Start a buying circle.
Three to six neighbors can split a warehouse-sized package, take turns driving, and divide the cost. This page explains how to form a circle, what participants need to decide, and how the design protects them. For an overview of how the archive coordinates a purchase without revealing shopping history, start with Buying together.
What you would do
Six steps, from your seat. Most of it is just neighbors being neighbors.
Find your circle. Two to five households you already know: a stretch of the block, a few people from church, the parents on your kid's team. People who would shop the warehouse anyway. Three to six houses, counting yours, is the size that works — enough to split a case, small enough that everyone knows everyone.
Agree the basics at one neighborhood meeting. Who is in. What you might split: the boring staples, olive oil, rice, paper towels. Who keeps the list (that is your organizer). Who drives the first run, knowing it rotates after that. How you will pay each other back. One meeting, about an hour. That is the whole setup.
Pair your archives, phones together, once. When the software reaches you, you set up your circle the way you would trade phone numbers: in the same room, once, on purpose. After that your archive knows your circle, and nobody outside it has any way in.
Your archive learns your list, from your own receipts, at home. It reads the receipts you already keep and notices your rhythm: olive oil about once a month, paper towels every couple of months. That list never leaves your house. Nothing about what you buy goes anywhere.
Say yes to the asks you want. Your archive offers: "these come in splittable cases — want to ask the circle?" You choose, one item at a time. Only then does a plain ask go out: "olive oil, this size, in the next two weeks, near me." It carries none of your history and none of your prices.
The run happens. One person shops. The sealed case is split at the shrink-wrap (three bottles to your porch, three to hers), same day for anything cold. The math comes back exact, to the penny, tax and all. Then you pay each other the way neighbors always have: cash, or your usual app.
One run, one circle
Four houses drawn; a real circle is three to six. One drives; every porch gets its share; only the ask ever crosses the fence.
What you need to know
Two roles, and that is all. The organizer keeps the circle's list and calls the first meeting, usually the natural convener of the block, and it can stay one steady person. The shopper is whoever drives a given run, and it rotates. No one is stuck with all the driving, and no one is paying anyone for their time.
What it costs. Nothing to KISOP. The archive is yours, and we never take a cut. You pay back your share of what was bought, at cost, to whoever shopped. The one question is the warehouse-club membership: someone in the circle is the member, and for now we treat that membership as their own cost. The circle does not split it. Whether a club's own rules let a member buy for a group is a real legal question we are asking lawyers before any real run, so start with people who would shop there anyway.
What it takes of your time. One meeting to start. After that, minutes per run: a yes, a porch handoff, a payment.
What the archive does, and what stays your call. The archive does the remembering (your list), the matching (whose asks line up), and the arithmetic (who owes whom, exact). Everything that matters stays yours to decide: which items you offer, which asks you accept, who is in your circle, and when you walk away. The archive never buys anything, never pays anyone, and never makes a decision in your place.
How you stay safe
Four things to know. Read them once and you will spot trouble a mile off.
PRIVACY — What crosses the fence.
One thing crosses the fence: the ask (a staple, a size, a two-week window, and a rough how-far). Your buying history never crosses. Neither does what you paid, nor the reason your archive thought to suggest it. The why stays home, the same as your bloodwork. Every ask expires on its own. And you can leave your circle any day. An ask you already sent cannot be un-sent. It was a line about a future purchase, and it expires on its own. Nothing about your past ever crossed, so you leave none of your history behind.
FOOD — Sealed only, split at the wrap, allergies checked face to face.
You split sealed factory units at the shrink-wrap seam (three sealed bottles to you, three to her), never anything opened, poured, or repackaged, and anything cold changes hands the same day. Allergies and diets get checked person-to-person at the handoff, out loud, on purpose. The system never carries your dietary needs. A "gluten-free" tag attached to your ask would tell the whole circle something about your health. So ask your neighbor at the porch.
MONEY — The system does the math. You do the paying.
KISOP works out the split to the penny and stops there: it never holds, moves, or touches a dollar. You pay a neighbor you already know, cash or your usual app. Cash is the most private way, because a payment app puts your name on their phone, outside anything we control. Start small: one shared case, not a hundred-dollar order. And your archive keeps its own quiet record of who showed up and settled up, yours alone to look at before the next run.
PEOPLE — Only people you know. No strangers, today.
A circle is people you already know, or people vouched to you by someone you trust. An unknown sender cannot reach you. There is no stranger "matching" today. None. The day KISOP can carefully introduce circles that do not yet know each other, it will be announced on the main site's changes board, dated, in plain sight — never slipped in behind your back.
Refuse these
If you see any of these, it is not us. Walk away.
Anyone selling you a "KISOP membership," a "circle app," or a paid spot in a circle. Today there is nothing to buy, and there will never be a fee to belong.
Anyone asking you to prepay a stranger for a run before a single thing is bought. You reimburse a neighbor you know, after the shopping, for your share at cost. That is the only way money moves.
Any app or website that asks for your shopping history, your bank login, or your card to "join a circle." Your list lives in your house. Joining a circle never costs you your shopping history.
Anyone trying to skip the neighborhood meeting: "just send your address and Venmo, we'll sort the rest later." The meeting is the safety. No meeting, no circle.
The simplest test: if it doesn't feel like neighbors, it isn't this. Real circles move at the speed of people who know each other.
See KISOP's name on one of these? Tell us — main site, Write to us → security. Good-faith reports are welcomed and credited.
What exists today
There is no app to download yet. As of July 9, 2026, there is a working prototype running on made-up data: invented neighbors, invented receipts, checked by 143 automated tests. No one's real records were touched, not even the founder's. Overnight it grew from two houses to a full circle of three to six (51 more automated checks, 194 in all at that build), still a prototype, and the build log, the site's one status page, says so, dated, until that changes.
The one thing you can do now: start the circle the paper way. You can begin without the software. It was built to arrive at a circle that is already alive, so build the circle first.
Name your two-to-five households. Hold the meeting. Do one split with a notebook and a calculator: one case, split at the wrap, everyone pays their share. You will have done the whole thing once by hand, and you will know it works, because you did it.
Use the free starter kit on the main site. It sets up your own archive the paper-and-folders way, so your shelf is already right when the software reaches you.
Then raise your hand: main site, Write to us → interest. It takes about two minutes. A person reads it, usually within a week, and responds with next steps or a direct no.
Something worries you, or someone using our name to pull a fast one? Main site, Write to us → feedback, or Write to us → security.