Free Stuff Finder

2 Million Installs. Built From Scratch.

Free Stuff Finder is a coupon and deal aggregator for the US market. Users open the app, see today’s best free products, coupons, and deals from major retailers, and save money. Simple concept. The execution is what made it the #2 coupon app in the US App Store.

EltexSoft built both mobile apps from scratch. The client had a web platform and a WordPress-based backend that aggregated deals from affiliate partners and retail networks. What they did not have was mobile. We built that.

How It Started

The project began in 2018 with a single iOS developer from our team, a project manager, and a QA engineer. The client provided the backend, business analysis, and design.

The iOS app launched first. Swift, UIKit, VIPER architecture, Realm for local data persistence. After the first version shipped and proved the mobile channel worked, we added an Android developer to build the Kotlin native app.

The initial product was straightforward: a deal feed. The WordPress backend served as the CMS and API layer, pushing curated offers from affiliate partners and retailers to the mobile clients. Users browsed deals, tapped through to the retailer, and the platform earned affiliate commissions.

What happened next was not straightforward.

The Product Found Its Shape During Development

Free Stuff Finder did not launch with a fully defined product vision. The app evolved through iteration, and the engineering had to keep up.

The deal feed became a social platform. User-generated content appeared: users could post their own coupon finds. Wishlists let users save deals for later. Community features enabled interaction between users. The app went from “curated catalog” to “social savings network,” and the architecture had to support both without a rewrite.

Our iOS lead drove much of this evolution from the engineering side. The designer on the project did not have deep mobile UX experience, so the development team translated the visual direction into mobile-first interaction patterns. Navigation flows, deal card layouts, wishlist mechanics, social feed behavior. The engineers were making product decisions alongside the code.

This is common on products that are still searching for product-market fit. The team that builds the app is also the team that shapes it. That requires an architecture flexible enough to absorb weekly scope changes without accumulating crippling technical debt.

VIPER on iOS gave us that flexibility. Each module (deals, wishlist, user profiles, social feed) was self-contained. When the product pivoted toward social features, we added new modules without destabilizing the deal aggregation core.

COVID Changed Everything

In early 2020, COVID-19 hit. Consumer behavior shifted overnight. People who previously browsed deal sites casually became active deal hunters. Interest in free products, samples, and coupons spiked as household budgets tightened.

Free Stuff Finder was in the right category at the right time. Organic downloads surged. The app climbed the App Store rankings in the coupons and deals category, reaching the #2 position. Total installs crossed 2 million across iOS and Android. Google Play alone showed 500,000+ downloads.

The engineering challenge during this growth period was not building new features. It was keeping the existing product stable under load. Seasonal spikes (Black Friday, holiday campaigns) had always been part of the cycle, but COVID turned every week into a spike week.

We optimized Realm caching to reduce API calls, tuned network request batching so the app stayed responsive on slow connections, and ensured the deal feed loaded fast enough that users did not bounce before seeing their first offer. The difference between a coupon app that loads in 1 second and one that loads in 4 seconds is the difference between retention and uninstall.

What We Built

iOS app. Swift, UIKit with XIB layouts, VIPER architecture, Realm for local storage, Firebase for analytics and push notifications, Alamofire for networking. Custom animations and dynamic layouts for deal cards, category browsing, and social feed.

Android app. Kotlin, native architecture mirroring the iOS feature set. Shared API layer with the same WordPress backend.

Deal aggregation. The apps consumed deal data from the WordPress API, which aggregated offers from affiliate networks, direct retailer partnerships, and editorial curation. Deals were cached locally so the app worked offline and loaded instantly on repeat visits.

Social features. User-generated deal posts, wishlists, saved offers, community interactions. This layer transformed the app from a catalog into a platform.

iPad and tablet support. Added mid-project when usage data showed meaningful tablet traffic. Required adapting the entire UI from phone-first layouts to responsive designs that worked on larger screens.

Push notifications at scale. Deal alerts, price drop notifications, seasonal campaign pushes. Timed to maximize engagement without triggering notification fatigue.

The Team

At peak, the EltexSoft team included:

An iOS developer who grew into the mobile engineering lead, owning architecture decisions, technical priorities, and code standards across both platforms. Two additional mobile engineers (iOS and Android) who joined as the product scaled. A QA engineer testing across devices, OS versions, and seasonal load conditions. A project manager coordinating between our engineering team and the client’s product and design team.

The client provided the WordPress backend, business analysis, and UI/UX design. We built everything on mobile.

Active development ran from 2018 to 2021. After 2021, the engagement shifted to maintenance: OS updates, stability patches, and periodic improvements.

Why This Case Study Matters

Free Stuff Finder is not the kind of project most agencies put in their portfolio. It is not a venture-backed startup with a $30M raise. It is not a Fortune 500 enterprise engagement. It is a consumer app built by a small team that reached 2 million installs and the #2 position in its App Store category.

What it demonstrates about how we work:

We build products that scale. From zero to 2M installs. The architecture held because it was built to absorb change, not just ship the first version.

Our engineers grow with the product. The iOS developer who started as a single contributor became the mobile tech lead who shaped the product’s technical direction. That is what happens on a 3-year engagement with a stable team.

We handle ambiguity. The product did not have a fixed roadmap. It evolved weekly. The engineering team adapted without losing stability. VIPER’s modular structure made that possible.

We ship through growth shocks. COVID changed the user base overnight. The app handled the traffic because the caching, networking, and data layer were already built for resilience, not just for the current load.

Who We Are

EltexSoft is a boutique software engineering studio. 35-50 senior engineers. Headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal. Engineering team in Ukraine. Founded in 2015.

We build consumer apps, B2B platforms, and everything in between. Other mobile work includes Unfold (Apple Best of 2019), MOTTIV (endurance training platform), and Meal4U (Danish food platform). We build with iOS, Android, Laravel, React, Vue, and Django.

5.0 Clutch rating across 30+ verified reviews. 200+ five-star Upwork reviews. Top Rated Plus and Expert-Vetted agency status (top 1%). Average client engagement: 3+ years.

30-minute technical call. Bring your consumer app challenge, your scaling problem, or your mobile product idea. We’ll tell you what we’d build and what we wouldn’t.

Talk to us →