A Soulver Alternative for quick sums
Soulver is a natural-language calculator built as a notepad: an answer column beside your text, line references, variables, units, dates and live currency, stock and weather data, synced over iCloud. It costs $59 once, with a 60-day trial, and needs macOS 14. Notchy's Calculator tab is not trying to be that. It is the scratchpad for a quick sum, one hover away in the notch, from macOS 13.
Looking for Soulver itself? It lives at soulver.app.
- Soulver price
- $59 one-time (60-day free trial)
- Soulver requires
- macOS 14 or later
- Notchy price
- $24.99 one-time, 7-day free trial
Why use Notchy instead of Soulver?
- Answers as you type
Type an expression and the result updates live. Press return to commit it and copy it to the clipboard — no keypad to click.
- History that survives
The lines you ran stay in the tab after the notch closes and after a relaunch, and the last answer carries into the next expression.
- Where Soulver is in another league
Variables, line references, subtotals, date maths, tags, iCloud sync and export. Notchy's calculator converts units and currencies on one line, but does none of the rest. If you plan budgets or work through calculations in prose, Soulver is worth its price.
Everything Notchy does, in one app
- Fluid Dynamic Island animations on the Mac notch
- Command palette (⌃⌥K) — every action one keystroke away
- Knock — double-tap a modifier key to open the notch
- AI usage tracker (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot)
- Detach any tab into a menu-bar popover
- Now Playing music controls (Apple Music & Spotify)
- Time-synced karaoke lyrics under the notch
- Mac clipboard history shelf (password-manager safe)
- Searchable clipboard — filter by text, file name, or OCR'd words
- On-device OCR — copy a screenshot, get its text (Apple Vision)
- Window snapping — drag a window to the notch to tile it
- App Launcher — pin apps to the notch, open with one tap
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- Text snippets — TextExpander-style pastes from the ⌘K palette
- One-tap screen capture to clipboard + shelf
- Color eyedropper — sample any pixel, hex auto-copied
- System-wide mic mute for every meeting app at once
- Keystroke HUD for demos & screencasts (secure-input safe)
- Keyboard cleaning lock with countdown island (⌘⎋ unlocks)
- Menu-bar icon hiding — Bartender-style separator & chevron
- Live CPU / memory / network stats flyout
- Custom islands through the local developer API (off by default)
- iPhone-style call island — Answer/Decline FaceTime on the notch
- Notch Terminal — real VT100/xterm shell in a PTY, its own tab
- Camera Guard — alert (or block) when any app opens your camera
- Caps Lock HUD — brief island on every toggle
- Full Charge island with adjustable threshold + low-battery sound
- Alt HUD styles — edge-pinned bar or circular gauge off the notch
- Audio-reactive Now Playing visualizer (real FFT of system audio)
- Custom closed-notch idle animation — drop in your own Lottie JSON
- Drag-and-drop file drop shelf — persists across relaunches
- Zip & unzip files right from the shelf
- Image converter (HEIC, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF) + video → GIF
- Run Apple Shortcuts with one tap
- Screenshots auto-staged on the shelf, ready to drag
- Download finished alerts with Reveal in Finder
- USB drive mount island with one-tap Eject
- Apple Reminders quick capture & due list
- macOS Pomodoro notch timer & stopwatch — streaks + 7-day chart
- Resizable expanded panel (width & height, live preview)
- System HUDs (volume, brightness, battery)
- Audio output switcher (speakers, AirPods, monitor)
- AirPods connection manager & battery
- Magic Mouse, Keyboard & Trackpad battery + low-battery alerts
- Quick notes & Calendar widgets
- Camera Mirror (check your appearance)
- Keep Awake (caffeine toggle)
- Teleprompter (Cuely) for Zoom calls
- Focus-aware alerts & native haptic feedback
- Lock screen widgets & hide-the-notch mode
- 134 languages, fully localized
- Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple silicon
The honest verdict on Soulver
Soulver is a genuinely excellent tool for thinking in numbers, and Notchy is not a replacement for that. If all you need is a fast sum you can copy, Notchy's Calculator tab does it without opening another window.
Soulver alternative — FAQ
How much is Soulver?
$59 as a one-time purchase, with a 60-day free trial, per soulver.app.
What macOS does Soulver need?
macOS 14 or later. Notchy runs on macOS 13 Ventura and later.
Does Notchy's calculator convert units or currencies?
Yes, since 1.0.172 — one conversion per line, like "12 cm in in", "90 f to c" or "50 usd in eur", with mid-market rates fetched only when you convert money. Soulver goes further, with dates, variables and whole documents of linked calculations.
Is there a calculator in the Mac menu bar?
Notchy puts one in the notch, alongside Quick Search and Translate. Spotlight also evaluates simple sums, for free.
Is Notchy free?
No. Notchy is a one-time $24.99 purchase for one Mac with a 7-day free trial — no subscription or in-app purchase.