Pricera

Automated competitor price tracking SaaS. Users add competitor product URLs; Pricera scrapes them on a schedule, logs price history, and emails an alert the moment a price or stock status changes.

Structure

pricepilot/
  backend/    Node.js + Express API, Postgres, scraping + scheduler + billing
  frontend/   Static HTML/CSS/JS marketing site + dashboard (no build step)

Backend setup

Requires Node.js 18+ and a Postgres database.

cd backend
cp .env.example .env    # fill in DATABASE_URL, JWT_SECRET, Stripe/PayPal keys, Resend key
npm install
npm run migrate         # creates tables from src/db/schema.sql
npx playwright install chromium   # only needed for JS-rendered fallback scraping
npm run dev              # starts API on http://localhost:4000

Required third-party accounts

• Postgres — Railway, Render, Supabase, or a local instance.
• Stripe — create 4 recurring Prices (Starter/Growth/Pro/Agency) and a webhook endpoint pointing at POST /api/webhooks/stripe subscribed to checkout.session.completed, customer.subscription.updated, customer.subscription.deleted.
• PayPal — create a Product + 4 Billing Plans in the PayPal Developer Dashboard matching the same tiers, and a webhook pointing at POST /api/webhooks/paypal.
• Resend (or swap for SendGrid in src/services/mailer.js) — for alert emails.

Frontend setup

No build step. Just open frontend/index.html in a static server:

cd frontend
python3 -m http.server 5500

frontend/js/api.js points at http://localhost:4000/api when running on localhost, and PRODUCTION_API_URL (top of that file) in production — update that constant to your deployed backend URL.

Free demo deployment

See DEPLOY.md for a step-by-step, $0 deployment using Neon (Postgres) + Render (backend + frontend) + Resend (email) + Stripe test mode + PayPal sandbox. render.yaml at the repo root is a ready-to-use Render Blueprint for this.

Pages included

• Marketing: index.html, pricing.html, about.html, contact.html
• Auth: login.html, signup.html
• App: dashboard.html
• Compliance (required by Stripe/PayPal underwriting): privacy-policy.html, terms-of-service.html, refund-policy.html

Before going live

1. Replace placeholder support/billing/privacy email addresses in the legal pages and mailer.js with your real domain's addresses.
2. Set real Stripe Price IDs and PayPal Plan IDs in .env.
3. Point DNS + SSL at your host (Railway/Render/VPS) and update APP_URL/API_URL.
4. Run npm run migrate against your production Postgres.
5. Test one full signup → trial → Stripe checkout → webhook → plan upgrade loop in Stripe test mode, and the equivalent in PayPal sandbox, before switching to live keys.