[037]Worth a lookUS · UK / Consumer electronics, collectiblesBilled monthly, really one-timeData as of 2026-11-08
Restock alerts for buyers chasing scarce goods in the US and UK, at $10/month. In practice it's a one-time payment.
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Buildable, but don't get fooled by "subscription": single-product stock-alert sites launch on day one of a shortage, earn for two or three weeks, then fade. If you want recurring income, you need an engine, and the rival here, HotStock, has been running for nine years.Fits a solo builder who can ship "stock scraping + push alerts + payments" within 48 hours. Pick only products with no substitute, where buyers don't mind paying $10 to avoid a sellout. Don't trust Store Stock Checker's MRR until its first renewal round, 11-23.Breaking out · grade and headline derived from full article · next review 11-24
| Background | iPhone Duo is out of stock. A one-person stock-alert site made $24,400 in 10 days and listed for $135k on day 6. 11-02 already has someone copying it for a MacBook version. |
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| Upside | Single-product sites launching the first day of a shortage can cash in once; engines that span events can run for years, but HotStock has already run nine |
| Demand | Users don't want notifications, they want to buy. A reminder that arrives a few seconds late is worthless, and AutoBuy is the reason to pay. Pay-first-then-try and hard-to-cancel billing equals a one-star review. |
| Competition | Engine: HotStock ranks #5–7 on the US shopping Top Grossing chart and TrackaLacker #22–42; a string of similar apps sits in Apple's self-pickup section; Pokémon card tools are crowded, with five or six players and poor reviews |
| Revenue | Store Stock Checker made $24.4k in 10 days; the parent company of HotStock has £2.12M in retained profit; PortaSplit's three storefronts total $322. |
| Growth | None buy ads (none appear in the Meta, TikTok or Google ad libraries). Build a free broadcast account / Discord / TikTok first, collect an audience over years, then bring them into the app |
| Window | Single-product sites run on a timescale of days: 48 hours around launch. This year, November through mid-December is the peak season for stockouts |
| Who it's for | Individuals who can write scrapers and launch a paid site in 48 hours. People who run vertical niche broadcast accounts or groups are well placed to be the engine. |