"Ten years going to Mercadona and I didn't know this existed": a Madrid dev's fifth app, earning €10K off a supermarket's name and four TikTok accounts

Alex Gilabert, an indie developer in Madrid, built an app that plans your week's menu and generates a shopping list, with prices based on Mercadona, the supermarket Spaniards visit every day. It earns €44.99 a year. He had built four apps before with nothing to show for them. For this one he spent no money on ads. He just posted videos daily from his own TikTok accounts, and within four-plus months, by his own account, it reached 17k users and over €10k in lifetime revenue. The playbook is worth learning, but the category is already crowded across Europe, so copying it isn't worth the effort.

The video posted on launch day

On Jun 2026 20, Super launched on the Spanish App Store. The same day, the TikTok account @supercomidas.app posted a video. Its first line was:

10 años yendo al Mercadona... y no sabía que esto existía. (Ten years going to Mercadona... and I didn't know this existed.)

The caption goes on: it builds a full week's menu and generates the shopping list automatically, using real prices from the supermarket you pick (Mercadona, Carrefour, Lidl...). You tell it how much you want to spend in a week, how many people are eating, and any dietary restrictions, and it lays out the recipes, ingredients, steps and nutrition info. By 11-06 the video had 146k views, 2,364 saves and 1,735 shares, and it is still pinned to the account's homepage (TikTok, 11-06).

It has more saves than likes (2,315), which means viewers actually planned to come back to it. This video is basically the product's manual, and the template for all of the account's content after it.

What it is

A hard-paywall subscription app. It asks a few questions (supermarket, budget, how many people, lunch or lunch plus dinner, tastes, restrictions, what's in your kitchen), then generates a weekly menu and a shopping list sorted by category, with an estimated total for the week. You can regenerate if you don't like it. The 7-day trial requires a card up front, then €44.99 a year or €9.99 a month.

The numbers are small, but they keep coming:

By the self-reported figures, it averages a little over €2K a month since Jun 20 (inferred; unclear whether store commissions were deducted), about €0.6 per user. Conversion is this low and it still makes money because acquisition costs almost nothing.

Where users come from: four in-house accounts posting "save on groceries" daily

At least four TikTok accounts post content for it, and their bios all say the same thing: "Tu menú semanal en segundos / Ajustado a tu súper y bolsillo" (Your weekly menu in seconds / Adjusted to your supermarket and budget):

• @supercomidas.app: 8,115 followers. Almost every video this past week is about "which groceries are cheapest at the supermarket," and each caption ends with: "If you're tired of figuring out the weekly menu, the Super app plans it for you automatically." 10-30 One has 54k views, 11-01 has 118k views.
• @comidas.super: 15,008 followers, posting 1–2 videos a day since late August: "How much protein 1 euros buys," "7 ideas for eating healthy, varied and cheap." The hashtags are always #mercadona #menusemanal #ahorro. One has 9-15 views, 174k, and typical videos get one to six thousand.
• @super_comidas (started posting late October) and @super.menu (posted a few "La app se llama Super…" videos in July).

The timing lines up: the Google Play installs jumped by 10-31 343 times in one day, right between the two videos from 10-30 and 11-01. The Meta ad library shows no ads from it, and no European TikTok ads either. That doesn't rule out paid spend entirely, but the evidence we can see points to organic traffic.

This content doesn't read like an ad. It covers things Spaniards already care about (what's cheapest at Mercadona, how to pack a week of lunches, how people who work out eat cheap protein), and the app only shows up once, at the end.

Why this app, and why June

A supermarket everyone in the country shops at, as the hook. "Mercadona weekly menu" was already a hot topic on Spanish TikTok. Super positioned itself as the answer to that topic: its store listing is literally titled "Menú y Lista Compra - Super" (Menu and Shopping List), its copy says "Precios reales de Mercadona" (real Mercadona prices), and every video carries #mercadona. Searching "app Mercadona lista de la compra" puts its App Store page near the top (web search, 11-06).

It caught the window. The "budget weekly menu" template first worked in the US around 2026 years ago (TapCook and others), and June started expanding it into Europe: mise launched 6-10, Whipp 6-12, Super 6-20. Super was among the first Spanish-language natives and claimed the Mercadona topic before foreign teams finished their Spanish versions.

The founder is a growth person. His website says "product, information, channels, price" and that whichever is weak gets fixed. His first four apps (social, AI teeth whitening, savings, sports) each got only 0–5 ratings in Spain. Super is the first where he got the order right: content channel first, product second.

What users say

Praise centers on convenience: "I'm a university student always running around, and it planned my meals and nutrition for me" (6-21,5 stars); "I waste less food and save money, 10 stars" (7-03,5 stars).

Negative reviews almost all hit two issues (App Store Spain, June to October):

• You can't see anything without paying: "No free trial without a card" (10-28), "After I set up the account, boom, €45 a year paid up front, or €120 a month" (7-22), "€50 so you can make my shopping list?" (7-29).
• Too few recipes, too repetitive: "I eat fried eggs with spinach 6 days a week, and next week it's the same" (6-29), "Liked the trial, paid for a full year, and the recipes keep repeating. Switching supermarkets and regenerating doesn't help" (9-24).

The second one is this category's structural weakness: generated menus lack variety, and people who paid for a year notice first.

Who it's competing with

In Spain it's no longer number one (App Store Spain Food & Drink Top Grossing, 11-06):

CestaChef, which launched a month later with almost the same pitch (Mercadona weekly menu plus prices), reached 38k installs on Google Play, 28 times Super's. Then there are small clones like Pick and Munchio that copy the "La app se llama…" video playbook. On Google Play's Spain Food & Drink Top Free chart, Super slid from #10-29... wait, from #26 to #11-06 to #61. Its iOS Top Grossing position rests on existing annual subscribers.

What about other countries?

It's the obvious question: copy "local supermarket + weekly menu + your own TikTok accounts" into Italy, Portugal, Poland. Across the App Store Food & Drink Top Grossing charts of several countries, same-category apps launched 11-06 years ago are already in the top 40, 2026:

In short, from June to September this template was rolled out across nearly every big European market by a few well-funded teams, and in many countries local indie devs have built it too. Super's success came from a three-month head start, and that gap is gone now.

If it were you

Verdict: Copy its playbook, not its category. A "weekly menu + shopping list" app is already crowded in Europe, and the ceiling is low (one person made about €10K in four-plus months). What's valuable is its acquisition method, applied to a category that hasn't been saturated yet.

Who it's for: One or two people, with someone willing to shoot, edit and post local lifestyle video every day, a native speaker of a mid-sized market's language, and familiarity with the brands everyone there uses (supermarkets, chains, transit cards, banks).

Who it's not for: Anyone who wants to build yet another AI menu app in Spain or the big European markets. Ahead of you are Whipp, mise and Yuma with creator budgets, behind you a dozen indie clones of the same template. If you can code but don't want to make videos, this playbook depends on posting every day.

How to do it: Find a category that meets three conditions: a nationally beloved brand locals can anchor to, related topics already being discussed on TikTok, and no local-language dedicated tool in the store yet. On product, avoid Super's two mistakes: let people see a sample menu (or sample result) before asking for a card, and build a content library big enough that paying users don't see repeats in week two.

How to acquire users: Copy Super. On launch day, start 3–4 accounts, with a first post built on the pattern "I've used X for ten years and didn't know this existed." After that, post practical content locals care about every day (what's cheapest, what you can buy for 1 euros), mention the app name only once at the end, and use the search terms locals actually type in the store title, with the brand's name in the copy.

When to move: The earlier you find the category, the better. Super's example shows that once a template is validated, local versions appear within a month, and well-funded teams fill Europe within three months.

What would mean we're wrong: (1) If no local-language weekly menu app is in a European country's Food & Drink Top Grossing top 40 by the end of 2026, that market is still open and can be copied directly. (2) If Super holds or climbs its Spanish Top Grossing rank while Whipp and Yuma are both present, it means localization and locals filming their own content matter more than budget, and our odds for following into local markets are higher than we estimated.

Sources

• TikTok: profiles and posts of @supercomidas.app, @comidas.super, @super_comidas, @super.menu, 11-06 read
• App Store Spain storefront page and reviews (id6779308914), Food & Drink Top Grossing charts by country, 10-28 to 11-06
• Google Play store page (com.supercomidas.app) and Spain Food & Drink Top Free chart, 10-29 to 11-06
• Founder websites gilabs.net and gilabs.net/super, 11-06 read; revenue and user numbers are self-reported, unverified
• Meta ad library; TikTok ad library checked only for ads targeting Europe