I built Carlytic because I had no idea what my car actually cost me

For years I thought I had my car expenses under control — until I realized I actually didn’t.

Fuel receipts were gone, oil top-ups were just a rough memory, and maintenance history was split between a service book, notes, and guesswork. Whenever I tried to understand what the car really cost me to run, I never had a clear answer.

I tried a few existing apps, but most felt overly complicated for something I needed to do quickly, often standing at a gas station or right after a service visit. Too many features, accounts, or friction meant I simply stopped using them.

So I built Carlytic for myself first.

The goal wasn’t to build another feature-heavy car app, but something simple enough that logging fuel or maintenance takes less than 30 seconds. Over time it started giving me something I was missing before — a real overview of ownership costs and patterns I normally wouldn’t notice.

What surprised me most is how many drivers operate their cars without ever seeing clear long-term numbers. We know roughly what we spend, but rarely accurately.

Carlytic exists to turn car ownership from guesswork into clear numbers.

I’m building this as an indie project and would genuinely love feedback from other builders here — especially if you’ve tried tracking real-world expenses or habits in your own products.

How do you personally track recurring real-life costs that are easy to ignore day-to-day?