Honest grocery price comparison, built by shoppers.
The cheapest supermarket isn't a single answer — it depends on what's actually in your basket. Here's how Zavvy works that out, and what it means for the shop you do every week.
Why grocery prices vary so much.
A 2L bottle of milk, a six-pack of eggs, a loaf of sliced pan — the same items cost noticeably different amounts across Irish supermarkets, and the gaps shift week to week. A few common reasons:
Promotions don't sit still
The "3 for €5" tonight is the "2 for €4" next week. Each chain runs its own cycle, so the cheapest shop for your regular basket flips around in ways nobody's tracking by hand.
Own-brand vs. branded
Own-brand items at one shop can't be bought at another, so a basket heavy on Tesco's own range simply isn't comparable like-for-like with a Dunnes shop. Branded items are — and that's where the headline savings live.
Pack sizes and per-unit pricing
A 500g pack in one shop versus 400g in another isn't a straight comparison. Per-kg or per-litre is the only honest way to look at it — and shelf labels almost always have it, if you know to look.
How Zavvy builds the price picture.
Zavvy is crowd-sourced. Every shopper who scans a barcode in front of a shelf or snaps a receipt adds one more data point. Those data points are tagged with the shop and the time, so the picture stays fresh — and the more people scan, the sharper the comparison for everyone.
We don't scrape supermarket websites — their terms-of-service don't allow it, and the data wouldn't always match what's on the shelf anyway. Real receipts and real shelf-label scans are the source of truth.
The honest-comparison rule.
Zavvy never silently drops a missing item from a comparison. If you've put Brennans bread in your basket and a shop doesn't stock it, that shop's column shows "not available here" — not a quietly-lower total that makes it look cheaper than it is. Same with own-brand items: they only price up at the store that sells them. The math at the till is what matters; we make sure Zavvy's math matches.
Which Irish supermarkets are covered?
- Tesco — calibrated receipt reader, full comparison.
- Dunnes Stores — calibrated, plus coupon support.
- SuperValu — calibrated.
- Aldi — calibrated.
- Lidl — calibrated (paper + Lidl Plus digital).
- M&S — calibrated.
- Centra — calibrated.
- SPAR / EuroSpar — calibrated.
Mace is now available for recording and comparing prices (by barcode and shelf-label scan); its calibrated receipt reader is still in progress.
New chains land as we get enough sample receipts to calibrate the reader. If a shop you use isn't here, snap a receipt anyway, tap "Report a problem" — that's how we add one.
Find your cheapest basket.
Free, in beta on iOS and Android.