FirstSnag watches your Facebook Marketplace searches right in your own Chrome. When something new is listed, you hear about it within minutes, with a straight answer on whether the price is actually good.
14-day free trial, no card We never see your Facebook password Your searches stay in your browser
Price drop: $340 → $275 · PS5 Digital Edition
19% cheaper · Seattle, WA
Great deal: $8,550 · 2015 Honda Civic LX
29% under similar cars · 88k mi · Bellevue, WA
The FirstSnag dashboard on demo listings (drawings stand in for the photos). It opens from the FirstSnag button in Chrome's toolbar, and what it shows is stored in your own browser.
How it works
Nothing else to install and no new Facebook login. FirstSnag works inside the Chrome you already use.
Sign up with your email and a password, then confirm your email. Your 14-day free trial of everything starts right away.
Add it from the Chrome Web Store, then sign in to your FirstSnag account in the extension. It works in desktop Chrome on Windows or Mac.
Sign in to Facebook in Chrome yourself, the normal way. Then type what you'd search on Marketplace, like "PS5" or "Yamaha R6", with a max price or words to skip if you want.
FirstSnag checks your searches in a small minimized Chrome window. New listings, deals and price drops show up as Chrome notifications, with a chime.
Great deal: $6,600 · 2016 Yamaha R6
29% under similar bikes · 6.1k mi · Seattle, WA
New: $340 · PS5 Slim Digital
Features
Every alert comes with the context you'd normally dig for yourself: is it actually cheap, did the price just drop, and is something off.
It learns what things really go for near you: the middle price of what your search has seen in the last 60 days, minus "for parts", "wanted" and silly prices. Every listing gets a label, and you can see the listings behind it.
With up to 3 searches, each one is checked about every 5 minutes, so on average you hear about a new listing 2 to 3 minutes after it shows up. You get a Chrome notification and a chime, and each listing shows how long ago it was posted.
Good deal: $340 · PS5 Slim Digital + 2 controllers
15% under the typical $400 · Bothell, WA
Under your target: $275 · PS5 Digital Edition
Every listing you've seen is tracked, even the ones you scrolled past. When a seller cuts the price, you get an alert with the old and the new price, and the full price history is one click away.
"Deployed, must sell." "Rebuilt title." "Deposit to hold." Warning words hold the score down and show up on the card. A price that's too good to be true gets a warning, not a party.
One click to eBay sold prices or a free NICB VINCheck, plus questions to ask the seller, ready to copy. It never messages anyone for you.
Year and mileage come straight from the listing, and you can set a minimum year and maximum miles. A vehicle is compared with similar ones within two model years, adjusted for miles, so a tired high-mileage car doesn't pass for a steal.
Search for an iPhone 15 Pro and the cases, chargers and other models go to "Other results" instead of your alerts. Placeholder prices like $1 or $123 are left out of the math too.
Type your ZIP once, then pick how far each search reaches, from 1 to 500 miles. Anything farther goes to "Other results", and every listing shows how far away it is.
Your searches, listings, alerts and settings are stored in Chrome on your computer, not on our servers. Our server only keeps what your account needs, like your email and your plan. Card details stay with Stripe.
Before you start
FirstSnag isn't a cloud service with a fleet of servers. It's an extension in your own Chrome that does what you'd do yourself, just more patiently.
No cloud scrapers, no proxies, no fake accounts. Checks run in a small minimized Chrome window that FirstSnag opens, with the Facebook login you already have. That's also why Chrome has to be open and your computer awake for alerts.
By default, one page at a time, 20 to 40 seconds apart, and at most 40 pages an hour. Like a person refreshing the page, not a bot hammering it. The more searches you add, the more they share those checks. You can change the pace in Settings, but going faster raises the risk to your Facebook account.
If Facebook shows a warning, asks you to sign in again or puts up a security check, FirstSnag stops and tells you. It never tries to get around it, and it never posts, messages or clicks anything on Facebook.
Facebook doesn't allow automated tools, so it could limit or close your Facebook account. FirstSnag goes slowly and stops at the first warning, but you use it at your own risk, and we're not responsible for what Facebook does to your account.
I started building FirstSnag while hunting for a Yamaha R6 on Facebook Marketplace. Good ones at a fair price go fast, and refreshing a search all day isn't a plan. Most of the alert apps I looked at run in the cloud, and few say how they decide what's a deal.
So I built the one I wanted. It runs in my own Chrome, checks politely, and shows its math, down to the listings behind every score. The motorcycle comparisons and red-flag checks are in there because I needed them for my own search.
Compare
Cloud alert apps pay for servers and proxies, and charge for it. They also keep working while your computer is off, which we can't do.
Swipe the table sideways to see every app.
| Feature | FirstSnagPro | SwoopaGo plan · source | DealScoutPaid plans · source | SpottablePaid plans · source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $15 a month, or $119 a year | $47 a month ($28 a month on a 12-month plan) | $39.99 to $99.99 in-app (period not stated) | $4.99 to $28.99 a month |
| Searches | Up to 25 | 7 | 3 to 10 | Not listed |
| How often it checks | About every 5 min (up to 3 searches)More searches share 40 checks an hour | Not stated (Basic, Fast and Instant tiers) | Within 5 min (within 1 h on free) | Not stated |
| Price-drop alerts | Yes | Only on the $352/mo plan | Not listed | Not listed |
| How it judges a deal | Typical local price, with the comps shown | AI, method not described on their site | No deal score listed | AI score 1 to 10, method not described on their site |
| Car prices by year and mileage | Yes, plus free NHTSA recalls | AI estimate, method not described on their site | Not listed | Not listed |
| Works with your computer off | No, it runs in your Chrome | Yes (cloud) | Yes (cloud) | Yes, on paid plans |
| Phone app | No, Chrome on Windows or Mac | iPhone and Android | iPhone | iPhone, plus a Chrome extension |
From each company's own pricing page or App Store listing (linked above), checked Oct 17, 2026. "Not listed" means we couldn't find it there. Prices change; if something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
Pricing
The trial is everything, with no card. If it finds you deals, keep it for $15 a month, or less by the year.
Test mode: checkout uses Stripe's test cards, and nothing is really charged.
The extension isn't in the Chrome Web Store yet. The 14-day trial starts when you confirm your email, and paying starts billing right away, so you may want to wait until it's listed.
Founding members: Pro monthly for $10 a month for as long as you stay subscribed.
To try it on the things you want most.
No card needed
Start free trialFor hunting seriously, or flipping.
Cancel anytime
Buy monthlySame Pro, a lot cheaper per month.
$9.91 a month, billed once a year
Buy yearly
Yes. FirstSnag is an extension for desktop Chrome (version 137 or newer) on Windows or Mac. There's nothing else to install.
There's no phone version, and alerts show up in Chrome on that computer. If phone alerts matter to you, tell us; it helps us decide what to build next.
Yes. The checks run in a small minimized Chrome window that FirstSnag opens, so Chrome has to be open and your computer awake. A sleeping computer means no alerts. The screen can still turn off; only sleep stops it.
No. Facebook's terms don't allow automated tools, so Facebook could limit or close your Facebook account. FirstSnag is built to be gentle: it only runs your own searches, checks slowly like a person refreshing the page, and stops at the first warning.
Even so, you use it at your own risk, and we're not responsible for what Facebook does to your account. We're not affiliated with Meta in any way.
No. You sign in to Facebook yourself, in your own Chrome, the normal way. FirstSnag never sees or asks for your Facebook password.
It only opens Marketplace search pages and listing pages and checks whether you're signed in to Facebook (yes or no). It doesn't read your messages, friends or profile, and it never posts, messages or clicks anything on Facebook.
When you add it, Chrome asks you to let FirstSnag read and change your data on www.facebook.com and api.nhtsa.gov, and to show notifications. "Read and change your data" is Chrome's standard wording for an extension that opens pages on a website.
FirstSnag needs facebook.com to open Marketplace search pages and listing pages, the NHTSA site for the free US government vehicle lookups (recalls and complaints), and notifications for your alerts. That's all it uses them for.
With up to 3 searches, each one is checked about every 5 minutes, with a little randomness. On average that's 2 to 3 minutes from when a listing shows up in Facebook's search to your alert.
By default, FirstSnag loads at most 40 pages an hour, so more searches share those checks: with 10 searches each one is checked about every 15 minutes, and with 25 about every 38 minutes. If speed matters most, run a few specific searches instead of many broad ones. You can raise the limit in Settings, but going faster raises the risk to your Facebook account.
Quiet hours are on by default: no checks from 1 AM to 7 AM, when hardly anyone browses Marketplace. You can change the hours or turn them off in the settings.
Each search learns a typical price: the middle price of what it has seen in the last 60 days, leaving out "wanted", "for parts" and rental posts plus crazy prices. Good is 10 to 25% under that, Great is 25 to 40% under, Steal is 40% or more. It needs about 8 prices before it judges anything, so a brand-new search shows "Learning" for a while.
Anything under 15% of typical gets a scam warning instead. Deal scores are a guide, not a promise: always see the item before you pay.
Yes, that's where it shines. It reads the year and mileage, lets you set a minimum year and maximum miles, compares each vehicle with similar ones, flags title and mechanical red flags, and looks up the VIN plus recalls and complaints from NHTSA when you open one. Recall data covers vehicles sold in the US.
Never. It gives you good questions to copy and paste into Messenger, but every message is yours to send.
Your account gets 14 days of everything, with no card, one trial per email. After that, FirstSnag goes view-only: your searches and saved listings stay, but checks and alerts stop until you subscribe. An Upgrade button is there whenever you're ready.
If you subscribe during the trial, billing starts right away; the rest of the trial doesn't carry over.
Cancel anytime with Manage billing on your account page. Pro keeps working until the end of the time you paid for.
Because the free trial lets you try everything first, we don't give refunds. Details are in the refund policy.
Your searches, listings, alerts and settings stay in Chrome on your computer. Our server keeps only your account: your email, a password hash (never the password itself), your plan and trial dates, and your Stripe customer and subscription ids. Card details are handled by Stripe. More in the privacy policy.
Let FirstSnag do it, politely, every few minutes. Try everything free for 14 days, no card needed.
