How CartWise Makes Money — and What We Promise You

Subscriptions are our main support

CartWise's primary source of income is CartWise Premium, an optional paid subscription that unlocks features like cross-store list optimization, unlimited price alerts, and extended price history. Subscriptions — not commissions — are how we fund and sustain the app, which is why we can rank every result purely by price. The free version stays genuinely useful.

A small affiliate commission, sometimes

When you tap a product link in CartWise and complete a purchase, some retailers pay CartWise a small percentage of the sale — typically 1–10% depending on the product category. This is called an affiliate commission. For CartWise it's a minor extra on top of subscriptions, not our main income — and it never changes your price or how results are ranked.

At launch, CartWise has an affiliate arrangement with Amazon Associates. Commission rates are set by Amazon and vary by category. You can see Amazon's current rate schedule at amazon.com's Associates rate page.

CartWise may add affiliate arrangements with other retailers over time. When we do, we will update this page.

What CartWise never does

• ✓ Ranks results to maximize our commission — rankings are sorted by price ascending (all-in where calculable), regardless of whether we have an affiliate arrangement with that retailer.
• ✓ Replaces affiliate links you click yourself — no cookie-stuffing, ever. If you navigate to a retailer directly and make a purchase, we earn nothing. That's the correct behavior.
• ✓ Sells your search history or shopping list to advertisers. Your data is not CartWise's product.
• ✓ Shows sponsored results without labeling them. CartWise v1 has no sponsored results at all.

How results are ranked

Every search result you see in CartWise is ranked the same way, whether or not CartWise has an affiliate deal with that retailer:

1. All-in price (item price + known shipping + applicable taxes) — lowest first.
2. For local stores: distance and availability as tiebreakers.

This ranking policy applies equally to Amazon and to any retailer where CartWise earns no commission.

Your grocery list stays on your device

In CartWise v1, your grocery shopping list is stored locally on your device only. CartWise does not send your list contents to any server. When you search for a product's price, CartWise sends product identifiers (search terms or UPCs) to store data providers — but it does not send your saved list. Your shopping list is private to you.

For the complete picture of what CartWise collects and doesn't collect, read our Privacy Policy. Read the Privacy Policy →