Costcodle

Costcodle is a daily price-guessing game built around real Costco products. Each day it shows you one warehouse food item, photo and name included, and gives you six tries to guess its price, nudging you higher or lower after every attempt. Get within five percent of the actual price and you win.

What is Costcodle?

Costcodle is a free daily browser game that turns Costco shopping instincts into a guessing puzzle. Each day it shows one real Costco food item, complete with a product photo and name, and challenges you to guess its warehouse price in six tries or fewer. You win by landing within five percent of the actual price, which sounds generous until you remember how unpredictable bulk pricing can be.

The core loop is simple but the math is sneaky. You type a price in dollars and cents, and after each guess the game points you in the right direction: an up arrow means the real price is higher than you guessed, and a down arrow means it is lower. The feedback goes beyond a plain arrow, though. Costcodle also signals how close you are, telling you when a guess is more than twenty-five percent off versus already within twenty-five percent of the target. The color of each guess reflects this: a far-off guess shows red, a near guess (inside twenty-five percent) shows yellow, and a winning guess turns green. That red-to-yellow-to-green proximity hint is what separates a lucky stab from a calculated approach, since it lets you tell whether you need a big correction or a small nudge.

What sets Costcodle apart from the broader family of Wordle clones is that it has nothing to do with letters or vocabulary. Instead of spelling, you are reasoning about retail value, unit pricing, and the quirks of a membership warehouse where a massive multipack can undercut your gut estimate and a small specialty item can blow past it. The game was created by Zachary Kermitz, who publishes it under the GitHub handle KermWasTaken, and it is an open source project released under the MIT License. The product information comes from the Costco Food Database at costcofdb.com, and the creator openly credits Wordle and Tradle as the inspirations that shaped the once-a-day, six-guess, share-your-result format.

After you finish, win or lose, Costcodle tracks personal statistics including games played, win percentage, current streak, maximum streak, and a guess distribution chart, so there is a light sense of progression and bragging rights across days. The vibe is casual and quick, usually a one or two minute diversion rather than a grind, and the difficulty leans on how well you know real Costco prices rather than on trivia memorization. It tends to click with regular Costco members, deal hunters, and anyone who enjoys a numbers-based daily puzzle that rewards practical knowledge over wordplay.

How to play Costcodle

1. Open Costcodle and study the day's Costco product, reading both the photo and the item name carefully.
2. Type a price in dollars and cents, for example $12.99, as your first guess.
3. Read the feedback: an up arrow means the true price is higher than your guess, a down arrow means it is lower.
4. Note the proximity hint, where a red guess is more than twenty-five percent off and a yellow guess is already within twenty-five percent, and adjust accordingly.
5. Use the direction and closeness to refine your next guess, working to land within five percent of the real price (a correct guess turns green).
6. Repeat until you win or use all six attempts, then return the next day for a fresh product.

Tips and strategy

• Anchor on per-unit value: a Costco multipack total is usually higher than your instinct for a single unit, so multiply before you guess.
• Spend your first guess as a wide bracket rather than a precise stab, since you only need direction early and can tighten later.
• Watch the color, not just the arrow. A red guess means you are more than twenty-five percent off and need a big jump, while yellow means you are within twenty-five percent and can make a small correction.
• Remember that warehouse pricing is counterintuitive: huge tubs and bulk staples often cost less than expected, while small specialty or organic items run higher.
• Once an arrow flips between two of your guesses, you have bracketed the price, so binary-search the middle of that range to home in fast.
• Keep the five percent win window in mind on your final guesses and aim for the center of your bracket rather than an exact round number.

Good to know

Resets

Daily, one new product each day

Cost

Free to play

Guesses

6 attempts

Win condition

Guess within 5% of the actual price

Creator

Zachary Kermitz (GitHub: KermWasTaken)

Platform

Web browser, open source (MIT License)

Costcodle FAQ

Is Costcodle free to play?

Yes. Costcodle is completely free to play in any web browser, with no account or payment required. It is an open source project released under the MIT License.

How many guesses do you get in Costcodle?

You get six guesses per day. After each guess, an arrow tells you whether the real price is higher or lower, and the guess color shows how close you are: red for more than twenty-five percent off, yellow for within twenty-five percent, and green for a win. You win by guessing within five percent of the actual price.

When does Costcodle reset?

A new Costcodle puzzle is available every day, so the product changes once per day. The site does not publish an official reset time, so the simplest approach is to check back each day for the new item.

Is there a Costcodle archive of past puzzles?

Costcodle does not advertise an official archive of previous puzzles. The game is designed around one fresh product per day rather than a back catalog you can replay.

Is Costcodle related to Wordle?

Costcodle is not made by the makers of Wordle, but its creator credits Wordle and Tradle as inspirations. It borrows the once-a-day, six-guess, shareable format while swapping word guessing for guessing real Costco product prices.