What this comparison covers
SoupCalc tracks the listed App Store prices for a curated set of AI productivity applications and services. The products covered are ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, GitHub, Shadowrocket, and iCloud+. No other products are included in the comparison at this time. Each entry represents a single recognized plan and billing interval — typically a monthly or annual subscription tier — observed from the public App Store product page for that region. When a product offers multiple plans, only one is compared at a time so that the table remains readable and the regional variance is clear.
How regional prices are collected
Each price is obtained by querying the localized Apple App Store for a specific storefront. The storefront identifier — a two-letter country code such as US, CN, JP, GB, or DE — determines which regional listing is fetched. The response includes the price displayed to customers in that region, formatted in the local currency and inclusive of any value-added tax or consumption tax that Apple applies at the point of sale. SoupCalc records this figure as the local amount retained in the dataset; no conversion or rounding is applied at the collection stage.
Stale or unavailable records are not filled from another region. If a product is not listed in a particular storefront, or if the App Store API returns no price for the requested plan and billing interval, the cell is left empty. No inference, interpolation, or substitution from a neighboring market is performed. This means that a product available in twenty regions may show only eighteen prices if two storefronts do not carry the same plan.
Currency conversion methodology
The local amount retained is converted to both United States dollars (USD) and Chinese yuan (CNY) using a dated Open Exchange Rates snapshot. The snapshot date is recorded alongside each price observation and is clearly displayed in the comparison table. All conversions use the rate that was valid on that specific date; rates are never backfilled from a later snapshot or forward-projected from an earlier one.
Because foreign-exchange markets fluctuate continuously, the USD and CNY equivalents in the table represent the conversion state at the moment the snapshot was taken. A price that reads $19.99 today may read $20.07 tomorrow if the local currency weakens relative to the dollar between snapshots. SoupCalc does not use real-time exchange rates, nor does the tool apply any markup, spread, or service fee on top of the Open Exchange Rates midpoint.
Worked example
Imagine a product whose Australian App Store price is listed at A$22.99 for a one-month subscription. The collection step records A$22.99 as the local amount retained. On the same day, the Open Exchange Rates snapshot reports that one Australian dollar buys 0.64 US dollars and 4.80 Chinese yuan. The USD equivalent is calculated as 22.99 × 0.64 = 14.71, and the CNY equivalent is calculated as 22.99 × 4.80 = 110.35. Both derived figures are rounded to two decimal places and displayed in the table alongside the original local amount.
If the same product is unavailable in the Brazilian App Store, no entry for Brazil appears — the row is absent, not estimated. If the Australian dollar strengthens to 0.66 USD the following week, the table will not update until a fresh snapshot is taken and the entire dataset is re-derived. The worked example uses symbolic amounts and no current price; it describes the arithmetic only.
Products and their billing characteristics
The comparison covers both subscription-based services and one-time purchases. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and iCloud+ are billed on a recurring basis — typically monthly or annually — and the price displayed is the amount charged for the selected billing interval. GitHub is included for its subscription plans, such as Copilot-enabled tiers that appear as in-app purchases. Shadowrocket is a one-time purchase; its price is recorded once and does not recur.
Apple applies its own pricing conventions to each storefront. The raw price points available to developers are set in tiers, and Apple may adjust the local currency amounts when foreign-exchange movements or tax changes push a tier outside its intended band. SoupCalc observes the resulting retail price; it does not attempt to reverse-engineer the tier or the developer's wholesale selection.
Accuracy and limitations
Several factors mean that the prices shown in the comparison should be treated as indicative rather than definitive. First, prices can change at any time — Apple permits developers to update their pricing on a schedule, and the App Store itself may rebalance regional tiers without notice. A snapshot taken on a Monday morning may be stale by Monday afternoon.
Second, taxes, eligibility, account region, terms, and checkout totals can differ from the listed price. The figure displayed on the product page is the pre-checkout amount; Apple may add or adjust taxes depending on the customer's billing address, and some regions include value-added tax in the listed price while others add it later. Payment method surcharges, currency conversion fees applied by the customer's bank, and carrier billing markups are entirely outside the scope of this comparison.
Third, the Open Exchange Rates snapshot provides a midpoint rate. The rate a consumer's bank or card issuer applies will nearly always differ — sometimes by several percentage points — from the midpoint used in the table. The USD and CNY columns are therefore best understood as a uniform reference frame, not as a prediction of what any individual will actually pay when purchasing across regions.
Fourth, Apple's App Store API occasionally returns cached or stale data, particularly for recently updated prices. SoupCalc flags snapshots that are older than a configurable threshold and suppresses the derived values until a fresh observation is available.
How to read the comparison table
Each row in the table represents one product, one plan, and one billing interval observed in one region. The columns show the product name, the plan descriptor, the billing interval, the local currency code, the local amount retained, the USD equivalent, the CNY equivalent, and the snapshot date. Sorting by any column reorders the table so that the most or least expensive regions surface immediately.
The table is not a ranking. A higher USD equivalent does not necessarily mean a product is more expensive in absolute terms — it may include a longer billing interval, a higher tier of service, or a regional tax that is embedded in the listed price. The comparison is designed to surface variation, not to pass judgment on value.
Sources
The price data is collected from the Apple App Store via the iTunes Search API, documented at the Apple Developer portal. The lookup endpoint returns structured metadata for apps and in-app purchases, including the localized price for each configured storefront. Full API documentation is available from Apple:
Exchange-rate data is sourced from Open Exchange Rates, which provides daily midpoint rates against the US dollar for over 170 currencies. The API is accessed with a dated snapshot parameter so that every conversion is traceable to a specific date and rate set:
Editorial record
The comparison was first published alongside the SoupCalc public launch. The product list, region coverage, and snapshot cadence are reviewed on a regular schedule. Updates to the methodology — such as changing the exchange-rate provider, adding a new billing interval, or adjusting the staleness threshold — are noted in the changelog that accompanies each data refresh. Readers who notice a discrepancy between the listed price and the App Store display are encouraged to check the snapshot date; if the rate is current and the price still differs, the discrepancy may reflect a tax treatment, a promotional offer, or an App Store cache delay.
The comparison is a snapshot tool, not a live price monitor. It serves as a reference for readers who want to understand how AI application pricing varies across the App Store regions they are interested in, using a consistent and documented methodology.
Author: SoupCalc Editorial Team Last reviewed: August 11, 2026.