Tipping Support

Get in touch

• Email

  hello@hemlockeast.com

• Studio

  Hemlock East LLC

• Based in

  Raleigh, North Carolina

Put Tipping in the subject line. If you’re reporting a problem, it helps to say which iPhone and which version of iOS you’re on, and — if a number came out wrong — the bill, the rate, and the number of people, so we can reproduce it exactly. Screenshots are welcome.

Using Tipping

The whole app is one screen. There is nothing to set up, no account to make, and no menus to find.

• Type the bill on the app’s keypad. Digits fill in from the right, the way a card terminal takes an amount: tapping 5, 0, 0 reads $0.05, then $0.50, then $5.00. There is no decimal point to press.
• Pick a tip. The rail offers 15%, 18%, 20%, and 25% in one tap. Custom opens a slider and a pair of ± buttons for anything from 0% to 50%.
• Split it. Split total steps from 1 person up to 50. With more than one person, the app leads with what each person owes rather than the total.
• Round up, in the check’s footer, lifts the total to a whole dollar and lets the tip absorb the difference.
• Show the math, also in the footer, opens a short panel that works the tip out in 10% and 5% steps, so you can follow it or check it in your head.
• Clear empties the bill and leaves your tip rate, split, and both switches where you set them — the next check at the same table usually wants the same ones.

Common questions

Why can’t I type a decimal point?

Because the amount fills in from the right instead. The keypad takes digits only, and the decimal separator is placed for you according to your currency. That means a bill can never be entered in a malformed way, and it’s why the app brings its own keypad rather than using the system one.

Why does each person’s share round up?

So the table always covers the check. Split $100.00 three ways and the exact share is $33.33⅓; if that rounded down, everyone would put in $33.33 and the table would be a cent short. Tipping rounds each share up instead — never by more than a cent per person — and the surplus lands in the tip, where it belongs.

What does “Round up” do?

It lifts the total to the next whole dollar and adds the difference to the tip, so the check still reads bill + tip = total. It rounds the total, not each person’s share: a table of four splitting a whole $100 still owes $25 each.

Why does the tip line say “ROUNDED UP” instead of a percentage?

Because once the round-up has topped the tip up, it isn’t the rate you picked any more. Rather than print “TIP · 20%” over a figure that is no longer 20%, the app names what it actually did. If the total already landed on a whole dollar, nothing was added and the rate is shown as usual.

The math panel is a penny off from the tip. Which is right?

The tip is right. The panel’s answer is the same single multiplication as the check, so it matches the tip to the cent — but the 10% and 5% blocks it shows along the way are displayed to the nearest cent, so on some bills they can appear not to add up by a penny or two. Rows that have been rounded for display say so with an approximately sign. The one real exception is a rate that isn’t a multiple of five, such as 18%: there the panel estimates using the nearest rate that is, and it says so in words when it happens.

Does Tipping remember my last bill?

No, and that’s deliberate. Every launch starts at a clean zero. A tip calculator that opens showing last night’s dinner is answering a question nobody asked. Within a session, Clear keeps your rate and split so a second check at the same table is one entry away.

Can I tip on the pre-tax amount?

The app tips on whatever amount you enter, so if you prefer to tip on the subtotal, type the subtotal. There is no separate tax field.

What currency does it use?

Whichever one your iPhone’s region is set to. Tipping reads that setting and follows it, including the number of decimal places — two for dollars and euros, none for yen, three for dinars — so the keypad and the figures always agree. Change it in Settings › General › Language & Region. There is no currency conversion; the app never goes online.

How big a bill, and how many people?

Up to nine digits, which is $9,999,999.99 in a two-decimal currency, and up to 50 people. The keypad simply stops accepting digits at the ceiling.

Does it work without a signal?

Always. Tipping has no networking code at all, so it behaves identically in airplane mode, in a basement restaurant, or abroad.

Does it collect any data?

No. Nothing you type leaves your iPhone, and nothing is saved between launches. The full details are in the Tipping privacy policy.

What does it run on?

iPhone, on iOS 18 or later. It’s portrait-only by design: the app is one thumb-reachable column over a keypad, and there’s no landscape layout worth inventing for it.

Is it accessible?

It’s built to be. Every control is labelled for VoiceOver, the split stepper is an adjustable element you can swipe up and down on, and the layout follows Dynamic Type all the way through the accessibility sizes — the keypad gives height back rather than clipping its digits. If something doesn’t work with the assistive technology you use, please tell us; we’ll treat it as a bug.

If something looks wrong

The arithmetic is the part of this app that has to be right, and it’s covered by tests, but we’d much rather hear about a figure that looks off than have you assume it’s meant to be. Send us the bill, the tip rate, the number of people, and what the check showed. If the app crashed or won’t open, try relaunching it, and let us know either way — there’s no data to lose, so nothing you do to the app can cost you anything.

Bugs, requests, and everything else

Feature requests are genuinely welcome, especially the small ones. Tipping is meant to stay a single screen, so not everything can go in, but we read all of it and it shapes what comes next. Email hello@hemlockeast.com.

See also the Tipping privacy policy and our terms of service.