merca: offline grocery tracker

merca turns your phone's camera into a grocery price scanner — no barcode scanning, no manual entry. Just point your camera at a shelf price tag, and merca reads the product name and price using on-device text recognition.

HOW IT WORKS

Start a trip, scan price tags as you shop, and watch your running total update in real time. When you check out, merca saves the trip to your history — building a complete picture of where your money goes, one shopping trip at a time.

KEY FEATURES

Scan, Don't Type
Point your camera at any price tag and merca reads the product name and price automatically. Low-confidence reads are flagged so you can quickly confirm or correct them before adding to your cart.

Budget Tracking
Set a budget for each trip and watch your progress in real time. Set a monthly spending goal and merca tracks you against it automatically.

Smart Categorization
Items are automatically sorted into categories like Dairy, Produce, and Pantry, learning your preferences over time.

Shopping Lists
Build lists using natural language — just type or say what you need, and merca adds it with the right category.

Spending Insights
See where your money goes by category, track trends over time, and get an automatic recap each month.

Ask merca
Got a quick question about your spending? Ask in plain language — "how much did I spend on dairy this month?" — and get an instant answer, computed entirely on your device.

Voice Input
Add items or ask questions by speaking instead of typing — recognized using on-device speech processing whenever your device supports it.

PRIVACY BY DESIGN

merca was built offline-first from day one. There's no account to create, no sign-in, and no cloud sync. Your shopping data — every trip, every price, every list — stays stored locally on your device. Reading a price tag, parsing what you type or say, and answering your questions all run on-device. Nothing is sent to a server for processing.

merca doesn't run analytics or tracking, and doesn't share your shopping data with anyone.

WHO IT'S FOR

Whether you're sticking to a tight grocery budget, trying to understand your spending habits, or just tired of manually tracking prices in a notes app, merca gives you a fast, private way to see exactly where your money goes — without giving up your data to do it.