Support — Rates

Getting started

Rates is a currency converter and a watch list in one: every currency, stock, ETF, coin and metal you follow sits in a single list, and typing an amount in any row converts it into all the others.

It runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 17 or later, natively on Mac with macOS 14 or later, and on Apple Watch with watchOS 10 or later. There is no account to create.

The first launch walks you through a few steps: your main currency, what you follow (currencies, stocks, crypto, metals), your first list, the currency for quotes and how rows should look, and on iPhone and iPad where to find the price scanner. It ends with the Premium offer. If you close it without Premium, your list keeps what the free plan holds.

The main screen

Everything happens on one screen: your list, with a calculator keypad docked underneath. The toolbar holds, from left to right:

Settings (gear) — base currencies, theme, icon, alerts and more.
Row contents — what each row shows.
Premium (gold icon) — shown only until you buy Premium.
Scan a Price (camera, iPhone and iPad) — reads prices from tags.
Refresh — fetches fresh prices right away.
Add (+) — adds currencies and quotes.

Each row shows a flag, coin or company logo, the code, the change over your chart period, a mini chart and the amount. A stock or crypto row shows how many units your money buys, marked “≈” and “qty”.

Your list

Adding currencies and quotes

Tap + (on Mac, File › Add Currency, ⌘N).
On Currencies, tick the tiles you want. The chips filter by region; the search field finds a currency by code, name or country. Rates knows over 140 currencies.
On Quotes, pick from the shelves of stocks, ETFs, crypto and metals, or search any ticker. Search results show what each one is: Stock, ETF, Fund, Crypto or Futures.
Tap ✓ (on Mac, Add).

New currencies join the end of your currencies, and new quotes the end of the list. Searching quotes needs an internet connection. On a full free list, adding more opens the Premium offer.

Removing and reordering

Remove: swipe a row left and tap the bin. On Mac, right-click the row and choose Delete. You can also untick it in the Add screen.
Reorder: touch and hold a row, then drag it. Currencies always stay above quotes.

Choosing what rows show

Tap Row contents in the toolbar and switch each part on or off: Flag / logo, Change for the period, Mini chart, Currency symbol / qty and Symbol before amount. The same choice applies to widgets, the Mac menu bar and Apple Watch.

Converting

Tap a row’s amount and type. Every other row shows the same money in its own currency or units.

To type in another row, tap its amount: what you had is carried across, converted, and the next key replaces it.
The keypad does full arithmetic, with ÷, ×, − and + in the usual order of operations. = works out the sum and keeps the keypad open; ✓ closes it. C clears and ⌫ deletes the last digit.
Scroll the list and the keypad slides away; tap any amount to bring it back.
The glow around the list turns yellow while a sum is pending and green once it is worked out. Switch it off in Settings › Glow.

On Mac, click the amount to type with the keyboard. Return works out a sum, both . and , work as the decimal mark, and you can paste an amount like 1,234.56.

Base currency and quote currency

Settings has these currency tiles:

Currencies — the base every exchange rate is quoted against. It moves to the top of your list.
Quotes — the currency stocks, ETFs and crypto are priced in, for their change and charts. You choose it during the first launch.
Scanner (iPhone and iPad) — the currency the price scanner converts into.

The base row has no chart or change, since its rate is always 1.

Charts

Tap a row’s flag, code or mini chart to open its chart. Choose a period at the top: 1D, 1W, 1M, 3M, 6M or 1Y. Drag along the line to read the price and date at any point.

The change and mini chart in each row follow Settings › Chart Period, which anyone can set to any period. On the chart screen, the 1 Day chart is free and the longer periods are part of Premium. 1W covers the last five trading days.

Price alerts

Price alerts tell you when a currency, stock or coin reaches a level. They are part of Premium.

Open a chart and tap the bell.
Type the level. Rates reads the direction from where the price is now and shows “Above” or “Below”.
Tap Save. The first time, allow notifications.

Tapping the notification opens that chart. An alert fires once, then stays in the list marked “Triggered” until you edit and save it again.

Manage alerts in Settings › Price Alerts: tap one to change it, swipe to delete it. Alerts stay on the device where you made them; they don’t sync.

Scanning price tags

The scanner reads prices through the camera and converts them on the spot. It is free, on iPhone and iPad.

Open it with any of these:

the camera button in the toolbar,
a long press on the app icon › Scan Price,
the Scan Price control in Control Center, on the Lock Screen or on the Action button (iOS 18 or later),
the Scan Price action in Shortcuts.

Then:

Point the camera at a menu, a shelf or a tag. Each price gets a sticker with its converted value.
Tap a sticker to see the original and converted price, then tap Use to type that amount into your list: into the tag’s currency if it is already a row, otherwise converted into the row you are typing in.
If the light is poor, turn on the flashlight. To read a still image, tap the shutter, pinch to zoom, then tap a price. Choose Photo and Choose File read a picture, or the first page of a PDF, instead.

The two chips at the bottom are Currency on the tag and Convert to. Rates guesses the tag’s currency from its symbol, the country you are in and your past corrections; tap the chip to correct it, and it remembers your choice for that country. Convert to is your base unless you choose another in Settings › Scanner.

Reading happens on the device. The picture is never saved or uploaded.

Travel Suggestions

When you are abroad and the local currency isn’t in your list, a banner offers to add it. Tap Add and it becomes the row you type in, with your amount carried across. If your free list is full, Add opens the Premium offer instead. Rates tells where you are from the device’s time zone, so it asks for no location access. The offer comes once per trip. Turn it off in Settings › Travel Suggestions.

Widgets and controls

Add the Rates widget from the Home Screen or Lock Screen editor. It comes in small, medium and large, plus a Lock Screen strip, and on Mac on the desktop and in Notification Center. It shows your list as the app last saw it, with the base and the time in its footer. Open the app to refresh it.

On iOS 18 or later there are two controls for Control Center, the Lock Screen and the Action button: Rates opens the app and Scan Price opens the scanner.

Siri and Shortcuts

Ask Siri, or use these actions in the Shortcuts app. They are free and understand currencies by name.

Convert Currency — “Convert currency in Rates”: an amount from one currency to another.
Check Rate — “Check a rate in Rates”: today’s price and move.
Check Past Rate — “Check a past rate in Rates”: what a currency was worth a day, a week, a month, three or six months or a year ago.
Biggest Mover — “What moved the most in Rates”: the biggest riser or faller in your list today.
Scan Price — opens the scanner (iPhone and iPad).

Apple Watch

The watch app shows your list from the iPhone. The top row holds the amount: turn the Digital Crown to change it, and tap another row to move the amount there. Once the list is on the watch, it fetches prices by itself, so it works when the iPhone is out of reach. Open Rates on the iPhone once first, or the watch shows “Open Rates on iPhone”.

Two complications are available: Rates, with the first rate in your list, and Rate & Chart, where you choose one rate and see its move and chart.

Mac

Rates on Mac is a window and a menu bar item. Close the window and Rates keeps running in the menu bar; click its icon for a compact list you can type in. The panel’s ⋯ menu has Settings, Open at Login and Quit.

Keyboard shortcuts: ⌘N adds a currency, ⌘R refreshes, ⌘, opens Settings.

The Mac has no scanner, no alternate icons and no Control Center controls. Price alerts are checked while Rates is running, menu bar included.

Prices and updates

Prices, charts and quotes come from Yahoo Finance. They are market rates, not the rate your bank or card charges. Cross rates are worked out through the US dollar.

While the list is open, prices refresh every 5 minutes, and whenever you come back to the app.
The refresh button fetches right away.
After a failed update Rates retries by itself, more and more slowly, for about an hour.
When something is wrong, a line above the list says so: no internet connection, update failed, or prices older than an hour.

Without a connection the converter keeps working on the last prices it fetched, or on built-in rates before its first update. Charts, quote search and alert checks need the internet.

Sync between devices

With iCloud on, your list and its order, base, quote and scanner currencies, chart period, theme and row contents sync to your iPhone, iPad and Mac through your own iCloud. Price alerts stay on the device where you made them, and so do the amount you are typing and the Glow and Travel Suggestions switches. Apple Watch gets its list from the paired iPhone.

Settings

Premium card — your plan; the Premium screen it opens has Restore Purchases.
Theme — System, Light or Dark.
Language — opens the system settings, where each app can have its own language.
App Icon (iPhone and iPad) — Classic, or eight more with Premium.
Glow — the light around the list and the row you are typing in.
Currencies, Quotes, Scanner — the three currency tiles described above.
Chart Period — the span for each row’s change and mini chart.
Price Alerts — every alert you have set.
Travel Suggestions — the abroad banner.
Rate Rates, More Apps and About, with a way to write to me, the privacy policy, the terms and the app version.

Rates Premium

Free, you keep two rows: two currencies, or one currency and one quote (a stock, ETF, coin or metal). If you used Rates before the free plan changed, you keep five rows. Converting, the scanner, the 1 Day chart, widgets, the menu bar, Apple Watch, Siri and iCloud sync are all free.

Premium adds:

an unlimited list of currencies, stocks, ETFs and crypto,
charts from 1 week to 1 year on the chart screen,
price alerts,
eight alternate app icons on iPhone and iPad.

Premium is a one-time purchase for life, or a monthly plan with a free trial if your Apple Account is eligible. The Premium screen shows the prices in your country. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch on the same Apple Account.

If Premium ends, nothing is deleted: rows over the free limit stay, alerts pause, charts go back to 1 Day and the icon returns to Classic.

Restoring Premium

Open Settings, tap the Premium card, then Restore Purchases at the bottom. Use the Apple Account you bought it with.

Cancelling the monthly plan

In the Settings app on iPhone, tap your name, then Subscriptions, then Rates. Premium stays on until the end of the period you paid for. To avoid being charged, cancel at least a day before the free trial ends.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an account?

No. Rates has no sign-up, no e-mail and no password.

Does my list sync between devices?

Yes. With iCloud on, your list, base currencies and settings sync to your iPhone, iPad and Mac. Price alerts stay on the device where you made them. Apple Watch gets its list from the paired iPhone.

What is free and what is Premium?

Free keeps two rows: two currencies, or one currency and one stock, ETF, coin or metal; earlier users keep five. The converter, the price scanner, the 1 Day chart, widgets, the Mac menu bar, Apple Watch and Siri are free. Premium adds an unlimited list, charts from 1 week to 1 year, price alerts and alternate app icons.

Does it work offline?

Yes. Your last rates are kept, so the list and the converter keep working without a connection. Charts, quote search and alerts need the internet.

Why do the rates differ from my bank?

Rates and quotes come from Yahoo Finance, so they are market rates, not the rate a bank or card charges you. The list refreshes every 5 minutes while it is open.

Why didn’t my price alert fire, or why is it late?

Alerts are part of Premium and fire once. In the background, iOS decides when Rates may check, about once an hour, so Notifications and Background App Refresh need to be on, and Low Power Mode pauses the checks. On Mac, Rates needs to be running, in the menu bar is enough.

How do I scan a price tag?

Tap the camera in the toolbar, or hold the app icon and choose Scan Price, then point at the tag and tap the price. It is free, on iPhone and iPad, and the picture never leaves your device.

Do I pay again on my Mac?

No. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch on the same Apple Account.

How do I restore Premium?

Open Settings, tap the Premium card, then tap Restore Purchases at the bottom. Use the Apple Account you bought it with.

How do I cancel the monthly plan?

In the Settings app on iPhone, tap your name, then Subscriptions, then Rates. Premium stays on until the end of the period you paid for. The lifetime purchase has nothing to cancel.

Contact

Write to sandoya1101@gmail.com. Every message is read and answered by the person who makes Rates, usually within a day or two.

For a bug, it helps to say what you did and what happened instead, and to include your device, its iOS, iPadOS, macOS or watchOS version, and the app version shown at the bottom of Settings.