About Peak Otter
Where did the money go? Let’s find out together.
Peak Otter builds simple spending tools that live in your own Google account. No subscriptions, no data harvesting, no 47-tab spreadsheet panic. Just a clear picture of where your money went, with a little fun along the way.
Meet the human behind the otter
Hi, I’m Michael. I live at the base of Pikes Peak in Colorado, where the mountain stands 14,115 feet tall and my free time is roughly 14 minutes long. I’m a dad to young kids, an engineer and project manager by trade, and a zero-based budgeter (ZBB for short) for close to a decade.
Zero-based budgeting means every dollar gets a job before the month begins. It works beautifully, right up until you ask the question every budgeter eventually asks: “Wait, what did I actually buy?” Your bank statement says “AMZN Mktp” and shrugs.
At work, I’ve spent years running projects and building automation that touched hundreds of thousands of dollars. I brought the same habits home: measure it, automate the boring parts, and never trust a system you can’t see inside. I also know exactly how much a typical household quietly sends to subscriptions each month, and I’m not a fan. And I like my financial data kept to myself.
So I built tools that do the job, cost you once, and keep your data where it belongs: with you. They all live under one name, Peak Otter.
— Michael R.
Why an otter on a peak?
Otters are the engineers of the animal kingdom. Sea otters use tools, keep a favorite rock in a pocket of loose skin under one arm, and approach every problem like it might be fun. That’s the energy we want money tools to have.
The peak is home. We’re based at the foot of Pikes Peak, and the mountain is a good reminder that big goals get climbed one steady step at a time. Budgeting is a long hike, not a sprint, and the view from the top is a bank balance that finally makes sense.
How we think about money
Three ideas shape everything we build.
Every dollar gets a job
You can’t assign a dollar a job if you don’t know what the last one did. Our tools show you the “what” behind each purchase, so your budget runs on facts instead of guesses.
It runs in your own Google account
You get your own copy of the spreadsheet, and your data stays in your Drive. No Peak Otter login, no server collecting your shopping history, no “free” tier quietly paid for by your habits.
Pay once, done
No subscription. Tracking your subscriptions should not require another subscription.
The numbers behind the otter
We don’t build in a vacuum. Here’s what a real Amazon order history spanning 16 years looks like in data.
| What we measured | The number |
|---|---|
| Years of order history | 16 (Aug 2010 to Jul 2026) |
| Orders | 2,237 |
| Individual items | 4,174 |
| Different products | 2,950 |
| Total purchases, before tax | About $88,700 |
| Biggest single order | 28 items |
| Items Amazon's own export left without a department | 627 (15%) |
| Cancelled items flagged for review | 123 |
That’s nearly $89,000 and thousands of “I’m sure I needed that” moments, sorted into plain categories you can actually read. Amazon’s export leaves 1 in 7 items without a proper department, so OtterSpend brings its own category rules to fill the gaps.
What we promise (and what we won’t do)
- We won’t sell, share or peek at your data. It isn’t ours.
- We won’t bury you in a 90-page manual. Setup is a short walkthrough, written in plain English.
- We won’t hide the price or add a “premium tier” next year to get the good features.
- We won’t ghost you. A real person answers at PeakOtterSupport@gmail.com.
Ready to meet your spending?
OtterSpend turns your Amazon order history into a clear, itemized picture of where your money went, right inside your own Google Sheets. Import your order file, let it sort every item into a category, fix anything it got wrong with a click, and watch the story of your spending appear.
One price. No subscription. Your data, your sheet, your call.