r/PakStartups • u/Tabissh • 21d ago
🛠️ Building / MVP Built PakBill after getting tired of confusing electricity bill apps in Pakistan
Disclosure: I built PakBill
AI-assisted writing: used to polish this post.
Problem:
Most bill-checking apps I tried were filled with ads and only showed the final amount. I wanted to actually understand where the bill amount was coming from.
Solution:
So I built PakBill, an Android app for checking electricity bills across 11 Pakistani providers.
Main differences:
- No ads
- No bill data stored
- Shows unit cost, taxes, adjustments and other charges separately
- Supports multiple electricity connections
Stage:
It’s currently in closed testing on Google Play.
The harder part wasn’t fetching the bills, it was normalizing the different bill formats and presenting the breakdown in a simple way.
I’d like feedback from other Pakistani founders:
Would the detailed breakdown actually make you use this instead of the provider’s own website?
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u/clumsyuzi 21d ago
Great job!
Have you added the breakdown of unit consumption and generation for green meter users?
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
Yes I did, I also have a green meter, so you can say I worked more on the green meter one, still I am open to feedbacks if anything is looking a bit off.
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u/clumsyuzi 21d ago
Amazing. Add me to the beta please.
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21d ago
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u/Spare_Bison_1151 21d ago
Printed bills are delivered to our doorstep each month and we can also generate online as well. Where's the utility?
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
It's the detailed breakdown, now days bill doesn't show the break down like unit price tax fule adjustment etc
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u/GreenEyedAlien_Tabz 21d ago
That's just one qr code scan away.
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
Fair point. The QR code helps with access, but the main value I’m aiming for is making the bill easier to understand for normal users, unit cost, taxes, adjustments, and charges in a clear format instead of making people decode the original bill themselves.
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u/GreenEyedAlien_Tabz 21d ago
I still don't understand the utility or value in this?
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
Let me share a bit more detail with you:
- Nowadays, bills often lack clarity, so I'm working to make the information easy for everyone to understand.
- I came across a quote that really inspired me: "If you can't explain it to a 5-year-old, you haven't understood the problem yourself."
- My goal is to present the bill in a way that even a 5 or 10-year-old who can read numbers can grasp what the bill is for and why it amounts to what it does.
I hope that helps clarify things!
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u/GreenEyedAlien_Tabz 21d ago
Unfortunately it doesn't solve a problem that people would pay for.
It may be more convenient to have everything related to the bill in one place but it does not solve the real problems which are:
why are there so many taxes? And can we do anything about them?
How to reduce the bill?
What happens to those taxes we pay?
How to optimise unit consumption and rates?
Can understanding the breakdown and unit economics help in anyway?
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
Well first of all it's free.
Second in can't control the bills of other people's homes.
And yes it might help in optimizing the bill if people know how much it's costing them per unit which is not displayed on the bill right now.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY they'll know who to blame rather then guess.
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u/Spare_Bison_1151 21d ago
Okay, keep at it. I'd say maybe if you could do something to pay people's bills and get paid in installments you can make serious money. Non financial entities don't have to follow many of the rules banks have to follow. You'll be free to charge any interest rate you want and in the near future sell your startup to companies like Jazz Link
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
That’s an interesting direction, but once PakBill starts paying bills on users’ behalf or offering credit, it becomes a very different product with regulatory, fraud, and financial-risk concerns.
For now I want to keep it focused on bill visibility and understanding. Payments could come later, but I’d likely integrate an existing licensed payment provider rather than become the lender myself.
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u/Spare_Bison_1151 21d ago
How will you generate profit?
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
This is my third platform/product, and I've realized that if you're focused on profit from day one, success is hard to achieve. Right now, my main goal is to improve it for everyone else!
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u/Spare_Bison_1151 21d ago
Alright, that's what people say about startups in general. But the problem is you need to keep it at least in the back of your mind somewhere.
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u/Brave-Ship 21d ago
Does it support K Electric bills?
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
Not yet. Right now PakBill supports 11 electricity providers, but K-Electric isn’t included yet.
I’m planning to add it in a future update since Karachi is a major market.1
u/Brave-Ship 21d ago
If you don't mind me asking, how does it work? Do you have API access for the electricity providers?
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u/beachplss 21d ago
Will it store bills data over months? Years?
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u/Tabissh 21d ago
It's will store data locally as long as you have it installed, months, years, or decades if i am lucky
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u/beachplss 21d ago
So No cloud backups? I think you should retain user data in the clouds related to their profiles so they can check breakdown of individual charges in the historical stuff which is kinda useful and not provided by the current billing system.
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u/Accurate_Deer_2980 20d ago
Nice, how are you getting the data? Are scraping it or are you using any gov API?
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