How to Compare Supermarket Prices in Switzerland

Groceries in Switzerland are expensive. We all know this. But what's even more expensive is not knowing that the coffee you just bought at Migros at full price is 40% off at Denner this week. Or that the detergent you paid CHF 25 for at Coop on Friday will be half price at Lidl on Monday.

The problem isn't that deals don't exist. Every week, Migros, Coop, Aldi, Lidl, Denner, Otto's and Aligro publish hundreds of promotions. The problem is that nobody has time to go through seven different flyers to find the ones that matter.

This guide is for anyone who wants to save on groceries in a practical way, without becoming a coupon obsessive and without spending hours planning. We'll explain how the pricing and promotion system works in Swiss supermarkets, and what tools exist to make your life easier.

How prices work in Swiss supermarkets

Before we talk about tools and apps, it helps to understand the system. Once you get the logic, saving money becomes almost automatic.

Basic products cost roughly the same everywhere. Milk, butter, sugar, flour, bread, spaghetti: prices across Migros, Coop, Aldi, Lidl and Denner are virtually identical for these items. K-Tipp confirms this regularly. For your daily shop, the nearest store is fine.

The real difference comes from three things:

First, the budget line. M-Budget at Migros and Prix Garantie at Coop are up to 50-70% cheaper than the standard lines in the same store. Buying M-Budget instead of M-Classic at the same Migros saves you more than switching supermarkets. It's the single change with the best effort-to-savings ratio.

Second, weekly promotions. Every supermarket puts different products on promotion each week, with discounts of 20-50%. For items like detergent, coffee, toilet paper and meat, buying on promotion versus full price makes an enormous difference to your monthly budget. Since 5 February 2026, Migros, Coop and Denner all run the same promotion cycle: Thursday to Wednesday.

Third, the unit price (per kilo or per litre). This is the trick supermarkets hope you won't use. Two packs of the same product can have similar shelf prices but completely different per-kilo prices. The bigger pack isn't always cheaper. Reading the unit price is the habit that separates people who actually save from people who think they save.

The practical method (10 minutes per week)

You don't need a spreadsheet and you don't need to visit five stores. You need a simple method you can follow every week in a few minutes.

Wednesday evening: check the week's deals. Coop's promotions are visible online from Wednesday at 4:30 PM. Migros, Denner and the others start Thursday. In 10 minutes you can see if anything you care about is on offer.

Focus on 3 categories. You don't need to check everything. The categories where promotions make the biggest difference are: meat (30-50% off), household products (detergent, toilet paper: up to 50% off), and coffee/drinks. When one of these is on promotion, buy more and stock up.

Don't switch stores to save 50 centimes. The time and petrol to reach another shop often cost more than you'd save. Only switch stores for genuine bargains: 40-50% off something you buy regularly.

What tools are available?

There are several ways to keep track of deals in Switzerland. Here they are, from simplest to most comprehensive.

Paper and online flyers. Every supermarket publishes its weekly flyer, both in your letterbox and online. The downside: you need to check 5-7 different sites and compare manually.

Flyer aggregator websites. Platforms like Rabatt-Kompass collect flyers from different supermarkets in one place. Useful for browsing, but you can't search for a specific product or compare prices directly.

Individual supermarket apps. Migros has its app with Cumulus, Coop has theirs with Supercard, Lidl has Lidl Plus. Each shows only its own deals. To compare, you need to open 5 different apps, and each one obviously only shows its own promotions.

Price comparison apps. This is where it gets interesting. A price comparison app collects deals from all supermarkets and shows them in one place. You search for a product and instantly see where it's cheapest, without opening 5 different apps.

What to look for in a price comparison app

Not all comparison apps are equal. Here are the features that make a real difference for grocery shopping in Switzerland.

Supermarket coverage. The app should include at least the big 5: Migros, Coop, Aldi, Lidl and Denner. If it also covers Otto's and Aligro, even better.

Product search, not just flyer browsing. Being able to type "coffee" and see every active coffee deal across all supermarkets is far more useful than scrolling through flyer pages.

Integrated shopping list. Saving deals directly to a shopping list without having to copy them down is a huge time saver. If the list is shareable with your partner or family, even better: anyone in the household can add items, and everyone sees where to buy them cheapest.

Price alerts. If you buy coffee every two weeks, an alert telling you "Chicco d'Oro is on promotion at Denner this week" saves you money without you having to check anything.

Canton filter. In Switzerland, deals can vary by canton. An app that shows only deals available in your area avoids the frustration of finding a great offer and discovering it doesn't apply where you live.

Visible unit price. The price per kilo or litre should always be shown. It's the only way to truly compare two similar products.

Rappn: how it works

Rappn is the app we built to solve exactly this problem. It collects deals and prices from Migros, Coop, Aldi, Lidl, Denner, Otto's and Aligro in one place. It's not a flyer app. It's a search engine for Swiss supermarket deals.

Here's how it works in practice.

Search a product, see every deal. Open the app, type "coffee" in the search bar. In one second you see every active coffee promotion across all supermarkets, with price, discount percentage and store. No flyer needed.

Add to your shopping list with one tap. Found a deal you like? One tap and it goes straight to your shopping list. The list is shareable: your partner, your kids, your flatmates can add items from their app, and everything syncs in real time. When you get to the store, your list is ready with all the deals already in it.

Save your favourite products. If you always buy the same things (coffee, milk, detergent, nappies), you can save the categories you care about. Rappn shows you the relevant deals every week without you having to search.

Set up a price alert. Activate an alert for a specific product. When it goes on promotion at any supermarket, you get a notification. No more "I wish I'd known it was on offer last week."

Everything filtered by your canton. You only see deals available in your area.

Unit price always visible. Next to the shelf price, the per-kilo or per-litre price is shown. Comparing becomes instant.

How much can you realistically save?

The numbers depend on how much you spend and how you shop today. But here are realistic estimates:

A single person spending around CHF 500-600 per month who starts buying pantry items only on promotion: CHF 50-100 per month saved.

A couple spending CHF 800-1,000 per month who combines budget lines with weekly promotions: CHF 100-200 per month.

A family of 4 spending CHF 1,200-1,500 per month who adopts the full strategy (budget for basics, promotions for pantry, discounter for fresh when it makes sense): CHF 200-400 per month.

Over a year, for a family, that's between CHF 2,400 and 4,800. Not trivial. And it doesn't require eating worse or spending your weekend doing a supermarket tour.

A note on independence

Rappn has no commercial agreements with any retailer. We don't receive money from Migros, Coop, Aldi, Lidl, Denner or anyone else to display their deals more favourably. All deals are shown as they are, with no preferences.

This matters to us. In a market where every supermarket has its own app and its own loyalty programme, all designed to keep you in their ecosystem, having an independent tool is the only way to genuinely compare.

The app is free and will stay that way. Available in English, German, French and Italian.