diff --git a/deploy.sh b/deploy.sh
index f731e8b..739539a 100755
--- a/deploy.sh
+++ b/deploy.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,30 @@
 #!/bin/bash
-docker stack deploy \
-    -c docker-compose-deploy.yml \
-    utility-bills-tracker
+set -euo pipefail
+
+COMPOSE_FILE="docker-compose-deploy.yml"
+PACKAGE_JSON="package.json"
+STACK_NAME=${STACK_NAME:-utility-bills-tracker}
+
+if [ ! -f "$PACKAGE_JSON" ]; then
+  echo "package.json not found" >&2
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+# Extract version (prefer jq if available)
+if command -v jq >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+  APP_VERSION=$(jq -r '.version' "$PACKAGE_JSON")
+else
+  APP_VERSION=$(grep -E '"version"' "$PACKAGE_JSON" | head -1 | sed -E 's/.*"version"[[:space:]]*:[[:space:]]*"([^"]+)".*/\1/')
+fi
+
+if [ -z "${APP_VERSION:-}" ] || [ "$APP_VERSION" = "null" ]; then
+  echo "Could not determine app version from package.json" >&2
+  exit 2
+fi
+
+echo "Deploying $STACK_NAME with image version: $APP_VERSION"
+
+# Pass IMAGE_VERSION env var for compose variable substitution
+IMAGE_VERSION="$APP_VERSION" docker stack deploy \
+  -c "$COMPOSE_FILE" \
+  "$STACK_NAME"
diff --git a/docker-compose-deploy.yml b/docker-compose-deploy.yml
index 5420e14..290ba21 100644
--- a/docker-compose-deploy.yml
+++ b/docker-compose-deploy.yml
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ networks:
 
 services:
   web-app:
-    image: utility-bills-tracker:1.56.0
+    image: utility-bills-tracker:${IMAGE_VERSION}
     networks:
       - traefik-network
       - mongo-network