The same diapers: Día sells them for 15,200, Jumbo for 30,800. An Argentine indie developer's supermarket price-comparison app, paid-acquisition driven.

Yapa is a supermarket price-comparison app built by an independent developer in Buenos Aires. Plenty of people in Argentina already build supermarket price comparisons, but Yapa changed the algorithm: it doesn't compare shelf price tags, it compares what you actually pay at checkout with your own bank cards and wallets. After launching in August, it had only about 5 thousand installs in its first two months. In October the founder set up ad attribution and started running ads on Facebook and Instagram, and 17 days later installs had added 10k. It has earned nothing to date, so this growth was bought entirely by the founder. The idea could be moved to other countries, but first you need to work out where the money comes from.

A diaper ad

Thursday, Nov 5, 2026: an ad started running on Facebook and Instagram in Argentina:

"Same product, different price. Huggies size G, 40-pack diapers, cost $15.200 at Día and $30.800 at Jumbo and Disco. These are shelf prices from Thursday, Nov 5..."

The page running the ad is called "Yapa: Precios de Supermercado." Meta's ad library (Argentina) shows about 5 live ads from it, starting on dates from 10-31 to 11-05, each with several image versions (11-06). The creative runs on real price gaps from that day: which product, which two stores, how much the difference is, all written in the ad. Shoppers can check it at the store themselves, and the numbers change the next day.

The app is made by David. His Instagram bio says: "I'm David, an indie developer, and Yapa is mine. I built it to work out a bill that's gotten too complicated: supermarket promotions, your bank, your wallet, your loyalty card all change the final price and where you should shop." It's operated under his own name as a monotributista (Argentina's single-person tax registration).

What it calculates: not the sticker price, what you actually pay at checkout

In Argentina, most supermarket promos come from banks and wallets, not the supermarkets: "pay with this bank's card on Wednesday at Coto for 25% off, capped at X per month" or "get back X at Carrefour with MODO on Thursday." Local media runs a "Cuenta DNI / MODO supermarket deals this month" roundup every month. So in Argentina, where you shop and how you pay are really one decision.

Yapa calculates both together. Users tick which banks (Galicia, Santander, Nación, BBVA, Macro...), wallets (Mercado Pago, MODO, Cuenta DNI, Naranja X, Ualá...) and memberships they have, without entering card numbers. Then they build a shopping list, or scan barcodes in store. Yapa combines the public prices from 7 chains (Carrefour, Coto, DIA, Jumbo, Disco, Vea, ChangoMás) with the discounts that apply to you that day, and gives three options:

• 1 stores: one order, one store, lowest total price;
• 2 stores: hit two and get most of the deals without spending an afternoon shopping;
• Cheapest per item: each product from whichever store has it lowest.

The store page says the same basket can differ by up to 25% depending on where and how you pay. The most prominent line on the site is "Honestidad antes que marketing" (honesty before marketing): every price is labeled with its source and the date it was checked, and you can flag a wrong in-store price with one tap. It also makes four promises: free, no ads, no sign-up, never asks for a card number.

Yapa didn't start as an app. It began as a Telegram bot, @yapa_arg_bot, where the free tier allowed 20 price comparisons a day and Pro was a subscription paid in Telegram Stars; the terms were last updated in February 2025. The iOS and Android apps launched in August 2026, and a web version at app.yapa.ar was added later, with the reason "people asked for a Yapa they could use on a computer."

How much it has grown recently

(Total installs are from the Google Play listing; daily increments are estimates from the third-party tool AppstoreSpy.)

It has charted in only one place: the Argentina Google Play Shopping free chart, where it sat between #10-29 and #11-06 from 20 to 24. It has no ratings yet on Play. The Argentina iOS store has 14 ratings averaging 4.93, and its best Shopping free-chart position was #26. No in-app purchases, no ads. 11-01 has shipped 1.1.0 versions.

Why October 20: the founder started paying for ads

The reason for this jump is written in Yapa's own privacy policy. The update log at the bottom reads:

• Oct 5: "Starting with Android 1.0.1, the app includes Meta's SDK to tell whether an install came from our ads on Facebook / Instagram, to measure those campaigns, and to help Meta decide whom to show the ads to."
• Oct 17: iPhone 1.0.2 also added Meta attribution (requiring the user's permission in the system prompt); the next day the prompt was moved higher up.
• Nov 4: added reading the "campaign parameters from the link the app was first opened with" and Google Play install referrers.

The Android SDK went in at 10-05, iOS at 10-17, and the 10-20 curve turned up, so the timing lines up. The ads currently running can also be seen in the ad library. I couldn't find what creative ran between 10-20 and 10-30, so "the 10-20 jump came from the first batch of ads" is an inference, though a strong one.

The most telling part is the before and after of paid acquisition: in the first two months after launch it got only a few dozen organic installs a day; after ads started, 17 days brought double what those two months did. The differentiated angle is good, but it didn't ignite on its own. Ads are the throttle; the differentiation gives the ads something to say.

Where users come from

Meta ads, the main driver. Covered above. The copy falls into two groups: one explains the features ("Where's cheapest to shop today? Compare supermarket prices, add your bank discounts, see where your basket costs least. Download Yapa free."), and the other posts the day's real price gap, like the diaper ad at the top.

The official Instagram account @yapa.ar. 13K followers, 37 posts, content in the founder's voice plus daily price gaps, like "Same list: Día $64.333, Jumbo $84.007." But engagement is low: one Reel from 10-11 got only 29 likes. 13K followers with that engagement looks more like follows picked up from ads than any post going viral (inference). A small line at the bottom of posts reads: "Images may contain elements generated or edited digitally."

"Similar apps" in the store. In the Argentina App Store, Yapa shows up in the "You might also like" section of supermarket apps like Jumbo, Vea and Disco. The organic installs of a few dozen a day before paid ads most likely came from here and from store search.

Early Telegram users. Play had 592 installs within three days of launch. They may be early bot users or the founder's own circle; there's no direct evidence either way.

Channels that barely exist. The TikTok @yapa.ar account has 5 followers and 21 videos, each getting roughly 100 views. I found no press coverage, and nobody discusses it on Reddit or X. Much smaller competitors like PrecioYa and ListaInteligente have gotten local press.

Version 1.1.0 also added "Yapitas": users scan shelf tags in store and upload prices to earn points for raffle entries for gift cards, open only to residents of Buenos Aires City and Province aged 18 and up. This feature doesn't bring in new users. It fills the gap between chain website prices and actual in-store prices using what users upload, and it gives people a reason to come back to the app.

Where the money comes from: not back yet

No revenue yet. The app is free, has no ads, and no in-app purchases. The Pro subscription that the Telegram bot used to sell has been removed from the terms, 11-04. So one person is spending their own money to acquire users.

The public information shows no sign of how it might pay back. There are three plausible routes: referral commissions from banks and wallets (users check "which card to pay with" every day), retail media (supermarkets or brands buying placement), or selling price data. All three require a large enough user base first, and the first two conflict with "honesty before marketing." How much was spent on ads, what each install cost, and whether the people who installed stuck around are all unknown.

Who it's competing with

Supermarket price comparison in Argentina is a niche that independent developers have long used as a practice project. On Reddit's r/devsarg, someone posting "I built a price comparison tool" has appeared every so often since 2023, and this year several launched around the same time as Yapa.

Among the independently built comparison apps, Yapa has the most installs, several times more than second place. Compared with cashback apps and supermarkets' own apps, though, it is still an order of magnitude behind. Other Latin American countries have similar efforts: Uruguay's Cabacua says it reached 4K users in 40 months, Mexico's Spenza has 170K installs on Play, and Costa Rica's AhorraYa has 14K followers on TikTok. Most of them grew through TikTok reviews and press coverage; Yapa grew through paid ads.

Nobody seems to be copying the "net price after your payment method" angle yet.

What it actually wins on

1. Changed the unit of comparison. Others compare which store is cheaper. Yapa compares which store plus which payment method is cheapest. In a market where bank and wallet discounts are this messy, that's closer to the math shoppers actually need to do.
2. Ad creative never runs out. New real price gaps show up every day: one product, two stores, one difference. The numbers can be checked, so it's natural ad material without hiring anyone to film.
3. Set up attribution before spending. Wire up the SDK, the system permission prompt, and the install-source parameters one by one, document each step publicly in the privacy policy, and make "no card numbers, no data sales" a trust selling point.
4. "1 stores / 2 stores / item by item" three-tier plans answer the most common complaint about price-comparison tools: running between three stores to save a little isn't worth it.

Where it falls short is also clear: no organic word of mouth, no revenue, and the data needs daily upkeep (prices from 7 chains, plus discount rules from dozens of banks and wallets that change weekly).

If it were you

B: Worth a shot, but with clear weak spots. The "store × payment method" idea is right, few people know about it, and no local competitor copies it. But Yapa has only proven two things: without ads there's no volume, and with ads, the cost per install is acceptable. It hasn't proven the business can get its money back.

Who it's for: 1 to 2 people in a country where bank and wallet discounts are messy, who've personally pulled out three cards at the supermarket checkout to compare; who can write scrapers and maintain price and promo data long-term; and who have money they're willing to spend up front on Meta campaigns, and have done or are willing to learn app install ads.

Who it's not for: Anyone counting on TikTok organic traffic or word of mouth (Yapa and its peers show price-comparison tools struggle to catch fire on their own); anyone expecting revenue within three months; and anyone whose market discounts come mainly from supermarkets' own coupons with little tie to payment methods, where the idea degrades into a plain price comparison.

How to do it: Start by choosing the market. Places where banks and wallets give discounts by day of the week or by merchant fit best, such as Brazil (Pix and bank cashback), Mexico, Turkey, or Colombia. Figure out which country has the messiest discounts by spending a week outside its supermarkets. Start with the largest 5 to 7 local chains, using the chains' official website prices as the data source, and government price databases if available. Compile bank and wallet promo rules manually at first, updating them weekly. Build the product the way Yapa does: select payment methods (no card numbers) → list items or scan a receipt → three-tier plans, with each price labeled with its source and date. On day one of launch, also plan how you'll monetize, most realistically by referring users to banks or wallets to open cards or accounts for commissions, but make clear to users which links are promotional.

How to get users: Set up the Meta SDK and install-source parameters first, then start running app install ads. Rotate creative daily: same-day, local, real price gaps on specific products. Post from the official account in the founder's own voice, asking users which supermarket or card they want added next. At the same time, write the store listing using the terms locals type when searching for price comparisons, and try to land in the "similar apps" slot next to supermarkets' official apps.

Get in before: Launch and start spending before March 2027. Right now every Latin American country has indie developers building plain price comparison apps, and someone will eventually think to layer in payment methods. Yapa itself may also expand into Brazil or Uruguay.

Signs you've misread it: ① After Yapa cuts or reduces its ad spend (check how many active ads it runs in the Meta Ad Library), daily installs fall back to dozens, showing users won't come on their own and this business will always need paid acquisition; ② by mid-2027, Yapa still hasn't found any revenue, or its reputation collapses after it pivots to referrals; ③ big wallets like Mercado Pago or MODO launch cross-supermarket comparison themselves, and the big players take the gap; ④ your testing shows that in your chosen market the cost per install exceeds $1 with no visible path to monetization.

Sources

• Google Play page ar.yapa.app (installs, version, Argentina Shopping top free chart, 10-29 to 11-06); daily install increments are AppstoreSpy estimates.
• App Store Argentina storefront id6792511319 (ratings, charts).
• yapa.ar website, terms page (Telegram bot and Pro subscription), privacy policy page (Meta SDK, Yapitas raffle and changelog), 11-06.
• Meta Ad Library Argentina storefront, Page "Yapa: Precios de Supermercado", 11-06.
• Instagram @yapa.ar and founder posts; TikTok @yapa.ar.
• Install counts for competing products come from Google Play (11-06); PrecioYa is covered by Infonegocios (2026-09-09), ListaInteligente by El Marplatense (2026-10-18).