--- title: "Soulver alternative for Mac and iPhone: sums in your notes" author: Pedro Thomaz source: https://coffeetext.app/blog/soulver-alternative --- # Soulver alternative for Mac and iPhone: sums in your notes > Checked 14 November 2026 against soulver.app. Soulver's price is in US dollars and Coffee's in euros, before tax, and either can change. I make Coffee, so read this with that in mind. Coffee isn't affiliated with Soulver. If you want a calculator, buy Soulver. It's the best-known notepad calculator on the Mac, and it does things Coffee doesn't try to. If your sums belong inside notes you're writing anyway, such as a budget, a quote, a timesheet or a trip plan, Coffee works them out beside the line in ordinary Markdown files, on the Mac, iPhone and iPad. I make Coffee, so weigh what I say about it. Everything about Soulver here comes from [its own site](https://soulver.app/). ## Two different kinds of app Soulver is a calculator that looks like a notepad. You write a sheet of sums in plain words, and the answers appear in a column beside it. Everything in the app is built around that sheet. Coffee is a Markdown editor and notes app where any line can be a sum. There's nothing to turn on and no special sheet: a line in a meeting note, a recipe or a project plan gets its answer beside it, and the rest of the note is ordinary writing. The answer is drawn by Coffee and never written into the file. So the honest question isn't which one calculates better. It's whether you want a calculator, or notes that can calculate. ## What Soulver does that Coffee doesn't These come from Soulver's site, and Coffee has none of them. - **Stocks.** Soulver fetches live and historical prices for stocks. Its site says 150,000 or more stocks need its optional data services subscription. - **Live weather.** Soulver can check the weather around the world from a sheet. - **Wolfram|Alpha.** You can ask Wolfram|Alpha inline with `=?` for other data, also with the data subscription. - **Income tax.** Soulver lists tax among its features, with income tax on A$50k in Australia as an example. - **Soulver Studio.** It turns a sheet into a standalone Mac app. - **A calculator's interface.** Soulver's whole window is the calculator, with the answers in their own column. Coffee's answers sit at the end of each line of a note, beside the text, and the note is the main thing. Soulver also says it's powered by SoulverCore, its own natural language calculation engine, running on the device, and answers "No" to whether it uses AI. Coffee's sums don't use AI either: they're worked out on your device, and only exchange rates are fetched. ## What Coffee does Coffee's sums live in your notes, which are plain `.md` files in a folder you choose. You can try a few here: *There's a working demo of this [on the page](https://coffeetext.app/blog/soulver-alternative).* Beyond the basics, sums, percentages, currencies and crypto, time zones, dates and units, Coffee now understands: - **Carrying on.** A line starting with an operator carries on from the answer above, as in `+ 20%` or `× 2`. - **Names of two or three words.** `hourly rate = $80`, then `hourly rate * 6` further down. - **Subtotal and grand total.** A subtotal under each block, and a grand total for the note. - **Totals by tag.** Write lines as `Label: amount #tag`, such as `Taxi: €20 #travel`, and `total #travel`, `average #travel` or `count #travel` works over them. - **Loans and interest.** `$200,000 at 4% for 30 years` is the monthly payment, and compound or simple interest shows what an amount grows to. - **Past exchange rates.** `€100 in USD on 1 Jan 2025` uses the European Central Bank's rate for that day. - **Work hours and workdays.** Work hours between two dates, and workdays that skip public holidays in Portugal, the US, the UK, Spain, France, Germany and Brazil. - **Everyday conversions.** Lap times written h:mm:ss, dozen, rem, download time (`2 GB at 100 Mbps`), fuel economy between mpg and L/100km, and cooking (`1 cup flour in grams`). - **Pasted numbers.** Paste `1.234,56` into a note that writes `1,234.56`, and it comes the note's way. - **Outside a note.** `coffee calc` in Terminal, a calculate tool for AI apps over MCP, and Calculate with Coffee in Shortcuts on iPhone and iPad. Soulver does several of these too, such as totals by tag, historical rates, subtotals and loans. The difference is where the sums end up. ## Where your sums live **In Soulver,** your sums are in Soulver sheets. Its site says they're plain text and support Markdown headings, labels and comment styles, so the numbers aren't hidden from you, but the sheet is still a calculator document. **In Coffee,** your sums are lines in an ordinary Markdown note, beside headings, lists, tables, links and pictures. The answers are never saved in the file, so the note reads properly in any other editor, on GitHub or in Git, with the questions and without the answers. PDF, Word and HTML exports print the answers as they stood when you exported. A line Coffee doesn't fully understand gets no answer, so ordinary sentences with numbers in them are left alone. That's the trade. If you want the numbers in a calculator with nothing else around them, Soulver's sheet is the better home. If you want them in the same document as the writing they belong to, Coffee is. There's more about how it works on the [calculations in your notes page](https://coffeetext.app/notes-calculator). ## Price and platforms | | Soulver | Coffee | |---|---|---| | Price | $59 once | €3 a month, €29 a year, or €79 once with two years of updates. One purchase covers Mac, iPhone and iPad | | Trial | 60 days | 14 days, no card | | Mac | macOS 14 or later | macOS 15 or later | | iPhone and iPad | Yes, iOS and iPadOS 17 or later | Yes, iOS 18 or later | | Extra data | Optional subscription for 150,000+ stocks and Wolfram queries | None | | What it is | A notepad calculator | A Markdown editor and notes app with sums | Soulver's one-time price is lower than Coffee's €79 and its trial is longer. Coffee's price buys the whole notes app, with sums as one feature among many. ## Which to pick - **You do sums all day, want stocks, weather or Wolfram|Alpha, or want to make a sheet into an app:** Soulver. - **You want a dedicated calculator window, separate from your writing:** Soulver. - **Your sums sit inside notes, budgets, quotes or plans you'd write anyway, in plain Markdown files:** Coffee. - **You want the same notes, with their sums, on Mac, iPhone and iPad from one purchase:** Coffee. There's a wider comparison, with Numi, Calca and Apple's Math Notes, in [Soulver alternatives and other calculator notes apps](https://coffeetext.app/blog/soulver-alternatives-calculator-notes), and a [monthly budget in plain text](https://coffeetext.app/blog/monthly-budget-plain-text) shows Coffee's sums in a real note. ## Questions ### Is Coffee a replacement for Soulver? For sums inside your notes, such as budgets, hours, loans, conversions and past exchange rates, it can be. For stocks, live weather, Wolfram|Alpha queries, income tax, Soulver Studio or a dedicated calculator window, no. Soulver does those and Coffee doesn't. ### Does Coffee write the answers into my notes? No. Coffee shows each answer beside its line and never writes it into the file, so your Markdown stays as you typed it. PDF, Word and HTML exports print the answers. A Markdown export doesn't. ### Does Coffee work on iPhone and iPad? Yes. Coffee is on Mac, iPhone and iPad, and one purchase covers all three. Sums work on iPhone and iPad too, and Shortcuts there can calculate with Coffee. ### How much do Soulver and Coffee cost? Soulver's site lists it at $59 once, with a 60-day trial. Coffee is 14 days free with no card, then €3 a month, €29 a year, or €79 once with two years of updates. --- Written by Pedro Thomaz, who makes Coffee, a Markdown editor for the Mac on macOS 15 or later, and for iPhone and iPad. It's free for 14 days with no card or account, then €3 a month, €29 a year, or €79 once with two years of updates. More at https://coffeetext.app/llms-full.txt