Two days after launch, with 0 ratings, it charted #6 in the Russia Shopping top grossing chart: the price-comparison app Искли hasn't actually taken off
What it is A Russian price-comparison app: enter a product name and it compares prices and delivery times across Ozon, Wildberries, Yandex Market and several grocery delivery services, quoting based on your delivery address, with price-drop alerts.
Why it went viral It didn't really: the Russian App Store payment channel is nearly broken, so a #1 spot on the Shopping top grossing chart is just a small tool with 0 ratings, and a few 99-ruble subscriptions are enough to rank in the top 10. No signs of real user growth turned up anywhere online.
DHow you could follow it Don't copy general price comparison; Cheaper and YoloPrice already occupy that. The only open angle is grocery delivery price comparison: first use a Telegram bot to compare a basket's total price and delivery time across several services by address, and take money through affiliate commissions and web payments instead of App Store subscriptions.
- Data (updated daily) · First released 2026-11-03 · Russia rating 1 · 11-08 charted in 1 stores
iOS · best category chart rank · by store Data 2026-11-05 → 2026-11-08 (4 days, 4 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that dayiOS · ratings · Russia Data 2026-11-05 → 2026-11-08 (4 days, 4 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.
A Russian price-comparison app whose domain was registered only 5 weeks earlier climbed into the top 10 of the App Store Russia Shopping top grossing chart on its third day, with zero ratings. It looks like a miracle; up close, it's something else: since 2022, the Russian App Store has barely been able to collect payments, so this chart is so thin that a few 99-ruble subscriptions can push an app into it. Below: what it is, why the ranking doesn't count, how crowded the price-comparison niche is in Russia, and the one angle in it that's still open.
A #6 ranking with 0 ratings
On Nov 3 2026, an app called Искли (roughly "find it") launched on the Russian App Store. The developer account is CICELY ETHYL, with only this app under it. Two days later, on Nov 5, it appeared at #6 on the Russia Shopping top grossing chart; on Nov 6 it was #8. Throughout this period its rating count stayed at 0, and it never entered the overall or free charts.
At the same time, the team was shipping updates nonstop: 11-03 at launch, 11-05 is already 0.3.7; the release notes read "photo search for lookalikes is faster and more accurate, you can draw a box around the product you want on a photo," "new filters and search hints," "short onboarding on each screen."
A brand-new app with no ratings reaching the top 10 in two days, the first reaction is "there must be a large base of older users behind it." But this one's history is only 5 weeks: the domain iskli.ru was registered at REG.RU only 2026-09-28 (WHOIS), and the earliest post on the Instagram account @iskli.ru is from 10-23. There were no older users to transfer.
What it does
In one sentence: enter a product name and compare prices, stock, and delivery times across the three big platforms, Ozon, Wildberries, and Yandex Market.
Several features in the App Store description go further than an ordinary price-comparison tool:
- Quotes based on your address. "Enter your delivery address and Искли shows the prices and times that actually apply to you: when it arrives, whether it's in stock, and how much pickup-point or doorstep delivery costs."
- Grocery delivery is also compared. A separate "Продукты с доставкой" section compares Yandex Lavka, Yandex Eda, Delivery Club, Kuper, Samokat, and Ozon Fresh.
- Price-drop alerts: favorite an item and it periodically checks the price for your address; it also tells you when another platform is cheaper.
- Photo lookalike search, 6 theme sets with dark mode, and multiple delivery addresses.
It doesn't sell anything itself; tapping "Перейти" takes you to the corresponding platform to order. On iOS there is an in-app purchase, "Искли — подписка," priced at 99 rubles; the public pages don't say what the subscription unlocks or whether it takes affiliate commissions from the platforms (unverified). The terms of service only mention "the operator of Искли," with no company name.
Platform coverage is broad: the iskli.ru web homepage's first button is "Open in Telegram" (@iskli_bot, with automatic login inside Telegram), followed side by side by Google Play, the App Store, and a 111 MB installer "downloaded directly, bypassing the stores," one account across four platforms. The Google Play version's developer is a different name, T.Martino Holding, and shows 11-06+ downloads with 1.
Why that ranking doesn't count
Look at the same chart (Russia Shopping top grossing, 11-06):
- #1 is "Цена покупки," a 99-ruble discount calculator with 0 ratings. The same developer (Makoto Fukuoka) has two other small tools with 0 ratings each, ranking #2 and #3 on the Shopping paid chart.
- A Stocard (loyalty card wallet) clone ranked #3 with 48 ratings, sat around #75 from 10-28 to 10-30, then suddenly jumped to #1 at 10-31, and has since bounced between #3 and #11.
- Of the top 20 spots, 8 have fewer than 100 ratings. Ozon and Wildberries aren't on the Top Grossing chart at all (they don't sell in-app purchases), only on Top Free. Earlier claims that Искли "ranks alongside Wildberries and AliExpress" are wrong: those are two different charts.
The reason is payments. Since 2026, MTS, Beeline, MegaFon and T2 have stopped selling Apple ID top-ups by phone balance, as the Digital Development Ministry required (aifory.pro, "How to pay on the App Store in 2026"). Russian users who want to spend on the App Store have to buy gift cards or go through middlemen. With that few people paying, the bar for the top 10 of a category grossing chart is a handful of subscriptions.
So the #6 and #8 spots most likely mean someone bought a few 99-ruble subscriptions, possibly the team itself or testers (inference). That doesn't show real users growing. Other channels back this up: X had 0 mentions in the last 30 days, TikTok searches for "искли" return only unrelated content, and vc.ru, Habr, Pikabu and the media haven't covered it.
Who got there first
Russia has no shortage of price comparison apps, and the earlier ones are already live on every platform:
| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | Compared to Искли |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheaper(Сравни цены) | iOS / Android / RuStore / web | iOS 2023-03 | iOS Russia store: 245 ratings; Play: 100k+ downloads | Covers many online stores including Ozon, WB, Avito and Маркет, plus insurance price comparison; no grocery comparison |
| YoloPrice | iOS / Android / RuStore / web | iOS 2024-07 | iOS Russia store: 46 ratings; Play: 10k+ downloads | Logs into your own Ozon, WB and Маркет accounts and shows personal discount prices and address-based prices, across 300+ stores. Address-based pricing was theirs first, and they go deeper on it. The founder writes dev diaries on vc.ru, Habr and Pikabu |
| Плейсвау | Android / RuStore | 2025–2026 | 34 reviews on RuStore | Nearly identical features, no iOS app |
| OMyPrice, Прошопер, Сравнятор | iOS | 2017–2023 | Rating 3–159 | First-generation tools, mostly no longer updated |
| Шопер Бот, @OzMonPrice_Bot, etc. | Telegram | From ¥2021 | Many | You paste a link and track one product's price. No cross-platform search |
| Price tags inside Yandex search results | Big-company features | 2025 | All Yandex users | Labels results "ОК-цена" / "pricier than market" in search. Yandex Маркет itself started as a price comparison service |
Every feature Искли has, apart from the grocery tab, someone else has already built.
The only open angle: grocery price comparison for instant delivery
Cheaper, YoloPrice and Плейсвау haven't touched groceries. Russian instant delivery is very competitive: Лавка, Самокат, Купер, Деливери and Ozon fresh change prices and delivery times for the same items every day, and none of them help users compare across services unprompted. Comparing "which service is cheapest and fastest for this order at my address" is a real gap.
To be clear, Искли's current ranking has nothing to do with this angle. Whether anyone uses it, or whether those users came for groceries, is invisible from the outside. Whether there's demand for this niche hasn't been proven.
Two more things to note. First, using a web app plus a Telegram bot as a single entry point, then adding iOS, Android and direct APK downloads, is the approach for markets where Google Play is unreliable. Ozon's full app was pulled from Google Play in 2026-08-14 (CNews 2026-08-15), and direct APK installs are no longer unusual in Russia. Second, in a small market where payment channels are cut off, a category grossing chart is a placement you can buy with a few subscriptions. That's how a developer with a batch of 99-ruble utility apps got to the top of the Shopping Top Paid and Top Grossing charts.
If it were you
Verdict: D. Искли hasn't taken off. Its only "growth signal" is a sparse chart that a few subscriptions can get you onto. Price comparison in Russia already has two competitors that have been live for 1–3 years on every platform, and very few iOS users can pay. I wouldn't copy it.
Who it suits: a small team based in Russia that already builds Telegram bots and has experience scraping instant-delivery price data, and wants to test grocery price comparison as a standalone product.
Who it doesn't suit: anyone building a general price comparison app (Cheaper and YoloPrice are already there); anyone who expects to earn from subscriptions on the Russian App Store (that route is mostly closed); anyone outside the Russian-speaking market (this depends on local platforms and local payments).
How to build it: if you do try it, don't build something all-encompassing. Stick to groceries: input a shopping list and show the total and delivery time at a few services (Лавка, Самокат, Купер) for your address. Start with a Telegram bot and skip the App Store for now. Look for revenue from platform referral fees and RuStore or web payments, not App Store subscriptions.
How to get users: Telegram channels and local lifestyle bloggers, with content like "same basket, five stores, how much is the difference" screenshots. Writing dev diaries on vc.ru and Habr is what YoloPrice did, and it helps with cold start.
When to move: no rush. The gap is in grocery comparison, not in this app, and there's no window that's about to close.
What would show I got it wrong: if Искли gathers several hundred ratings within a month or two, or holds a steady spot in the top 100 of the Russian Top Free chart, it has found real users (probably in the grocery tab), and the niche is worth a serious look. The opposite case: if Yandex builds cross-platform comparison straight into Лавка or search, or if YoloPrice or Cheaper adds groceries first, the one open gap closes.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Cheaper(Сравни цены) iOS 2023-03 iOS Russia store: 245 ratings; Play: 100k+ downloads Covers more online stores and has insurance comparison; no grocery delivery comparison YoloPrice iOS 2024-07 iOS Russia store: 46 ratings; Play: 10k+ downloads; founder writes dev diaries on vc.ru, Habr and Pikabu Logs into users' own platform accounts, shows personal discount prices and address-based prices, across 300+ stores. Address-based pricing was theirs first Плейсвау Android 2025–2026 34 reviews on RuStore Nearly identical features, no iOS app OMyPrice / Прошопер / Сравнятор iOS 2017–2023 Rated 3–159, mostly no longer updated First-generation comparison tool; not address-based, no grocery comparison Шопер Бот, OzMonPrice_Bot, etc. Other From ¥2021 Telegram bot, scale unknown Tracks one product's price only, no cross-platform search Yandex search price hints / Yandex Маркет Big-company features 2025 All Yandex users Puts price tags on search results; doesn't compare across Ozon and WB - Where users come from
- Verified cross-platform funnel (web, Telegram bot, Play, App Store, direct APK): the iskli.ru homepage offers four entry points, all on one account; the direct APK lines up with Ozon getting pulled from Google Play 2026-08
- Confirmed Instagram content: @iskli.ru started posting on 10-23, with the tagline "Cheaper? We'll find it!" and links to platform products
- Inference Category placement from a sparse grossing chart: the #1 spot on the Russian Shopping Top Grossing chart is an app with 0 ratings. The Stocard knockoff jumped from #75 to #1 in one day. Искли has 0 ratings and reached #6
- Inference Paid acquisition / influencers / media: none found on X, TikTok or in the media
Искли (iOS id6825909443) research report
Research date 2026-11-06. Data sources: appstore library (agent-im server, 2026-10-28 to 11-06), googleplay library, Apple lookup API, App Store / Google Play / iskli.ru pages, .ru WHOIS, Jina web search, x-radar, TikHub.
Bottom line
It hasn't actually taken off yet. The data card says "2 days after launch, 0 rating, it hit #8 on Russia's Shopping Top Grossing chart", and that's true, but that chart is nearly empty in Russia: #1 on it is itself a 0-rated 99-ruble utility, and another 48-rated app jumped from #75 to #1 in a single day. 2022 years on, paying on the Russian App Store is hard (carrier top-ups for Apple IDs have also been shut off), and a few 99-ruble subscriptions are enough to make the top 10. Искли is a Russian price-comparison project whose domain was registered only 5 weeks ago. The execution is thorough (web, Telegram, iOS, Android, and APK all launched at once), but so far there's no evidence of real users growing.
1. What it is
- A Russian price comparison app: enter a product name and compare prices, stock and delivery times across Ozon, Wildberries and Яндекс Маркет. There's also a "Продукты с доставкой" (grocery delivery) section comparing Яндекс Лавка, Яндекс Еда, Деливери, Купер, Самокат and Ozon fresh. Prices are shown for the delivery address you enter. Features include wishlists with price-drop alerts and photo search for matching items, with 6 themes (App Store listing, Apple lookup 2026-11-06).
- It doesn't sell anything itself. Tapping "Перейти" sends you to the platform to order. It likely earns platform CPA or referral fees (unverified).
- iOS: developer CICELY ETHYL (this is their only app), bundle
ru.iskli.ios, first released 2026-11-03, updated to 0.3.7 on 11-05, Russian only, 49 MB, in-app purchase "Искли — подписка 99,00₽", age rating 18+ (App Store page). - Other platforms: iskli.ru web app (login via Telegram, Yandex ID or username), Telegram bot @iskli_bot, Google Play
ru.iskli.app(developer T.Martino Holding, 1+ downloads), and a direct APK from the website (Iskli-0.3.7-34.apk, 111 MB). The website says "one account works across Telegram, iOS, Android and web." - The project is very new: the iskli.ru domain was registered 2026-09-28 at REG.RU (WHOIS). The Instagram account @iskli.ru has posts only from 2026-10-23 (Jina search). So the data card's claim of an "existing web/Telegram user base" doesn't hold up: the whole project is about 5 weeks old.
2. How far it has actually gone on the data
| Date | Store | Charts | Rank | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-05 | ru | Shopping Top Grossing chart (genre 6024) | 6 | 0 |
| 2026-11-06 | ru | Shopping top grossing chart | 8 | 0 |
(appstore library chart_rank / app_day; only this one store and this one chart; it never made the overall or Top Free charts)
How low the bar is on this chart (appstore library, ru, Shopping Top Grossing, 2026-11-06):
- #1 is "Цена покупки" (developer Makoto Fukuoka, launched 2026-09-02, 0 ratings, a 99-ruble discount calculator). The same developer has two more apps with 0 ratings, ranked #2 and #3 on the Shopping Top Paid chart.
- A Stocard clone (Ivan Lapshev, 48 rating) at #3, 10-28 to 10-30 sat at 75–76, then 10-31 suddenly jumped to #1, and since then it has bounced between 3 and 11.
- Of the top 20, 8 have ratings under 100. Ozon, Wildberries and Yandex Market are absent from the grossing chart (no in-app purchases); they only show up on the free chart.
- Context: since 2026, MTS, Beeline, MegaFon and T2 have shut down Apple ID top-ups for phone credit, as the digital development ministry requires (aifory.pro, "How to pay for App Store purchases in 2026"). Russian users either buy gift cards or go through middlemen, so the category grossing chart is extremely thin.
Inference: the #6 and #8 spots probably come from a handful of 99₽ subscriptions, likely bought by the team or test users. That doesn't show paying users growing. The data card's "on the same chart as Wildberries and AliExpress" is also wrong: those are on the free chart, while Iskli is on grossing. Appfigures' Russian Shopping page also puts Iskli at #8, next to 0-rated apps like Makoto Fukuoka's Discount Stack.
Other channels: Google Play 1+ installs (Play page 2026-11-06); not in the googleplay library. 0 posts on X (x-radar, last 30 days). TikTok search for "искли" returns only unrelated content (TikHub). Found no coverage on media, vc.ru, Pikabu or Habr.
3. Competitors
| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from Iskli |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheaper(Сравни цены,INDEKS OOO) | iOS / Android / RuStore / web | iOS 2023-03 | iOS Russia store, 245 rating; Play 100k+ installs, 807 reviews | Covers Ozon, WB, Avito, Yandex Market and many other shops, plus insurance price comparison; no grocery delivery price comparison |
| YoloPrice(Roman Postnikov) | iOS / Android / RuStore / web | iOS 2024-07 | iOS Russia store, 46 rating; Play 10k+ installs, 176 reviews; the founder has written development diaries on vc.ru, Habr and Pikabu | Logs into your own Ozon, WB and Market accounts and shows your personal discounted price and delivery-address price, covers 300+ stores, and can watch your cart. "Pricing by address" is something Iskli copied from it; YoloPrice goes deeper |
| Плейсвау(PlaceWow) | Android / RuStore | 2025–2026 | RuStore 34 reviews; Android only | One search across the big marketplaces plus price-drop alerts, basically the same as Iskli; no iOS |
| OMyPrice, Прошопер, Сравнятор | iOS | 2017–2023 | Rating 3–159, barely updated anymore | An older-generation price comparison tool |
| Shoper Bot, @OzMonPrice_Bot, ozon_wb_marketplace_bot and others | Telegram | From ¥2021 | Lots, scale unknown | Send a link to track a price; no cross-platform search. Iskli also has a Telegram entry point, so it combines their approach |
| Price hints in Yandex search results ("OK price / Above market") | Big-company features | 2025 | All Yandex users | Tags prices inside search results; Yandex Market itself started out as a price comparison service |
Bottom line: the niche is crowded, and at least two players (Cheaper, YoloPrice) launched 1–3 years earlier and already run on every platform.
4. Growth tactics (what I found)
- Cross-promotion across its own platforms (confirmed): the website links to Google Play, the App Store, an APK and Telegram, all using one account. The direct APK download can be seen as a response to Ozon's entire app lineup being pulled from Google Play in 2026-08-14 (CNews 2026-08-15), but there's no evidence it actually brought in users.
- Instagram (confirmed to exist, effect unknown): @iskli.ru, tagline "Дешевле? Найдем!" (Cheaper? We'll find it!), posting since 10-23, with product links from Yandex Market and other platforms in the posts (summary from Jina search results).
- Grossing chart position (inferred): on a chart this thin, a few subscriptions can push it into the top 10 and get it a spot in the Shopping category. No evidence it was done on purpose.
- Paid ads, influencers, press and SEO: none found. The ad library only tracks products on the list, so not finding anything doesn't mean nothing was run.
5. Differentiation
- Possible differentiators: (1) add grocery quick-delivery price comparison (Lavka, Samokat, Kuper, Delivery Club, Ozon Fresh), which Cheaper, YoloPrice and Pleasewave haven't done yet; (2) show address-based prices and delivery times; (3) photo search for identical items; (4) one account across Telegram, web, iOS and Android.
- Is this why it took off? No, because it hasn't taken off. The only signal in the data is its rank on a sparse chart, which has nothing to do with the product. The grocery price comparison angle is worth watching: Russian quick-delivery competition is fierce, prices for the same item across services change daily, and the big platforms don't help users compare.
6. What to borrow
- In small countries and small categories, a grossing chart spot can cost just a few subscriptions: Russia's App Store payment path is nearly cut off, and half of the top 10 in Shopping grossing are 0-rated apps. When doing research, strip out this kind of sparse-chart ranking from the signal. As a product builder, you can also use it to buy visibility (Makoto Fukuoka holds the top of the Shopping paid and grossing charts with a batch of 99₽ utilities, which is exactly this play).
- Extending a price comparison product into the quick-delivery vertical, combined with address-based pricing, is an angle nobody has claimed yet.
- Use a Telegram bot as the single login and first entry point, then roll out to iOS, Android and APK. That works well in markets where Google Play is unreliable.
7. Still unclear
- Who bought those 99₽ subscriptions and how many (Apple doesn't disclose this); whether the ranking came from real users, team testing or deliberate boosting, can't be told apart.
- What the relationship is between the iOS developer CICELY ETHYL, the Google Play developer T.Martino Holding (who also has a vehicle-records utility, Milemark), and this team: whether it's a proxy listing, borrowed accounts or the same people, is unverified.
- What features the subscription unlocks, and whether there's referral commission income: not verified.
- Why the 18+ age rating is so high is unverified (maybe alcohol products in grocery, maybe a survey box ticked at random).