Yes, your iPhone already converts currency. Here's when that's enough.
We sell a currency converter, so treat this page with appropriate suspicion. It is still the page we would want to read first.
Since iOS 18, the Calculator app on your iPhone converts currency. It handles around 105 currencies alongside the usual length, weight and temperature units, it caches its rates so it keeps working offline, and it costs nothing because it is already on your phone.
Plenty of people do not know it exists. If you are one of them, here is how to find it, and you may not need to read any further.
Open Calculator → tap the icon at the bottom left → turn on Convert. Pick your two currencies and type. It converts as you go, and it keeps working with no signal.
Where the Calculator is genuinely the right answer
- You take one or two trips a year and want an occasional sanity check.
- You are converting at a table, at a desk, or anywhere you can comfortably use two hands.
- You only need the number, not a judgement about whether the number is fair.
- You do not want another app, another icon, or another purchase — a completely reasonable position.
In those situations a separate converter is genuinely unnecessary, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
Where it starts to grate
The Calculator was designed as a calculator that also converts. That shows up in a handful of places, and how much they matter depends entirely on how you travel.
| iPhone Calculator | RoamRate | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, already installed | Free tier; $4.99 once for everything |
| Works offline | Yes, cached rates | Yes, offline-first by design |
| Currencies | ~105 | 150+ |
| One-handed use | Not really — the converter layout expects two hands and careful tapping | The entire premise: thumb-sized keys, haptics on every press |
| Knows where you are | No — you pick both currencies each time | Detects the country on arrival and sets the local currency |
| Tells you if a price is fair | No | Local Price Index — what everyday things typically cost where you are |
| Tipping | You do the maths | Built in |
| Rate freshness shown | Not surfaced clearly | Displayed on screen, always |
The honest summary
The Calculator converts currency. It does not help you travel. The gap between those two things is small when you are sitting down and large when you are standing in a queue holding a bag, being quoted a price by someone who quotes prices for a living.
Our actual position: if the built-in converter covers what you need, use it and keep your $4.99. If you find yourself repeatedly fumbling two-handed at a counter, or converting a number and then still not knowing whether it is a good number, that is the gap we built for.
The one thing worth doing either way: learn the rule of thumb for wherever you are going. It costs nothing, works when the battery is dead, and is faster than any app.
If the gap sounds familiar
RoamRate is free to try with five major currencies. The $4.99 unlock is a single payment, not a subscription — most converters now charge that much every year.
Download on the App Store