How to choose a Facebook Marketplace alert app

How do Marketplace alert apps work?

Facebook gives you one free option: save a search, turn on Marketplace notifications, and wait for Facebook to tell you about new listings. Our guide to Facebook Marketplace alerts walks through it, and this one covers what to do when those notifications go quiet.

A dedicated alert app does the searching for you. It runs your search on its own schedule against public Marketplace listings, spots the ones it has not seen before, checks them against your filters and sends you a push notification. Every app does roughly that. The differences that matter are how often it looks, how much ground one search covers, how much of the listing it reads, what it sends you, and what it asks of you in return.

The checklist at a glance

#	Ask this	A good answer sounds like	Be wary of
1	How often does it check?	A pace per search, described as a target	One number with no conditions attached
2	Is it honest about Facebook’s delay?	Says new listings stay out of search for several minutes	“Alerts seconds after posting”
3	What does one search cover?	One place plus a radius	One town per search, priced per town
4	What does an alert show?	Photo, price, key details, distance	A bare link
5	Does it read the description?	Filters check the full listing	Title-only matching
6	Which filters?	Dealers, damage, exclude words, AND/OR/NOT	Keywords only
7	Does it need your Facebook login?	No	Asks for your password or a code
8	Where does it run?	On its own servers, around the clock	Only while your phone or browser is open
9	What does it cost?	A clear price and trial terms in writing	A price you only see after sign-up
10	How do you cancel?	Through the App Store, Google Play or one clear button	Cancelling by email only
11	Currency and units?	Local prices, kilometres or miles	One currency for everything
12	What happens to your data?	A plain privacy policy, delete in the app	No policy at all

1. How often does it check, and is that a promise or a target?

“Every 3 minutes” can mean a check starts every three minutes without fail, or that the app aims for that when its servers are not busy. Ask which. Then ask what happens to a wide search: is every part of the area checked at that pace, or only the middle? If faster checking costs more, ask how many of your searches get it.

2. Is it honest about Facebook’s public-search delay?

In our testing, Facebook keeps a brand-new listing out of public search for about six to seven minutes after the seller posts it. That wait applies to everyone, including every alert app and anyone refreshing by hand. An app that checks very often still cannot show you a listing Facebook has not released yet.

So ask one question: how long from the moment the seller posts to the moment the alert reaches you, and where and when was that measured? Speed quoted from when the app found the listing, rather than when the seller posted it, hides the part you care about.

3. One search per town, or one area and a radius?

Marketplace searches one place and radius at a time. Some apps copy that, so covering a region can take a separate search for each town. Others take one point and a radius. Ask how the app counts a “search”, and how many you need for your real hunt, for example every Toyota HiLux within 250 km of Toowoomba. Our wide-area search guide shows how to plan the coverage.

4. What does an alert show?

A useful alert lets you decide from the lock screen: a photo, the price, the key details (kilometres and gearbox for a car) and how far away it is. Ask to see a sample. An alert that is just a link makes you open every one to find out it is a dud.

5. Does it read the whole listing before it alerts you?

A search results page shows little more than the photo, title and price. The words that change your mind, like “needs work”, “no registration” or “for parts”, usually sit in the description. An app that matches on the title alone cannot filter on them.

6. Which filters does it have?

At minimum you want a price range, words to exclude, and for cars make, model, year and kilometres. Better apps can also hide dealer, salvage and damaged listings, and support rules such as “HiLux AND (SR5 OR Rogue) NOT wrecking”. Ask whether a filtered listing disappears or waits in a feed you can check later. Our guides on filtering out dealers and spotting written-off cars explain why these two filters matter.

7. Does it need your Facebook login?

It should not. Marketplace listings are public, so an alert app only needs to read them. Giving an app your password, or a login code sent to your phone, gives it your account, and with it the power to post and message as you. Facebook’s own scam guide lists requests for verification codes and account passwords as phishing. When you want to contact a seller, you should do it yourself, in Facebook.

8. Does it run on your phone, in a browser, or on its own servers?

This decides whether it works while you sleep. A browser extension only checks while your computer is on and the browser is open. An app that checks from your phone depends on the phone letting it run in the background, and on iPhone, Low Power Mode turns Background App Refresh off. An app that runs on its own servers keeps checking whatever your phone is doing; your phone only receives the push.

9. What does it cost, and what is in the trial?

Find the price per month, in which currency, and what counts toward it: searches, areas or speed. For the trial, check its length, whether it needs a card, and whether trial users get the same speed as paying users. On the App Store, Apple says to cancel at least 24 hours before a trial ends if you do not want it to renew.

10. How do you cancel?

On iPhone, subscriptions bought through the App Store are cancelled in Settings, under your name, then Subscriptions. On Android, open Subscriptions in Google Play. Google notes that uninstalling an app does not cancel its subscription. If an app bills your card directly on a website, find the cancel button before you pay, not after.

11. Does it handle your currency and units?

If you buy outside the app’s home country, check that listing prices show in your currency, that distances come in kilometres or miles as you prefer, and that the subscription price shown is the one your store will charge.

12. What does it do with your data?

Every App Store page has an App Privacy section and every Google Play page has a Data safety section. Both are written by the developer, so read the privacy policy too: what it collects, whether it sells anything, where the data is stored, and whether you can delete your account inside the app.

Red flags that should make you pause

• Speed claims with no date, place or starting point.
• Promises that you will not miss anything. Nobody sees Marketplace completely.
• A “best apps” list on the app’s own website with itself at number one.
• Star ratings shown on its own site from a handful of reviews.
• Any request for your Facebook password or a code sent to your phone.
• No named company, no contact address and no privacy policy.

A blank comparison table to fill in

Copy this into a note or print the page. Fill it in from each app’s website, its store page and, where you can, a trial.

Question	App 1	App 2	App 3
Price per month, in your currency
Free trial: length, card needed?
How often it checks (target or promise?)
Posting-to-alert time, and where measured
One search = one area and radius?
Searches included in the price
Reads the full description?
Hides dealers?
Hides damaged and write-offs?
Exclude words, AND/OR/NOT?
Needs your Facebook login?
Runs on servers, phone or browser?
How you cancel
Privacy policy read?

Sources

1. About scams on Facebook Marketplace (Facebook Help Centre)
2. Turn your Marketplace notifications on or off (Facebook Help Centre)
3. Sort by distance or new listings on Facebook Marketplace (Facebook Help Centre)
4. Use Low Power Mode to save battery life on your iPhone or iPad (Apple Support)
5. Cancel a subscription from Apple (Apple Support)
6. Cancel, pause or change a subscription on Google Play (Google Play Help)
7. App privacy details on the App Store (Apple Developer)
8. Understand the Data safety section on Google Play (Google Play Help)