About WantThis

Who runs it

WantThis is designed, built and run in the United Kingdom by its founder, Stuart, with help from a small group of friends-and-family testers who have used it for their own birthdays, weddings and Christmases since the first version went live. There is no venture funding and no parent company. When you email us, the person who replies is the person who wrote the code.

Why it exists

Gift lists have a simple job: let the people who love you buy the right thing without anyone spoiling the surprise. Most tools get one half right. Registry sites lock you into one shop. Wishlist apps let you add anything but tell the birthday person exactly what has been bought. Shared notes and group chats do neither.

WantThis lets you add an item from any UK retailer, share one link, and keep the reservations and purchases hidden from the list owner. That last part is the rule we will never break: what your gifters do is never shown to you.

What we actually do

• Gift lists for birthdays, weddings, babies and Christmas, with reservations that stay private from the owner.
• Personal wishlists and shopping baskets for the things you are saving for yourself.
• Price tracking across the UK retailers people actually shop at, with alerts when something you are watching drops.
• Curated lists, guides and a blog written from what we see people add, reserve and buy, not from a press release.
• A browser extension and a ChatGPT integration so adding an item takes seconds wherever you found it.

How it is funded

WantThis is free to use and carries no advertising. Some retailer links are affiliate links: if you buy through one, the retailer pays us a small commission and your price does not change. We also work with the AWIN and ShareASale networks. We never rank or recommend a product because of the commission it pays, and we say so in full on our affiliate disclosure page.

The rules we hold ourselves to

• Gifter activity is never shown to the list owner. Ever.
• Your data is not sold. Our privacy policy is written in plain English and we keep it that way.
• Prices are shown with the time we last checked them, and where a retailer asks us to send you to their site for the current price, we do.
• Every guide and blog post on WantThis has been written or edited by a person who has used the product, and carries their name.

Get in touch

Questions, ideas, a retailer you would like us to support, or something that looks wrong: the contact page has every way to reach us.