Terms of Use

1. Who we are

GroceryPulse.ca (“GroceryPulse”, “we”, “us”) runs grocerypulse.ca, a Canadian grocery price comparison and research service. You can reach us at hello@grocerypulse.ca. “You” means anyone who uses the site, its tools, the connector or the API. By using them, you accept these terms. If you use them for an organization, you confirm that you can accept these terms for it.

2. What these terms cover

These terms cover the public website, its free tools and guides, the public AI connector and comparison API, and Premium. Licensed data products for businesses, such as the Canadian Grocery Price Index, the commercial API and data packs, are also covered by the licence terms you accept when you subscribe. For those products, the licence terms apply where they differ from these terms.

3. Free tools

The price comparisons, the list tool, the unit price calculator and our guides are free and need no account. Use them for your own shopping, planning and research.

4. The public AI connector and comparison API

The connector (https://grocerypulse.ca/api/shopper/mcp) and the comparison API (/api/shopper/catalog and /api/shopper/compare) let an AI assistant or other software compare grocery prices for you. The connector guide describes how they work.

• Free and read-only. They need no account or key. They answer comparison questions from our public price data. They cannot buy anything, place an order, save a list or send a message.
• Provided as is. A result covers only the cities, items and chains we track. Prices can be missing, older than you expect or incomplete, and results say so. We do not promise that the connector or the API will always be available.
• Fair use and rate limits. Use them for real shopping questions, asked by people or by assistants acting for people. To keep the service available to everyone, we limit how many requests one source can send in a short time. A request over the limit is refused with a message saying when to try again. We may change the limits and block traffic that harms the service.
• No bulk extraction. Do not use the connector or the API to copy our price data in bulk, to rebuild a database, price feed or index from it, or to resell or republish it. Do not sweep through cities or items to collect data, or spread requests across many addresses to get around the limits. Businesses that need data at scale can ask about a licence at sales@grocerypulse.ca.
• Keep results honest. If you show our results to others, or build an assistant that does, keep the price dates, missing items and limits that come with them, and do not present a chain median as a quote from a particular store.
• No endorsement. GroceryPulse is independent. Being available in an AI assistant, or listed in an assistant’s connector directory, does not mean that the company behind the assistant endorses GroceryPulse, or that we endorse the assistant. Assistants can misread or misstate results, so check anything important on grocerypulse.ca or with the store.

We may change, limit or stop the connector or the API at any time.

5. What a price means

Our prices help you plan. They are not offers to sell. Each price we show:

• was collected from a retailer’s public website on the date shown with it, and may have changed since;
• is the median of the prices we observed at the stores we sample for that chain in your city, not the price at a particular store;
• is not a quote, a promise that an item is in stock, or a checkout total. Taxes, deposits, delivery and travel are not included, and member, multi-buy and points offers are not included unless we say so;
• may be a sale price that has since ended.

For items sold by weight, the amount is an estimate: what you pay at the till depends on the actual weight. The retailer sets the final price, in the store or at checkout on its own website. We are not affiliated with any retailer named on the site, and no retailer pays to be included or ranked. If a price looks wrong, tell us through the help page.

6. Premium

Premium is an optional paid subscription for shoppers. It keeps your lists in your account across devices and saves more dated comparisons. It uses the same prices, dates and coverage as the free tools, and it does not guarantee savings. If you subscribe:

• Price and payment. Premium costs CAD 7.99 per month, plus any applicable taxes shown at checkout. Stripe processes payment under its own terms; we never receive your full card number. You must have reached the age of majority in your province or territory to subscribe.
• Renewal. Premium renews automatically every month, and each month is charged in advance, until you cancel.
• Cancelling. You can cancel at any time in your account’s billing management. Cancelling stops future renewals, and Premium stays active until the end of the month you have already paid for. If you would rather end Premium right away, write to hello@grocerypulse.ca and we will end it and refund the unused part of that month.
• Your saved lists. When Premium ends, you can still read, export and delete the lists saved to your account. Saving new lists or changing saved ones needs an active subscription. Lists saved on your device, and email updates you confirmed, are separate and stay free.
• Refunds. If you were charged by mistake, or a problem on our side stopped Premium from working, write to hello@grocerypulse.ca and we will refund the affected charge. Apart from these refunds and the refund of an unused part of a month described above, payments are not refunded unless the law requires it.
• If we stop offering Premium. We will email you at least 60 days before Premium ends, and we will refund any part of a month you paid for and can no longer use.
• Changes to Premium. Without your explicit agreement, we may change only these parts of your Premium contract: the monthly price, what Premium includes, and the rules for using the site, the connector and the API in clauses 4 and 8. We will propose such changes no more than twice a year, by email, at least 30 days and no more than 90 days before they take effect. The email will set out each changed term as it will read and as it read before, the date the change takes effect, what happens if you do nothing (the change applies from that date), and your right to refuse it by cancelling Premium, without cost, penalty or cancellation fee, before it takes effect or up to 30 days after. Any other change to your Premium contract needs your explicit agreement.

Nothing in this clause limits a cancellation or refund right that the law gives you.

7. Accounts

Premium and some business features need an account. Keep your sign-in secure, keep your email address current, and tell us at hello@grocerypulse.ca if you think someone else has used your account. You can ask us to close your account at any time. Our Privacy Policy explains what happens to your information.

8. Using the site fairly

When you use the site, the connector or the API, please do not:

• copy our pages or price data in bulk, or run automated collection beyond what our robots.txt file allows;
• resell, republish or redistribute our price data, or use it to build a competing database, price feed or index, without a licence;
• overload, probe or disrupt the service, or try to get around its limits or security;
• use accounts, keys or data that are not yours;
• present our data in a misleading way, for example as a store’s quoted price, as an official statistic, or as endorsed by us.

The next sentence does not apply to consumers in Quebec. We may limit or block access that we find breaks these rules.

9. Links to other sites

Our pages and connector results link to retailers’ websites, for example to an item’s product page or to a store’s own search, so you can check a price and shop there. We do not control those sites or their prices, stock or checkout. Their own terms and privacy policies apply, and a link is not an endorsement. Sign-in with Google and payment through Stripe are provided by those companies under their own terms.

10. Our content and data

The site’s text, design, software and research, and our compilation of price data, belong to GroceryPulse.ca or our licensors. You may share links to our pages, and you may quote individual prices or comparisons for personal, research or news use if you keep their date and credit “GroceryPulse.ca”. Anything more, such as copying a whole page or dataset, or any commercial reuse, needs our written permission or a licence.

Retailer names and logos belong to their owners and appear only to identify them. Our name and logo may not be used in a way that suggests we endorse you or your product. If you send us suggestions or price corrections, we may use them freely to improve the service.

11. Disclaimers

We work to keep prices accurate and clearly dated, but we cannot promise that every price is correct, complete or current, or that the site, the connector or the API will always be available or free of errors. Nothing on the site is financial or professional advice: check the price and the product with the store before you rely on them.

The next sentence does not apply to consumers in Quebec. Except for the commitments in these terms, the service is provided “as is” and “as available”.

Nothing in these terms removes a warranty or a right that the law gives you and that cannot be excluded by contract, including under Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act and Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act, 2002.

12. Limits of liability

This clause does not apply to consumers in Quebec. Under Quebec law, we remain responsible for the consequences of our own acts and those of our representatives.

To the extent the law allows:

• we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, such as lost savings, lost profits or the cost of a trip to a store, that come from using or relying on the site, the connector or the API;
• our total liability to you for all claims is limited to the greater of CAD 50 and what you paid us for Premium in the 12 months before the claim.

These limits do not apply to liability that the law does not allow us to limit or exclude, such as liability for fraud, for intentional or gross fault, or for bodily or moral injury.

13. Changes to the service and these terms

We may change or stop any part of the free service at any time. We may also update these terms; the date at the top of this page shows the current version, and the version in force when you use the free site applies to that use. For Premium subscribers, only the parts of the contract listed in clause 6 can change without their explicit agreement, with the notice and the right to cancel described there.

14. Governing law and disputes

The next sentence does not apply to consumers in Quebec, whose contract with us is governed by the laws of Quebec and the federal laws of Canada. These terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the province or territory where you live, and you may bring a claim before its courts. Nothing in these terms requires arbitration or stops you from going to court or taking part in a class action where the law gives you that right. Before going to court, please write to us: most problems can be fixed quickly.

15. General

These terms are published in English and in French, and both versions have equal value. If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a term right away, we can still enforce it later.

16. Contact

Questions about these terms: hello@grocerypulse.ca. Privacy questions and requests: privacy@grocerypulse.ca. Business data and licences: sales@grocerypulse.ca. Price corrections: the help page.