Haggle: AI Bill Negotiator for Introverts

The AI bill negotiator for people who hate phone calls. Assume Harvey Specter waits on hold, makes your case, and chases the refund in one-click.

Comment

Inspiration

It's 11:40 at night. Maria is at the kitchen table with a hospital bill for $4,800 and a pen she hasn't used in an hour.

She has already tried twice this week. The first call was 47 minutes on hold and the second was 52. Both times she hung up to pick her daughter up from school, and both times the hold music won.

She doesn't know that the bill charges her twice for the same lab test. She doesn't know the hospital is a nonprofit, which means it is legally required to have a financial-aid policy. She doesn't know that the denial letter in her drawer has a deadline, and that it runs out in eleven days.

She knows one thing: people like her don't beat places like that.

So she pays it, on a credit card she is still paying off, and she goes to bed feeling stupid.

Maria is a composite, but there are millions of her. Insurers deny about 1 in 5 in-network claims on ACA marketplace plans, and fewer than 1 in 100 of those denials are ever appealed (KFF). The other 99 give up. They aren't wrong. They're tired, and billing departments are counting on that.

This one is personal. I'm an introvert, and for me a phone call is a boss fight. Saying "I believe I was charged twice" to a stranger who is paid to say no is my idea of a horror movie. For years I paid bills I suspected were wrong because the call felt harder than losing the money.

One night I asked a dumb question: what if Harvey Specter made the call for me? Calm, sharp, always one rule ahead, and never once put on hold by his own nerves.

So I built him. Then I made him an owl, because owls are wise, work the night shift, and have never been sued.

What it does

Haggle is the friend who reads the fine print, makes the scary call and refuses to let it go. Here is Maria's night again, with Harvey.

She takes a photo of the bill. Ten seconds later a laser sweeps the page, red stamps land on the bad lines, and the screen says FOUND IT: $214. It's a duplicate lab fee, circled like a teacher caught it, with the rule it breaks written next to it.

She picks her fights. She swipes right on the charges she wants to dispute, and the letter writes itself. The tone dial runs from friendly to Final Notice. Letters are free, and nothing leaves her phone until she says so.

She taps "Call for me". Then she puts the phone face-down and makes dinner. Harvey sits through the hold music she never has to hear again. When a human answers, he tells them straight away that he's an AI assistant, makes her case, and asks for a reference number. Her phone buzzes: "A rep is on the line." Later: "Call finished."

For people who want to take the call themselves, there's backup:

  • Whisper coach. You do the talking. Harvey listens in and tells you what to say next, and only you hear him.
  • Type to talk. Your throat locks up? Type the sentence, and it gets spoken on the call. The rep hears it, and you never have to say a word.

Then comes the part where most fights die: the silence. The letter goes out, weeks pass, and nobody answers. Haggle doesn't forget. It reminds you before the appeal deadline, nudges you to send a Final Notice when a provider goes quiet, and keeps at it until the money actually lands.

One last check before bed. Maria runs charity care: household of three, $42,000 a year. The $4,800 drains on screen, number by number, all the way to $0.00.

She didn't become a lawyer, and she didn't suddenly get brave. She just wasn't fighting alone anymore.

Haggle also matches you to class-action settlements you are already owed, and its Scam Shield flags "you owe a toll" texts before you tap the link.

How I built it

One developer, one week, and a lot of coffee. Claude Code was my pair programmer and kept up with every 2 AM idea.

  • The app: Expo, React Native and TypeScript, on Google Play. It's designed like paper and a highlighter, so it feels like a friend marked up your bill, not like a bank.
  • Reading the bill: Gemini reads bills and denial letters, and Firebase (Functions, Firestore, Auth) keeps track of every case.
  • Making the call: ElevenLabs voice agents and Twilio place real phone calls to real numbers. LiveKit carries the live voice for the whisper coach and type-to-talk.
  • Following up: OneSignal runs the live call alerts, the deadline reminders and two journeys: "Money on the table" for refunds you haven't claimed yet, and "Win, then recap" for when you've won.
  • Paying for it: RevenueCat. The audit and the letters are free forever. Plus pays for the calls, because every minute of Harvey's voice costs real money.

Challenges

Real phones don't read the docs. Trial limits, vanishing verification codes and a voice from the wrong library each broke the call. Every one needed a fallback before Harvey reached a real person.

Teaching the app not to lie. A rep's promise isn't money. Cases move from Potential → Provider approved → Received, and only money that arrives counts.

Brave, but safe. Consent before every call, an AI disclosure on every call, no legal advice, and no provider names or amounts on the lock screen.

What I learned

The hardest part of fighting a bill isn't the law. It's the first move: picking up the phone or sending the first letter. Take that off someone's shoulders and people who have never fought anything start winning.

I also learned that people trust an app more when it admits what it doesn't know. "Possible duplicate" beats a made-up 97% confidence score every time.

And I learned that an owl in a suit makes people smile at the exact moment they're most stressed. That turned out to matter more than any feature.

What's next

  • A metered Plus plan with call minutes included. It's built and tested, and I'll switch it on once the remaining costs are measured.
  • More bill types, more countries and more rules in Harvey's head.
  • The real goal: a world where nobody pays a wrong bill just because they were too tired to fight it.

Haggle isn't a law firm and doesn't give legal advice. Nothing is sent or called without your approval. Maria is a composite of the people we built this for, and the call in our demo is a live test call with a teammate playing the billing rep.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates

Submission history