About ShopSmartAI

The story

ShopSmartAI started in March 2026 as a generalist price-comparison site. Within six weeks we noticed something: half our search traffic was people trying to build or upgrade a PC. They were juggling spreadsheets, Reddit threads, retailer tabs, and bottleneck calculators just to make sure their parts would actually fit together.

So in May 2026 we pivoted. ShopSmartAI is now an AI Build Advisor: you describe the PC you want in plain English ("$1500 1440p gaming, NVIDIA, ATX") and we return a compatibility-verified parts list with live prices in about ten seconds. Behind the scenes, a deterministic compatibility engine (CPU socket, RAM type, GPU clearance, PSU headroom, cooler height, seven rules total) checks every combination, and a frontier LLM picks the parts that fit your budget, brand, and use case.

We don't carry inventory. We don't take payment from manufacturers. The only thing we sell is good advice — for free.

Who we are

ShopSmartAI is bootstrapped, independently owned, and operated from Calgary, Alberta, Canada by:

• Ranjith Kondoju — founder, engineering, and product. 12+ years in software; previously built data platforms in fintech and energy.
• Akshaya — community operations, retailer SKU curation, and Canadian-market sourcing.
• You — every build people share, every Reddit comment about a missing part, every email about a broken price alert makes the product better. Send us anything at hello@shopsmartai.org.

What we actually do

The headline is the AI Build Advisor, but the site is built around a fuller PC-buying journey:

• AI Build Advisor — describe your build, get a compatibility-verified parts list.
• Upgrade Advisor — tell us your current rig + budget; we identify the bottleneck and recommend the highest-ROI upgrade.
• Bottleneck Calculator — pick a CPU and GPU, see if they bottleneck each other at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K.
• Will It Run? — predict FPS for 50+ popular games at any CPU + GPU combo.
• Parts catalog — 100+ curated PC components with live prices across Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, B&H, and more.
• Plain-English guides — what is a CPU socket, DDR4 vs DDR5, how to read a GPU spec sheet — written for first-time builders.
• Free price alerts on any part. No account needed for guest alerts; sign in for unlimited.

We currently cover the United States and Canada. Other markets are on the roadmap.

How we make money (and what we won't do)

Buy buttons on ShopSmartAI are affiliate links. When you click through and complete a purchase at a retailer we partner with, we earn a small commission. The commission is paid by the retailer, never by you, and the price you pay is never affected.

We're currently in the Amazon Associates, Skimlinks, FlexOffers, and Best Buy Affiliate programs. The full list and the way each affiliate cookie behaves are documented in our Privacy Policy.

Things we will never do:

• Take money from manufacturers to surface their products higher.
• Hide negative information about a part because it would hurt commission.
• Sell, rent, or share your personal data with third-party advertisers.
• Recommend a part we wouldn't buy ourselves.

Editorial standards

Most of our long-form articles are written or co-written by humans on the team and reviewed before publishing. AI-generated copy (product descriptions, FPS predictions, upgrade verdicts) is clearly framed as such and recomputed daily; we never present AI output as a hand-written editor's pick.

See our full Editorial Standards page for what we test, how we source prices, when we update content, and how to report a mistake.

Where we hang out

We follow the PC scene on Reddit. The same curated feed we read every morning is public: reddit.com/user/shopsmartai/m/pcstack — r/buildapc, r/hardware, r/buildapcsales, r/Amd, r/nvidia, r/intel, r/sffpc and a handful more, in one stream.

We're also on X / Twitter for launches, deals, and the occasional bench result.