Why BagRescue Costs $1.99 to Start (and What You're Actually Paying For)

TL;DR: BagRescue is a one-time $1.99 to start monitoring, then nothing until we actually rescue your first bag — after that it's $9.99/month for unlimited stores, cancel anytime. We moved off "free to start" because watching stores 24/7 costs real money, and we'd rather be honest about a small fee than sell your data or let the service get slow.

A lot of people ask the same fair question before signing up: why isn't BagRescue free to start anymore, and what exactly is the $1.99 for? Here's the honest answer, including the part most companies won't put in writing.

What BagRescue costs

• $1.99 once to start monitoring.
• Then nothing until we actually rescue your first bag.
• After that, $9.99/month for unlimited stores and full auto-purchase. Cancel anytime.

No per-bag fees, no credits, no upsells. That's the whole menu.

We used to be free to start. Here's why we changed.

For a while, anyone could start monitoring for free — no card, just go. It sounded generous, and honestly we wanted it to work. But "free to start" meant we were paying to watch stores around the clock for a lot of people who were never really going to use it, and that money comes straight out of what keeps monitoring fast and reliable for the people who are.

So we switched to a one-time $1.99 to start. It's small enough that anyone who actually wants their bags won't blink at it, and it filters out the noise so the service stays sharp for you. Everything after it is the same as before — you're free until we land your first bag. We'd rather charge a fair $1.99 up front and be honest about why than quietly sell your data or let the product get slow for everyone.

Why you don't pay more until it works

After the $1.99, you pay nothing until BagRescue lands you a bag. Then it's $9.99/month. We only get paid when you actually get fed. If we never catch you a bag, we never charge you the subscription — we'd rather tie our money to results than to a free trial you forget to cancel.

Why BagRescue exists

Here's the honest case for the product itself. Surplus-food bags are a great deal — right up until you try to actually get one. The good ones sell out in seconds, whoever refreshes fastest wins, and that's almost never the person who wanted it most. If you've used Too Good To Go for a while, you've probably spent more time missing bags than catching them.

BagRescue exists to close that gap. It watches your stores every second and reserves the bag the instant it drops — exactly what you'd do yourself if you could stare at your phone 24/7 and tap in under a second. It's your account, your card, your food; we're the assistant, not the buyer. The result is simple: more bags that would've vanished in a blink actually get rescued, and a regular person gets a real shot instead of losing to whoever happens to have the fastest thumbs. That's the reason it's worth building — and worth $1.99 to start.

Built to be fair, not greedy

A tool like this could easily turn into a land-grab — a handful of power users hoovering up every bag in town. We deliberately built against that.

• A fair queue. When more than one BagRescue member is after the same bag, we rotate who gets priority so the same person doesn't sweep every drop. Score the last one at that store and you move down the line. It keeps things even among our own members instead of just rewarding whoever's been around longest.
• Schedule around real pickups. You can tell BagRescue to only buy on the days — or exact dates — you can actually collect, and it reserves the night before. So you're not grabbing bags you'll let rot, which keeps more of them in circulation for everyone else.

These aren't accidents. If we're going to give people a faster way to grab surplus food, the least we can do is make sure it doesn't just funnel everything to a few accounts.

Is BagRescue worth it?

If you've ever watched a bag you wanted disappear before you could tap "reserve," yes. One grocery bag is usually worth more at retail than a month of Pro, and you don't pay the monthly until we've already caught you one. The $1.99 is the lowest-commitment way to find out — start monitoring or see the full pricing.