Is CoinNotch free? Pricing explained
CoinNotch is free to download and use on macOS 13 and later, on both Apple Silicon and Intel. There is no subscription required for the core ticker, no account to create, and no ads. It is also available through Setapp, the subscription bundle, for people who already use that. This page explains exactly what is included and why a menu-bar price ticker does not need to nickel-and-dime you.
Pricing for software is often deliberately confusing, so here is the plain version up front. CoinNotch is free. You can download it, pin your coins, set alerts, and run it all day without paying anything or creating an account. This page exists mostly to answer the natural follow-up questions: what is the catch, how does Setapp fit in, and why is it free at all.
What you get for free
The core of the app, which is to say all of it that most people will use, is free. That includes the live menu-bar ticker, multi-coin watchlists in both cycle and side-by-side modes, threshold and percentage price alerts, the expandable chart panel with 24-hour stats, currency and precision options, and the privacy-first design with no account or wallet. There is no trial that expires, no feature held hostage behind a paywall for the basics, and no account required to use any of it.
How Setapp access works
CoinNotch is also available through Setapp, the subscription service that bundles many Mac apps for one monthly fee. If you already subscribe to Setapp, you can get CoinNotch there as part of that bundle, which some people prefer for managing all their apps in one place. This is not a separate, more expensive version of the app, it is the same app available through another distribution channel. If you do not use Setapp, the free download is all you need.
No ads, no data selling
Free software sometimes means you are the product, with ads or data harvesting paying the bills. That is not the model here. CoinNotch shows no ads, and it cannot sell your data because it does not collect any, as covered in the privacy review. The app collects no personal information, has no account, and makes network calls only to fetch prices. Free here means free, not free-with-strings.
Why a price ticker should be free
A menu-bar price ticker is a small, focused tool, and small focused tools that lock basic functionality behind subscriptions tend to wear out their welcome fast. Showing a price is not an expensive thing to do, and a tool you glance at a hundred times a day earns its place by being frictionless, not by reminding you of a bill. Free, with an optional Setapp route for people who want it, is the model that fits what the app is.
To get started, the setup guide walks through downloading and pinning your first coin in about two minutes, and the features overview covers everything the app does.