1. Where the prices come from
Displayed prices come from the current weekly flyers, pulled through Flipp for the postal code you enter. In Quebec, new flyers take effect on Thursday and run through the following Wednesday.
When an item is not on sale this week, we fall back to a reference price for that store: an estimate of the regular price, not a live in-store reading. Those items carry the "estimated" badge and never count toward savings.
An absent or ambiguous package size cannot price the target quantity as certain: the reference remains estimated, with no discount or price matching for that quantity. Kg and L are not interchangeable. Estimated cost of the quantities needed. The amount paid may differ depending on the package sizes purchased.
2. How savings are calculated
One rule: a saving is only counted when both prices come from Flipp. The amount shown is the sum of two components, computed only on the items in YOUR plan:
- Flyer discounts — the gap between the regular price and the flyer price, both provided by Flipp (original_price − current_price), for each item. If Flipp does not provide both prices, the item counts 0: we never estimate a regular price.
- Price matching — when an identical item (same brand, same size, price in the same unit) is cheaper in a competitor's flyer (two Flipp prices required), we count the gap only if your store's official policy covers that competitor. As of October 11, 2026, that is the case at Giant Tiger (local competitors, 1¢ below their price). Maxi also price-matches, but only competitors on each store's posted list: we flag it without counting it. The other chains have no published price-matching policy: $0. This saving is only real if you actually request the match at checkout.
No coupon is counted: the site does not show any. The big green number is that total; a line below breaks it down component by component, and components at 0 are hidden. If there are no verifiable savings, we show "—" rather than an estimate. The store comparison (section 3) is not part of it. Until you check any item, the total is presented as "potential savings" on the full list; as soon as you check items off, we recompute on your actual cart. We do not project this amount over a year: flyers change every week.
3. Store comparison (estimate)
To recommend a store, we price the same basket at each store: Flipp prices for items on the flyer, estimated reference prices for the others. Because those reference prices are estimates (section 1), this comparison is an estimate: it is shown separately, with the “≈” sign, and never counts toward savings.
- The compared basket holds the items that have a price at most stores; if a store has no price for a basket item (at most 10%), it gets the median price of the other stores — neither an advantage nor a penalty.
- A store is ranked only if at least 20% of the common-basket items (rounded up) are at a flyer price for your area this week. Below that it is "barely surveyed"; with no item at all, "not surveyed": its total is still shown (estimated), but it is never ranked, recommended or counted in the average. With fewer than two ranked stores, no ranking is offered.
- The gap shown is the difference between the total at the reference store (the store you explicitly chose if it differs from the recommended one, otherwise the average of the stores compared) and the total at the selected store. It is never "the most expensive store".
- On the home page, the sample plan and the city pages, the reference is always the average of the stores compared.
4. The limits, stated plainly
- Actual savings vary by region, store, your shopping habits and the week's flyers.
- A displayed saving is a *possible* saving: it only materializes if you actually buy the item at the stated price.
- Instacart prices may differ from flyer prices. Our calculations are based on in-store prices.
- Reference prices are estimates, not live readings; they are used to compare stores (section 3) but never count as a saving.