A döner's worth of money gets you bargain used cars in Azerbaijan: TurboDeals hit #4 on the Top Grossing chart, but hasn't really taken off yet
What it is A used-car deal finder for Azerbaijan: it pulls listings from turbo.az, tells you how much each car is below market value, sends alerts for new listings, and matches trade-ins. Monthly subscription.
Why it took off A small agency filmed short TikToks on "how much cheaper this car is" and pushed about 1.08M views in a country of ten million people. On top of that, the bar for the local shopping Top Grossing chart is very low, so a few subscriptions a day can reach the top 5.
CHow you could follow it Don't copy it in Azerbaijan. Pick a small country where a single listings site dominates and no big site offers valuation yet. Use a free Telegram channel of low-priced cars to build an audience first, then sell instant alerts and full valuation as a subscription, and acquire users with short videos of specific cars at specific prices.
- Data (updated daily) · First seen 2026-09-04 · AZ rating 3 · 11-08 on 1 store charts
iOS · best category chart rank · by store AZTurkeyData 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that dayiOS · rating count · AZ Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.
On Azerbaijan's App Store shopping Top Grossing chart, TurboDeals hit #4. It scrapes listings from turbo.az, the country's biggest car listings site, gives each car an estimated market price, shows how far below market it is, and sells a monthly plan for 8.49 manat. The ranking looks good, but the volume is small: it has only 3 ratings on iOS and hasn't gained a single one in ten days. What's worth studying isn't the ranking but the playbook: a small country, a small language, a dominant listings site, and a little agency that knows how to make TikToks. The same idea surfaced from at least three teams that summer, and one of them is free.
"This Camry is 11,039 manat below market"
On Oct 28, the TikTok account @turbodeals.az posted a video whose caption opened with: "Bu Camry bazardan 11 039 ₼ ucuzdur. Və bu gün belə 2 444 maşın var" — this Camry is 11,039 manat cheaper than market, and there are 2,444 cars like it today. The next line states the selling point: "The seller writes their price; TurboDeals shows you the market price. We check 30k+ listings a day, so you see the cheap ones first." The closing line gives the price: 3.39 manat for the first month of PRO.
The video got 36k views on TikTok (11-06). An earlier Sep 26 video compared 3.39 manat to "bir dönər pulu", the price of a Turkish döner wrap, and the audience it targeted was spelled out plainly: "Maşın alveri edirsənsə" — if you trade cars.
What it is
Open turbodeals.az and the homepage has one line: "32 120 active listings · AI market price for each", with 32,120 cars for sale, each with an AI-estimated market price (website, 11-06). The product has four features:
- Each listing gets a fair price, compared against comparable cars by model, year, mileage, and trim, with the percentage below market flagged;
- "Radar": save your search criteria and get pushed alerts when a matching new listing appears;
- "Barter": bring your own car to find trade-in matches; EVs are valued by battery capacity (kWh);
- Favorites.
No sign-up needed; open and use. Free users only see valuations for the first 5 listings; full valuation and instant alerts require PRO: 3.39₼ for the first month, then 8.49₼/month (about $5), with auto-renewal by card on the website, bypassing Apple. Available on web, iOS, and Android.
It's built by Dashgin Khudiyev, a Python and AI engineer, whose personal site says it plainly: "I scrape turbo.az listings, price every car against real comparables..." The Android package name is agency.yuzbir.turbodeals, and a small Baku agency called Yüz bir (Agency 101) lists TurboDeals in its portfolio, covering development, design, and marketing.
#4 on the chart, but really just a few subscriptions
From Oct 28 to Nov 6, TurboDeals stayed between #2 and #4 on Azerbaijan's iOS shopping Top Grossing chart. Sounds good, but only 104 to 107 apps make this chart each day. On the same day, the #1 app, a package tracker, had only 25 ratings, and #2 had just 4 (App Store Azerbaijan storefront). On a chart like this, a few in-app purchases a day is enough to reach the top 5 (inferred).
The other numbers are small too:
| Metric | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| iOS ratings | 3, rated 5.0; 10-28 to 11-06, none gained | App Store,11-06 |
| iOS release | 2026-09-04 | App Store |
| Android | 1K+ downloads | Google Play,11-06 |
| For comparison: turbo.az's official app | 17,936 ratings on iOS Azerbaijan; 3.22M installs on Google Play | Store page |
One more thing to factor in: the main payment path is on the web, and the iOS Top Grossing chart only sees in-app purchases. How many people pay on the web isn't visible from outside.
Where users come from: TikTok, one or two videos a week
The main channel is TikTok. @turbodeals.az posted 19 videos, with 6.6k to 134k views each, about 1.08M in total; yet it has only 1,791 followers, with a like rate of 0.3% to 1.2% (TikTok, 11-06). Views and followers this out of proportion suggest paid boosting (inferred, no direct evidence). Azerbaijan has about 10M people, so 1.08M views is already substantial reach.
The content falls into three types, all easy to copy:
- Information gap and anxiety. "Satıcı sənə heç vaxt deməyəcək bir rəqəm var" — there's a number the seller will never tell you (10-961k views); "You're asleep, the radar watches the market for you."
- Specific cars, specific prices. The Camry that's 11,039₼ cheaper, a 20k-manat Mercedes E-Class.
- Vertical need. In Sep 28 they launched a "taxi license" filter for Baku people who need a car with a taxi permit. That video got about 100k views, one of the highest on the account; in October they made two more on the same theme.
One video's caption opened with "Bakı üçün optimallaşdırılmış, hook-a uyğun bir caption:" (a hook-friendly caption optimized for Baku:), meaning the AI-generated caption was pasted along with the prompt. The content was produced in bulk.
Two supporting channels: Instagram reposts the same content; the website turbodeals.az/qiymet generates "[model] price" pages by model and year, updated daily to capture search traffic (effect unknown). No press coverage, X discussion, or creator partnerships were found.
Who it's competing with
In 2026 summer, at least three teams were building "turbo.az deal-finders" at the same time:
| Name | Form | vs TurboDeals |
|---|---|---|
| TurboDost | Telegram channel + Instagram + website | Scans turbo.az every 24 hours and pushes cars priced more than 15% below market average to Telegram for free. The website shows an average price and price distribution chart for each listing. The earliest Instagram post is from Aug 20, almost the same time as TurboDeals |
| AvtoPrime.az | Web | Runs its own car marketplace (own listings plus verified dealers), tags each listing with a 'market price' label and an import duty calculator, no subscription |
| autola.io/az | Web | Focuses on European imports, with market price scatter plots |
| Official turbo.az | Three platforms | The source of the listings. I haven't seen it assign a fair price to each listing (unverified) |
GitHub and Apify have several ready-made turbo.az scrapers. The data is open to anyone, and the valuation method is easy to copy. TurboDost is already giving its version away for free, so the paid part of TurboDeals has little to sell. The bigger risk is upstream: if turbo.az adds its own 'market price' label or blocks scrapers, this whole category disappears.
What you can take from it
- Features that big platforms in mature markets give away for free, sold in small markets nobody has covered yet. CarGurus 'Deal Rating' and the valuations on Russia's Auto.ru and Avito are built into those big platforms. TurboDeals turned it into a subscription in a country where no big platform has done it yet.
- The paywall is clear: 5 valuations are free, full valuations and instant alerts are paid. The website takes card payments itself, avoiding Apple's cut.
- Short videos showing specific cars and specific money get more views than feature explanations. Adding a niche filter that only locals understand (taxi licenses) could double the results.
- The core users are frequent buyers: people buying cars to flip or to drive as taxis. They can calculate what a thousand manat savings means, and they are the most willing to pay to see listings first.
If it were you
Verdict: This route is worth learning from, but copying TurboDeals directly isn't a good bet. It hasn't proven itself yet, there's already a free competitor in the same market, and its lifeline depends on the scraped listing site.
Good fit for: developers or small teams who know a small country's used car market, speak the local language, and can make short videos. Ideally they know dealers or taxi drivers personally.
Not a good fit for: anyone wanting to enter Azerbaijan (there are already three players, one of them free); anyone relying on SEO or organic app store traffic; anyone who can't survive the upstream site blocking the scraper and losing everything.
How to do it: Pick a different country. Look for a market where one classified site dominates car listings and no one has added valuations yet. Georgia's myauto.ge and Uzbekistan's OLX are places to start (verify whether big local sites already have valuations; large sites like Kazakhstan's Kolesa may have already built them). Start with the lightest version: a free Telegram channel pushing cars more than 15% below average. Once people are hooked, make instant alerts, custom filters, and full valuations paid.
How to get users: TikTok and Instagram, two or three posts a week, each showing how much a specific car was underpriced. Find a local need that can support a dedicated filter.
When to move: As early as possible. The idea is easy to start and visible. Azerbaijan saw three clones appear in one summer, and other countries will follow soon.
Signs you've got it wrong: After three months, the free channel has fewer than a few thousand followers, or paid conversion is almost zero. Or the listing site starts blocking scrapers or adds its own market price labels. Any one of these means the business won't hold.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Turbo.az official iOS 2016-12 iOS AZ rating 17,936; Play 3.22M installs Source of the listings. Only sorts and filters information; I didn't find it assigning fair prices to each listing. TurboDeals piggybacks on it for valuation and deal-finding. TurboDost Other 2026-08 (earliest Instagram post 08-20) Unknown Free Telegram channel pushing listings more than 15% below average, delayed by 5 minutes. No custom radar or barter matching, but free AvtoPrime.az Web 2026 Unknown Runs its own car marketplace (own listings plus verified dealers), with a market price label and import duty calculator on each listing, no subscription autola.io/az Web Not verified Unknown Mainly European import listings, with a market price scatter plot turbo.az scrapers (GitHub / Apify) Open source Years Small Only data tools, not consumer-facing; shows the data barrier is very low CarGurus Deal Rating / Auto.ru / Kolesa.kz valuations Other Years Big Similar features big platforms give away free in mature markets. TurboDeals brought it to Azerbaijan, where no big platform has done it. - Where users come from
- Confirmed TikTok short videos from its own account: @turbodeals.az posted 19 videos, 6.6k–134k views each, about 1.08M views total, with only 1,791 followers. One caption is an AI-generated caption pasted as-is.
- Inferred Paid TikTok boosting: Views are badly out of proportion to followers and likes (0.3%–1.2%). The agency's business includes paid ads. The API shows is_ads=False, but there is no direct evidence.
- Confirmed Instagram: @turbodeals.az posts the same content as on TikTok
- Confirmed Agency's in-house marketing: package name agency.yuzbir.turbodeals. The Yüz bir / Agency 101 website lists TurboDeals as a project (development, design, and marketing all handled).
- Confirmed Programmatic SEO: turbodeals.az/qiymet generates price pages by model and year, updated daily
- Inferred Media / X / influencers: None found; x-radar shows zero posts in 90 days
TurboDeals: Sərfəli maşınlar (ios_6802421907) research report
Research date 2026-11-06. App Store id6802421907, developer Dashgin Khudiyev (behind it is the small Baku agency Yüz bir / Agency 101).
One line
An Azerbaijani used car deal-finder. It scrapes listings on turbo.az, the country's largest car site (2026-11-06 listings on the homepage at 32,120), estimates a market price for each car from comparable listings, shows how much below market it is, and adds a 'radar' for new listings plus barter matching. PRO is a monthly subscription: ₼3.39 for the first month on the website, then ₼8.49/month.
Conclusion first
It hasn't really taken off yet. The data card's signal 'No. 4 Top Grossing in Azerbaijan Shopping' mostly reflects how low the bar for that chart is:
- Only 104–107 apps chart in Azerbaijan's iOS Shopping Top Grossing each day (appstore library chart_rank, 2026-10-28 to 11-06). On the same day, the #1 app 'Parcel & Post' has only 25 ratings, and #2 'Package Tracker' has only 4 (appstore library app_profile). On this chart, a few in-app subscriptions a day can get you into the top 5.
- TurboDeals' own iOS rating has stayed at 3 ratings, ranging from 10-28 to 11-06, with 0 new in 7 days. The Google Play version (agency.yuzbir.turbodeals) shows 1K+ downloads (Play page, 2026-11-06).
- The website sells subscriptions through its own card payments, bypassing Apple, so the iOS grossing chart only reflects in-app purchases. Web payments are invisible.
What's really worth studying is the playbook: a small country and minority language, piggybacking on a monopoly listing site to offer valuations, deal-finding, and alerts, run by one senior engineer plus a small agency with marketing skills, using TikTok short videos to drive volume. Its differentiator (AI valuation on every listing, behind a paywall) isn't yet proof it's working. A free competitor (TurboDost) already exists.
Data
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| iOS release | 2026-09-04; v1.1.2 released 2026-09-12 | iTunes lookup |
| iOS ratings | 3 ratings, 5.0 stars; 10-28 to 11-06 zero growth | iTunes lookup / appstore library |
| AZ Shopping Top Grossing | 10-28 to 10-31 at #4,11-01 to 11-02 at #2,11-03 at #3,11-04 to 11-06 at #4 | appstore library, chart_rank |
| AZ Shopping Top Free | On and off, ranked #135–188 | Same as above |
| TR Shopping Top Grossing | 10-28 to 11-01 at #171–193, then dropped off | Same as above (likely Azerbaijani users with a Turkish Apple ID, unverified) |
| Android | 1K+ downloads, 2026-09-11 updates | Google Play page |
| Web | 32,120 active listings; free users see AI valuations for only the first 5 | turbodeals.az |
| TikTok @turbodeals.az | 1,791 followers, 19 videos, 13,392 total likes; 19 videos total about 1.08M views, 6.6k–134k each | TikHub,2026-11-06 |
For comparison: turbo.az's official app has 17,936 ratings on AZ iOS (appstore library), and 3.22M installs with 50,427 ratings on Google Play (googleplay library).
Timeline
- 2026-08-14/15: TikTok posts "YENİDİR! Turbo Deals artıq istifadədədir!" (Just launched, already usable!), so the web version went live in mid-August.
- 2026-08-17 to 08-24: Barter feature and videos with the theme "good cars get snapped up in 10 minutes."
- 2026-09-04: iOS launch; same day TikTok posts "Bazarı əvvəlcə yoxlayın" (Check the market first), 110k views.
- 2026-09-14: TikTok posts "TurboDeals artıq App Store-dadır!" (Now on the App Store!).
- 2026-09-28: "Taxi licence" filter feature video, about 100k views, one of the account's highest-view clips.
- 2026-10: keeps going at 1–2 posts a week; 10-28 post: "This Camry is 11,039₼ below market, and 2,444 cars like it are listed today."
Competitors
| Name | Where | When | Scale | vs TurboDeals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turbo.az official | iOS / Android / web | iOS 2016-12 | iOS AZ rating 17,936; Play 3.22M installs | the car listings themselves, which TurboDeals piggybacks on. The official site only sorts and filters listings. We found no sign in search that it attaches a fair price to each listing (unverified). |
| TurboDost | Telegram channel + Instagram + website turbodost.com | Earliest sighting on Instagram posts 2026-08-20 (almost the same time as TurboDeals) | Follower count not retrieved | Also scans turbo.az every 24 minutes and pushes free alerts to a Telegram channel for cars priced ≥15% below market average. The channel name carries "+5 dəqiqə" (meaning a 5-minute delay, possibly a placeholder for a paid instant tier). The Instagram profile is labeled "AI-generated profile." The features nearly overlap and it's free, a direct threat to TurboDeals' paid model. |
| AvtoPrime.az | Web | 2026 (built on base44) | Unknown | Builds its own listings-sorting site (own inventory plus verified dealers), with a "Bazar qiyməti" (market price) tag and credibility score on each listing, plus an import duty calculator. Platform model, not subscription. |
| autola.io/az | Web | Not verified | Unknown | Mainly European import listings, with market-price scatter charts, aimed at people importing cars from Europe. |
| auto.az | Web | Already existed | Small | Plain classifieds site, no valuation. |
| turbo.az scrapers on GitHub / Apify | Open source / other | Years | Small | shahsuvarli/turbo.az, jamilr/turboaz-scraper, Apify "Turbo.az Scraper", etc. Shows the data barrier is very low; anyone can scrape it. |
| CarGurus Deal Rating, Auto.ru / Avito valuations, Kolesa.kz | Other markets | Years | Big | This is standard in mature markets and usually comes free from the big platforms. TurboDeals brought it to a market where no major platform had done it yet. |
Takeaway: TurboDeals is not the only one doing "turbo.az deal-finding." TurboDost, AvtoPrime and TurboDeals all appeared around the same time in summer 2026. That means the idea is obvious and the barrier is low (scraper plus simple comparable-based pricing, quickly built with AI tools).
Growth channels
- Its own TikTok shorts (confirmed). 19 videos total about 1.08M views, but only 1,791 followers and a like rate of just 0.3%–1.2%. Views are badly out of proportion to followers and engagement, which looks like the videos were boosted with TikTok Promote or ads. Not verified: TikHub returns is_ads as False, but Promote boosts may not show up in that field. Azerbaijan has only about 10M people, so 1.08M views is already solid reach. Content falls into three types: anxiety and information gaps ("the number sellers won't tell you," "good cars gone in 10 minutes"); specific model examples (Camry 11,039₼ cheaper, an E-Class 23,000₼ off); and vertical must-haves like the "taxi licence" filter for Baku taxi drivers. One caption opens with "Bakı üçün optimallaşdırılmış, hook-a uyğun bir caption:" (A hook-friendly caption optimized for Baku:), meaning AI-generated copy was pasted in as-is. The content is clearly mass-produced with AI.
- Instagram @turbodeals.az (account confirmed to exist). Posts the same content as TikTok, e.g. "20.000 ₼ for an E-Class?"
- Marketing done by an agency (confirmed). Android package name agency.yuzbir.turbodeals. The website of Yüz bir / Agency 101 lists TurboDeals as one of its own portfolio pieces (Development / Design / Marketing, all three). The agency's services include Meta / Google paid ads and social media management.
- Programmatic SEO (pages confirmed to exist, effect unknown). turbodeals.az/qiymet generates Azerbaijan car price pages by model and year, updated daily, targeting searches like "<model> qiymət."
- No sign-up plus a first-month discount to convert. Usable on open without registration. Free users see AI valuations for only the first 5 listings; first month 3.39₼ (regular price 8.49₼). Payments are collected mainly through the web, avoiding Apple's commission.
- No media coverage, no discussion on X (x-radar found zero posts in 90 days), and no influencer partnerships found.
Why it has the traction it does
- Real demand, big information asymmetry. turbo.az has over 30k listings for sale, and buyers struggle to tell whether a car is overpriced. High-frequency buyers like dealers and taxi drivers will pay for "finding deals" and "instant alerts" (the TikTok copy targets "maşın alveri edirsənsə," i.e. "if you're shopping for a car").
- Free data. All listings are scraped from turbo.az, so cold-start cost is close to zero.
- Short-form TikTok is cheap and effective in a small market. About 1.08M views reached a country of ten million people, which is where the users come from.
- Low chart barriers amplify the signal. On iOS, just a few subscriptions a day is enough to reach the top 5 of the AZ Shopping Top Grossing chart, so "#4" is not evidence of significant paying users.
Differentiation
Its differences from rivals: every listing gets an AI fair price and a "how much below market" figure, plus conditional subscription radar alerts and trade-in matching (EVs valued by battery kWh), all packaged as a subscription across web, iOS and Android. Compared with the official turbo.az, it adds valuation and deal-finding; compared with TurboDost, it is more complete (customizable radar and trade-ins), but TurboDost is free, and the two appeared almost simultaneously. So differentiation is not the main reason it charts; the main reasons are the low chart barrier plus TikTok push. Its moat is thin: the data is scraped from someone else, the valuation method is easy to copy, and the official turbo.az could kill its core selling point by adding a "market price" tag, or simply block its scraper.
What others can borrow
- The model of "piggybacking on a monopoly classifieds site to offer valuation and deal-finding" can be carried to other small countries: Georgia's myauto.ge, Kazakhstan's Kolesa, Uzbekistan's OLX, etc., with local-language content plus TikTok push.
- The paywall is clear: charge for instant alerts and full valuations, give away the first 5 listings free. Collecting cards on the web itself sidesteps Apple's commission.
- Short videos showing specific examples ("this car is X₼ cheaper") plus vertical must-have features (the taxi licence filter) earn more views than describing features.
- Use programmatic price pages for SEO.
Still unclear
- Actual paying users, and the split between web and app: not visible. Revenue behind iOS Top Grossing #4 is probably only single-digit daily subscriptions (estimate).
- How much of the TikTok views were paid boosts; whether it runs Meta ads (Meta Ad Library shows no match for this company, and our library only tracks products on the list).
- Which of TurboDost and TurboDeals came first, and TurboDost's scale.
- turbo.az's stance on it scraping their data, and the legal risk.
- Where the small revenue on the Turkish store chart comes from.
Sources
- App Store lookup:itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=6802421907&country=az
- Website: turbodeals.az/, turbodeals.az/qiymet
- Google Play:play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=agency.yuzbir.turbodea…
- Developer: www.dashgin.com/ (project description reads "I scrape turbo.az listings, price every car against real comparables...")
- Agency: yuzbir.agency/
- TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@turbodeals.az (data retrieved via TikHub, 2026-11-06)
- Instagram:www.instagram.com/turbodeals.az/
- Competitors: turbodost.com/en, t.me/turbodost, www.instagram.com/p/De8aaLliBPI/, avtoprime.az/, autola.io/az/, github.com/shahsuvarli/turbo.az
- Internal databases: appstore (app_profile, chart_rank, 2026-10-28 to 11-06), googleplay (app_profile, org.turboaz.android)