdict
No account, everNothing is tracked, either way

Two ways to read a shelf tag. You pick, before the photo.

The switch sits at the bottom of the camera screen. One is free forever and never opens a connection. The other does the reading for you.

On the Phone

Free · unlimited

Your iPhone reads the tags with Apple's on-device text recognition. You tap to confirm each price and size — four taps — and the phone does the arithmetic.

Nothing leaves the device. No photo, no text, no location.
Works in airplane mode, and in the freezer-aisle dead zone.
No purchase, no account, no expiry. It is not a trial.
Tapping is also the more certain of the two — you tell it exactly which two numbers to compare.

An answer that's honest about close calls

Better Value won't oversell a tiny difference. The verdict is graded against the real gap in unit price.

Under 0.5% apart

Basically identical

So close it doesn't matter — buy whichever you prefer.

0.5%–2% apart

Slightly better value

A real but small edge. Worth a nudge, not a sprint.

More than 2% apart

Better value

A clear winner. The app shows exactly how much you save per unit.

What it adds up to

$14.99 a year is 29¢ a week.
Shelf math is worth more than that.

We can't promise you a number — nobody honestly can. So here's the arithmetic instead, with your grocery bill in it. Move the sliders.

$250
$60$500
2%
0.5% · cautious6% · every aisle

For reference, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the average American household's spending on food at home at $6,224 a year (2024). The default above is a starting point — adjust it to match your own bill.

The second slider is your assumption, not our claim. It's the fraction of your shop where a cheaper unit price exists and you'd have missed it.

Saved each week
$5.00
Pays for itself in
3 weeks
Kept in your pocket, after the subscription
1 year
$245
3 years
$735
5 years
$1,225

Five years of Premium costs $74.95. That's already subtracted above. No inflation assumed, which makes this the cautious version.

Start 3 days free

Three tiers, and one of them is free forever

The free one isn't a teaser. It has no expiry, no comparison count, and no purchase behind it.

Free

On the Phone mode
$0
Forever. No account.
  • Unlimited comparisons
  • Works fully offline
  • Nothing leaves your phone
  • You tap each price and size
  • No nearby-store lookup
Download the app

Premium, monthly

Full Read, month to month
$1.99/mo
First 3 days free
  • Everything in Free
  • Full Read — no tapping
  • Nearby stores on tap
  • Cancel any time in Settings
Start 3 days free
Save 37%

Premium, yearly

Full Read, best value
$14.99/yr
29¢ a week · $8.89 less than monthly
  • Everything in Premium
  • Four and a half months free, effectively
  • One charge a year, then forget it
  • Cancel any time in Settings
Start 3 days free

Billed through your Apple ID. The trial converts to a paid subscription unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, and renews until you cancel. Prices in USD.

Your shopping stays your business

No account. No sign-in. No ads, no trackers, no analytics in the app. There is nothing to log in to and nothing tied to your name.

Premium sends your photos to be read — that's the one thing the phone can't do alone. So here is precisely where they go, and how long they last.

Read the full privacy policy
On the Phone mode sends nothing at allNot “we don't keep it” — the app never opens a connection. It runs in airplane mode.
Nobody keeps your photosOur server writes none of it down. Our AI provider works under a zero data retention agreement, so the photos are read and discarded.
Location is blurred before it leavesOnly for the nearby-store list, only when you tap for it, and rounded to about a kilometre first. The precise fix never leaves the phone.
We never see your payment detailsApple takes the money. All we hold is a one-way hash of your subscription id with two counters against it, so the fair-use limit can work.

The questions people actually ask

Is the free version a trial?No. On the Phone mode is unlimited and has no expiry. It is the whole app minus the reading-for-you part.
What happens after the 3 days?It bills the plan you chose unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends. If you cancel, you drop to the free mode — the app keeps working.
Does it work in every store?It reads what is printed on the package and the shelf tag, so it works anywhere those exist. It has no store's price list and never needs one.
What if it reads a number wrong?When it isn't confident it says so rather than inventing a figure, and it marks any size it had to estimate. The numbers it used are on the verdict, so you can check them.
Is there a limit on Premium?A fair-use ceiling well above normal shopping. If you somehow reach it, Full Read pauses and the free on-device mode carries on as usual.
Android?Not yet. iPhone on iOS 16 or newer for now.

Stop doing shelf math in your head

Three days of Full Read, free. Then 29¢ a week — or nothing at all, if the on-device mode is enough for you.

Notify me at launch Questions? Visit support

Coming soon to iPhone · iOS 16+ · A Halifax Innovation Studio app

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