How OikosAi works

1. About this page

One place for how OikosAi collects prices, compares them and works out savings, and the limits you should know. Short notes across the app and our posts link here.

2. Who we are

1. OikosAi is an independent Victorian household-savings app run by Access Ecom Pty Ltd (ACN 623 346 958).
2. Independent. No commissions from providers. No supermarket, energy retailer, fuel company or restaurant pays us to show, rank or recommend anything.
3. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by Aldi, Coles, Woolworths or any other business we mention. Their names are trademarks of their owners, used only to say where a price came from.

3. Information, not advice

1. OikosAi gives general information. It is not financial, legal, dietary or medical advice, and it doesn't consider your personal situation.
2. You make the decisions. Check details with the seller before you buy, switch or sign up.

4. AI assisted, may contain errors

1. AI helps us collect, match and check prices, read receipts and bills, and write summaries. It may contain errors. Check before buying.
2. We check our data regularly and fix mistakes openly. Seen an error? Email [email protected].

5. Where our prices come from

1. Online prices. We collect the prices Aldi, Coles and Woolworths publish on their websites, and we date every price.
2. Representative of national prices. Coles and Woolworths told the ACCC's supermarkets inquiry (2024) that most of their prices are the same nationally. Fresh food is generally priced by state, and some stores, store formats and online orders can differ. We treat the online prices we collect as representative of national prices. Our own small spot checks agreed: packaged goods matched across locations; fresh food often didn't.
3. Local promotions. Your local store may run its own or state-based promotions, so the shelf price you see can differ from ours.
4. Prices move fast. In our Price Watch research, about 3 in 10 Coles and Woolworths prices were different a week later. A dated price is a snapshot.
5. Specials at Coles and Woolworths usually change on Wednesdays. We call a price a special only when the store shows a "was" price.
6. Multibuys and member prices. We record the shelf price a store shows. We don't count multibuy deals (such as "2 for $5") or member-only prices as savings, but where a store shows one as its shelf price, it may appear in our data.
7. We don't track every product. A store may sell a cheaper option we don't collect, such as a bigger bag or an "imperfect" range. Seen it cheaper? Tell us.

6. How we compare

1. A curated, comparable list. We don't compare everything. We list items sold in comparable forms at each store, chosen from publicly available research (for example, the Healthy Diets ASAP basket) and our own checks.
2. Our own name matching. Each store names, sizes and describes products differently. OikosAi uses its own method to standardise names, sizes and units so the same item can be matched across stores. It's careful, not perfect.
3. Per unit, like for like. We compare price per kg, litre or item, using the store's printed unit price. We work it out ourselves only when the printed one is clearly wrong, and say so.
4. Match Score. When two products aren't identical, a Match Score shows how close they are, and we list the differences (size, brand, type).
5. Cheapest suitable product we found. Where we compare a type of food, we use the cheapest suitable product we found at each store, including store brands and value or "imperfect" ranges. Brand and quality can differ.

7. Savings figures

1. "Could save", on a stated basis. Every saving says what it's compared with. Your saving depends on what you buy and where you shop now.
2. Yearly figures are illustrations: one week's saving × 52, not a forecast.
3. Savings exclude the travel, time, fuel or delivery costs of shopping at more than one place.

8. Grocery

1. Search, scan a barcode, take a photo or speak a product name to compare it at Aldi, Coles and Woolworths.
2. Photo and voice use AI to recognise the product, and may get it wrong. Check the match shown.
3. Baskets, strategies and shopping lists use the latest prices we hold, which may be several days old. Each price shows its date.

9. OikosAi Family Basket

1. What it is: a weekly price check of a healthy week of food for a family of four (two adults, a teenage boy and a young girl) at Aldi, Coles and Woolworths.
2. Amounts: minimum daily serves from the Australian Dietary Guidelines (NHMRC, 2013), times 7.
3. Foods: the healthy item list from the Healthy Diets ASAP protocol (Lee et al., Nutrition Journal 2018; 17:88), CC BY 4.0. OikosAi is not affiliated with or endorsed by NHMRC or the protocol authors.
4. Weekly cost, not a checkout total: amount eaten × unit price. Oil, rice and other pantry items last several weeks, so a first shop costs more.
5. Approximations: serves shared evenly within each food group; mostly wholegrain grains and reduced-fat dairy; red meat capped at 455 g cooked per person a week; typical weights for items sold "each"; raw whole chicken in place of BBQ chicken (not sold online); bottled water and takeaway food left out.
6. Gaps: if a store has no suitable product online, we use the average of the other stores, as the protocol does, and flag it.
7. Usual prices make the headline; specials are shown separately.
8. Each edition lists its price dates, gaps and corrections. The data is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, with credit to OikosAi.

10. Price Watch and other research

1. Each report states its period, sample and method (Price Watch: 630 products, 29 May – 27 Sep 2026).
2. We see one price per product per collection, so a price that changed and changed back in between isn't counted.

11. Energy (Victoria)

1. Coverage: Victorian residential electricity and gas only. Business and other-state plans aren't included.
2. Source: plan details from retailers' published Victorian Energy Fact Sheets and public plan data. We may not have every retailer, every plan or the latest change.
3. Benchmark: electricity plans are compared with the Victorian Default Offer, the price set by the Essential Services Commission. Gas has no default offer.
4. Your bill: we read your uploaded bill with AI. Check the details we extract before relying on the result.
5. Projected savings are estimates. They use your bill's usage and the plan's published rates. Your real cost depends on future usage, time of use, solar, concessions, discounts and fees. Gas estimates use an average rate rather than each price step.
6. You decide. We don't switch you, sign you up or act for you.
7. Before switching, confirm the offer with the retailer and on Victorian Energy Compare, the free Victorian Government site. Check exit fees and the cooling-off period.

12. Fuel (FuelCast)

1. Coverage: Victoria and New South Wales.
2. Source: station prices from government fuel price services (Victoria: Servo Saver). Stations report their own prices, which can be late or wrong.
3. Patterns, not promises. "Better day to fill", day-of-week patterns and the 14-day average come from past prices. Prices can change at any time.
4. Price dates: a station's notified price may take effect the next day; we show the date it applies.
5. Distance and savings are estimates; check the price at the pump.

13. Dining

1. Restaurant details, ratings and photos come from Google.
2. Dish ideas are generic. AI suggests dishes commonly served in a cuisine; they aren't any restaurant's actual menu.
3. Price ranges and delivery estimates are general, based on published dining-cost and delivery-fee studies, not each restaurant's prices. Dish-level menu prices are coming.
4. Check prices, menus and opening hours with the venue.

14. Household savings score (AQ – Artha Quotient)

1. What it is: a score built from your quiz answers about household spending habits. It is OikosAi's own method, not a government, credit or third-party score, and not a financial assessment.
2. What it isn't: it doesn't use your bank account, income or exact spending.
3. A snapshot. It changes only when you retake the quiz. Your band and "left on the table" figures are estimates for households with similar answers, from public data (ABS, ACCC and others), not a measurement of your household.
4. Suburb comparisons will appear only when enough households in an area have taken the quiz.
5. Your answers: what's stored, the opt-in activity feed and how long we keep it are in our Privacy Policy.

15. Credits, receipts and your uploads

1. Some AI features use credits.
2. Receipts and bills you upload are read by AI and may be misread. Savings tracked from them are our best estimate.

16. Your information

1. We don't sell your data or share it with retailers, energy companies or advertisers. The service providers we use to run OikosAi are listed in our Privacy Policy.
2. Full details: Privacy Policy. Privacy requests: [email protected].

17. Mistakes, feedback and contact

1. Use "This doesn't look right" in the app, or email [email protected]. Media: [email protected].
2. We fix confirmed errors and date the correction.

18. Changes to this page

We update this page when our methods change and date each change.