Most of us know our rent to the dollar and our phone bill to the cent. Groceries are different. Ask almost anyone what they spent on food last month and you will get a pause, a rough number, and a shrug. The money is real and it comes around every week, but the detail has always been on a strip of thermal paper that ends up in the bin.
NearbyStore exists to fix that. Today we are glad to say it is available on both the App Store and Google Play, free to download and free to use. Whether you are on an iPhone or an Android phone, you can install it this afternoon and scan your first receipt before dinner.
At a glance
- What it is: a grocery receipt and price app that turns your receipts, and prices shared by shoppers near you, into a clear picture of what things cost and where your money goes.
- Where to get it: the App Store (iPhone) and Google Play (Android).
- Price: free. No subscription, no in-app paywall.
- Built for: Canada, starting with Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, with particular care for South Asian and independent grocers.
What NearbyStore is for
NearbyStore answers three questions that every household asks and almost no tool answers well:
- Where did my grocery money actually go this month? Not a single bank-statement line, but store by store and receipt by receipt.
- What have I really been paying for the things I buy again and again? Your own price history, built from your own receipts.
- Is this a good price, and is it cheaper somewhere near me? Answered by real prices from real shoppers in your area, not by a flyer.
Your bank sees one line: a store name and a total. Your receipt sees every item, every quantity and every price. NearbyStore reads the receipt so you don't have to, and the community fills in the prices you haven't seen yet.
Everything you can do in the app today
We are strict about one thing on this site: we only describe what you can use right now. Everything in this section is in the version you download today.
Scan a receipt
Tap Scan Receipt, then take a photo or choose one from your gallery. NearbyStore reads the store, the date and every line item: the description, the quantity, the unit price and the line total, plus the receipt totals. Crumpled, faded or slightly angled receipts are fine. There is nothing to type in.
No reader is perfect, and we would rather tell you so. When the scanner is unsure about a line, it flags that line for you to review before it counts toward your totals or your price history. You can correct any item yourself, at any time.
Share a Price
Spotted a good price but didn't buy anything? Tap Share a Price and log it in a few seconds: the item, the price and the store. No receipt and no purchase needed. Your report helps every shopper near that store know what it costs today. This is the heart of what makes NearbyStore a community, not just a personal ledger.
Search & Compare nearby
Search any item and see what it costs across the stores around you, drawn from scanned receipts and shared prices. Each result shows the store, its distance from you, the price, the unit price where one applies (per pound, per item and so on) and how recently that price was seen, so you know whether it is fresh.
Results are focused on stores within your chosen search radius, from 10 to 50 km. If nothing nearby has a price for that item yet, NearbyStore still shows you the stores that do, clearly marked as further away, rather than an empty screen.
Spend Tracker
Every receipt you scan rolls into a running monthly total on your home screen, broken down by store. Tap any store to see the receipts behind that number for the month, then tap a receipt to see its original photo with the itemised details on top. No manual entry and no spreadsheets.
Price History
Pick something you buy regularly and see what you have paid for it, every time, at that store. It is built from your own receipts, so it reflects the sizes, the brands and the shops you actually use. It is the clearest way we know to notice a price quietly creeping up, or to discover that something you assumed was expensive never changed at all.
Grocery List
While you search, tap the cart icon next to any store's price to add that item to your grocery list, along with where you saw it and what it cost. You can also add free-text items like "birthday candles" that aren't tied to a price. Check things off as you shop. When a list is done, you can attach the receipt from that trip so the list and what you actually spent stay together.
Receipt Locker
Every receipt you scan is stored and searchable. That is handy well beyond budgeting: returns, exchanges, warranties, and the "didn't we buy one of those already?" conversation.
Getting started: your first ten minutes
- Download NearbyStore from the App Store or Google Play.
- Create your free account and swipe through the short introduction.
- Choose your area. Pick the city you shop in. If yours isn't listed, choose "Other" and tell us where you are.
- Allow location, if you like. It lets Search & Compare measure distances from where you are standing. If you'd rather not, the app uses your chosen area instead.
- Scan the receipt in your pocket. Then open Spend Tracker and watch it appear.
- Search for something you buy every week and see what it costs around you.
- Next time you spot a good price, share it. That one habit is what makes the app better for everyone nearby.
You can change your search radius and your area at any time from your profile.
Ways to make it part of your week
NearbyStore works best as a small habit rather than a project. A few ways it fits into an ordinary week:
- The weekly shop check-in. Scan the receipts on Sunday evening and see the month so far in one number, store by store.
- The staples watch. Rice, dal, oil, flour, milk: the items bought in bulk and on repeat are exactly where Price History earns its keep.
- The before-you-drive check. Search an item before heading out, and decide whether the store across town is worth the trip.
- The household list. Build the list from Search with prices attached, so the total is roughly known before you reach the till.
- The returns drawer, replaced. Find the receipt for that kettle in a few seconds instead of a few drawers.
Privacy, in plain terms
A receipt can carry more than prices, so we treat it with care:
- Card details never get stored. Card numbers, masked card numbers, authorisation codes, terminal IDs and cardholder names are detected and removed before anything is saved. That check is plain pattern-matching plus a Luhn checksum, run separately from the AI that reads the receipt, so it doesn't depend on a model getting it right.
- We don't sell your data. We do not share your receipts with retailers, advertisers or data brokers.
- Your purchases stay yours. Your receipts, spending and personal price history are private to your account. Only prices you choose to share with Share a Price are visible to other shoppers, and they aren't shown with your name.
- You are in control. Delete a single receipt or your whole account at any time.
- The community polices itself. Any shared price can be reported. Content reported by several different people is hidden automatically, and you can block anyone whose reports you don't want to see.
The full detail is in our privacy policy, written to Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA and BC PIPA).
Built in Canada, for the way we actually shop
NearbyStore is made in Vancouver and launches with the Lower Mainland first:
Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, Delta, Langley, New Westminster,
North Vancouver and West Vancouver. It is also tuned for a kind of grocery run that
generic budgeting apps tend to file under "Other": the independent South Asian
grocer, the bulk bag of atta, the receipt that says TOOR DAL 1KG.
An app built on shared prices is only as good as the people sharing them. Every receipt you scan and every price you share makes the next person's search a little more useful.
We want to be honest about that. In a newer neighbourhood, or for a less common item, you may find only a few prices to begin with. That changes quickly as more people in your area take part, and you can help it along. Scanning your next receipt takes about ten seconds.
What comes next
Launch is the beginning, not the finish line. Two things we're working on, and which you can't use yet:
- Whole-basket comparison. Price your entire list across the stores near you, not just one item at a time.
- Richer categories. A spending breakdown by kind of item, with categories that understand a South Asian grocery run rather than generic ones.
We will write about each one here when it ships, not before.
Tell us what you think
A person reads every message we receive. If something doesn't scan the way you'd expect, a store is missing, or there is a feature you'd love, please get in touch. Early feedback shapes what we build next more than anything else.
Every receipt has a story. Download NearbyStore, scan your first one, and start reading yours.
