[smt88]

> I'm not sure why this doesn't exist.

Impossible to get reliable data without the cooperation of local vendors. Local businesses are extremely difficult to sell to. From personal experience, I can tell you that the time-cost of acquiring each vendor is 20+ hours, and the value is nearly zero (since you need thousands of vendors to make the product work).

That's why successful directories of local data (Yelp, for example) use crowd-sourced data.

As far as your issues with your mechanic: check out YourMechanic and RepairPal. Also read about RedBeacon (which has now pivoted), TaskRabbit, and Thumbtack. Yelp is also now using their influence to bring business on-board to give quotes via Yelp as a platform.

[stomachfat]

I totally agree; getting local businesses to agree is very tough. But I was just going to put their prices without their permission. Like I had to call a bunch of places anyway. Might as well share that with my friends (and whomever would find it useful).

I was hoping this would become crowd-sourced data somehow. Because I need a community of people always updating prices for this to continue working.

I didn't know Yelp was bringing business on-board for quotes. That would mean if I could get this to work ... I'd be competing with a giant.

What are thoughts on the above : ).

Btw, thank you so much for your response. I really appreciate the warnings and resources and ideas you gave.

[smt88]

> But I was just going to put their prices without their permission.

For businesses with published price lists (like restaurants), that data has been painstakingly collected by companies like SinglePlatform and published online.

For businesses without published price lists, this method of data collection would just never work. How could you get prices of a hardware store, for example? What's worse is that small businesses often play with pricing, so the data would need to be refreshed frequently. It just doesn't scale.

> Might as well share that with my friends (and whomever would find it useful).

Yelp has some of these posts already. Most of us only get hidden, variable prices like this on an infrequent basis. The bulk of most people's purchases are at large chains, not local businesses.

> I was hoping this would become crowd-sourced data somehow.

What's the incentive? Why does it make me feel good to post this data? With Yelp, you get to be an amateur restaurant critic. You get to express your opinion like you're an important expert. That makes people happy. It also serves as a way to document and collect your experiences (look at all the cool restaurants I've been to!)

Collecting prices doesn't help me the same way. There has to be a hook. People won't do work without getting something in return.