Seven sellers already offer something close to the sample's meal planner, and 6 of them print a price. You find out who already sells your idea, and at what price, on page two of the free read. The search runs right after the people who have the problem, because it looks up the products they say they use.
Fig. 1 · What it looks like on the sample read
On the sample read, the line under the table reads "6 of 7 sellers print a price; all charge $4.17 to $12 a month or $6.49 to $8.99 with no period printed." The two prices with no period are a plate of prepared toddler food and a box of frozen snacks, which a parent buys as they go, so the line keeps them apart from the monthly plans. It marks the market as crowded. The next line, sourced from the seller's own page, reads "Little Lunches offers personalized weekly meal plans and feeding support for picky eaters and families."
Each seller shows its name, a link to its page, one line on how it describes itself in its own words, and its price as printed. Three more lines on the sample came from the people on page two, and each reads like "1 person we quoted says they use Little Spoon for this," with that person's quote as the source.
Fig. 2 · Where we look and how
We search the web for the solution by name, for the problem with the word app or service, and for alternatives to what people use today. A page that lists products isn't a seller, so we take the names it mentions and look each one up on its own. We also search the forums where people ask each other what they use instead. A workaround they put together themselves counts as a seller, because it's what they pay for today.
The products the people on page two say they use get looked up too. Their quote is the source, which is how a seller nobody advertises can still show up. A name that lands on an unrelated company with the same name is dropped, and so is a review site standing in for the product.
Fig. 3 · How the price gets there
Every price comes from the seller's own page or from the search result that shows it. When the result has no price, or says free, we look for the seller's pricing page. A seller whose result says free and whose page prints a price shows both, as "Free, then $25 a month", because a free tier is not a free product. A price we can't find stays empty, and we never guess one. Each price we find is kept as a source of its own, which is what lets the five questions compare your price with theirs on page three.
The range is given per period, monthly, yearly, per use and one-off, so a yearly price never stands beside a monthly one or a price per report beside a one-time payment, and the line that compares your price with theirs uses the prices on your period. The line under the table says how many sellers print a price, how many of those charge the range, how many have a free tier, and how many are free, each as a count of the sellers found.
The section marks the market by how many sellers it found. One or two is thin, three to seven is crowded, and more than seven is saturated.
Fig. 4 · When nobody sells it
When the searches find no seller, the section says "No seller of this showed up in the searches we ran," under the label "no source says this." That line means we searched and found nothing. Nobody selling something close is a finding about the market, and you read it next to the people on page two.
Fig. 5 · Which plan runs it, and what would change it
Free runs it, and it reads the same amount on every plan. It runs again when you change what you'll build or what people use today, in one sentence (Iterating). A change of price leaves it as it is, because the sellers don't change with your price. It also runs again whenever who has the problem runs again. On Pro, who pays reads these prices next.