Gaspy is a

crowd-sourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

petrol Gasoline (North American English) or petrol ( Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When formul ...

price monitoring application for

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. It based in

Tauranga Tauranga (, Māori language for "resting place," or "safe anchorage") is a coastal city in the Bay of Plenty Region and the List of cities in New Zealand, fifth-most populous city of New Zealand, with an urban population of or roughly 3% of t ...

and available for both

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and Android. Prices are entered into the app by motorists. the app has half a million users. A founder of Gaspy says that 97 percent of the app's data is accurate, and that the data is externally audited.

History

Gaspy was started in 2016 by Larry Green and three other directors of Hwem, a technology company. It was a "philanthropic sideproject, 'for kicks'". Originally Gaspy was made to demonstrate engineering capabilities of Hwem to potential clients. It was also created as a game, where members would play as characters who would achieve spy ranks depending on how much they contribute to the app. Once the app reached 200,000, the

Commerce Commission The Commerce Commission () (sometimes shortened to ComCom) is a New Zealand government agency with responsibility for enforcing legislation that relates to competition in the country's markets, fair trading and consumer credit contracts, and r ...

, who was studying fuel prices, used Gaspy's data. The study found that consumers were paying too much for fuel, and made propositions on how to make the market more competitive. In 2020 Gaspy reached 500,000 members. In 2023 after the 2022 New Zealand fuel tax subsidy was removed, Gaspy membership numbers surged. In one day, it received an increase of 6500 members, compared to its usual 500 new members per day. During this time, Gaspy reached 146,500 active users in a day, compared to numbers averaging between 35,000 and 60,000.

References

{{Reflist Companies based in Tauranga New Zealand companies established in 2016 Software companies of New Zealand Crowdsourcing Online databases Price indices