Frequently Asked Questions

SmartBuy is a personal Costco shopping advisor that runs entirely over WhatsApp. It's powered by 2.5 years (131 weeks) of continuous Costco promotion history, and helps you decide whether a product is worth buying now or if you should wait for a better price.

SmartBuy has three tiers. Free: price lookups, weekly basic briefing, and 3 receipt PDF analyses to try. Personal: shopping list (up to 15 items), unlimited receipt uploads, personalized briefings, price adjustment radar, and promotion alerts. Family: everything in Personal, plus a 30-item household list and the Family Procurement Plan — a monthly rolling active set built from your purchase history and ranked by savings potential. Contact us on WhatsApp to learn how to access each tier.

No installation required. You just need WhatsApp. Contact us to receive an invite code, and you can start using it immediately after a 30-second registration.

We currently cover Costco Canada East (Ontario, Quebec, etc.) and West region flyer data. US Costco data is in development.

Yes, fully. The system defaults to the language you write in. Both English and Chinese are fully supported.

Contact us on WhatsApp for current access details.

Our primary data is sourced from Canada Costco's official flyers and other up-to-date promotion information — automatically collected, processed, and reviewed before being added to the database. Over 30,000 promotion records, accurate to the cent. This is supplemented by 131 weeks of Costco flyer OCR history which adds product images and specs. Primary data takes priority; historical OCR data fills in the gaps.

Promotion data is scraped daily. When new weekly data is detected (typically Monday), it is automatically processed and human-reviewed before the latest promotions are added to the database. Briefings are then pushed on Monday or Tuesday. A second wave is sent on weekends if additional price drops are found.

Predictions are based on historical statistical patterns — e.g., 'this product historically goes on sale every 8 weeks.' Products with stable promotion patterns are more reliable. Newer products or irregularly promoted items have lower prediction confidence, which the AI will note.

The AI will tell you the record is limited and describe what it does know — for example, that this is the first time this product has appeared on promotion.

Yes. All user data is stored on private servers and is not connected to any third-party cloud storage. Your purchase records are completely private.

Absolutely not. Every user's shopping list, purchase records, and consumption data are fully isolated. The system enforces user-ID filtering on all database queries.

The system administrator can access data at a technical level for debugging purposes, but does not actively view any user's personal shopping data.

Contact us on WhatsApp at any time and we will delete all your personal data.

Send a message to the AI: 'I want to build my shopping list.' The AI will guide you step by step. Just describe in plain language what you buy — for example: 'laundry detergent, Tide or Kirkland, 1 box per month, max $25.' The AI handles the rest.

Two ways. Quick text: send a message like 'bought Tide laundry detergent 2 boxes $21.99' and the AI saves it in about 30 seconds. Or upload your Costco receipt PDF directly in WhatsApp — the AI parses every line item automatically, compares prices against history, and activates 30-day price adjustment monitoring for eligible items. The PDF route is the fastest for a full shopping trip.

Yes, any time. Send 'update my list' or 'remove [item name]' and the AI handles it immediately.

Briefings are sent automatically on Monday or Tuesday after the latest promotion data has been processed and reviewed — no fixed clock time, it goes out as soon as the data is ready. A second wave follows on weekends if new price drops are detected. Custom push timing is not currently supported.

Yes, at any time. Send 'stop service' to the AI or contact us directly. Your historical data will be retained for a period and can be fully deleted upon request.