How Mac notch apps charge: buy once, subscription or free (2026)

Yes, you can buy a notch app once. Almost every notch app for the Mac is a single payment, not a subscription: Alcove is $14.99, DynamicLake Pro $13.99, Droppy $9.99 and MediaMate €6.99, each paid once. The Boring Notch, Atoll, Notchy and TopNotch are free. Crest, the one we make, is free to use, and its Pro tier is $24.99 once or $2.99 a month, whichever you prefer. Every price below was read from the maker’s own page on 6 October 2026.

Last updated: October 2026

Written by the developer of Crest, 6 October 2026. Crest is one of the apps in the table, so weigh our side accordingly. Every other price, trial and refund window was read that day from the maker’s own website, store page or GitHub, listed under Sources at the end. Prices change: the checkout is the last word.

The prices, side by side

Prices in the currency each maker shows. Droppy sets a lower price in 126 countries at checkout; $9.99 is the price in its page’s own product data. MediaMate is pay what you want on Gumroad, from €6.99.

Buy once: what each payment gets you

A one-time price is only half the answer. The other half is how long updates last and how many Macs it covers.

• Alcove, $14.99. “Alcove is a one-time purchase, and all future updates are included. You only pay once.” Up to 3 devices at once, a 72-hour trial, a full refund within 14 days. Needs macOS 15 Sequoia.
• DynamicLake Pro, $13.99. One payment on Gumroad, up to three devices, a 14-day money-back guarantee. Its FAQ says there is no trial. macOS 14 or later.
• Droppy, $9.99. “One payment unlocks Droppy for good. No renewals, no tiers.” Two Macs per licence, every future version included, a 3-day trial and a 14-day refund.
• MediaMate, from €6.99. One payment on Gumroad, with a demo mode in the free download so you can try it first, and a 14-day money-back guarantee. macOS 13 or later.
• Crest, $24.99 once. Crest Pro, plus our screen recorder Take and our meeting notes app Minutes, on 2 Macs each, with updates through Crest 7. It never expires and works offline.

Free notch apps, and what free means

Four notch apps cost nothing at all, and Crest has a free tier. They are not the same kind of free.

• The Boring Notch is open source under GPL-3.0 and free. Its README says the team has no Apple Developer account yet, so macOS warns that it comes from an unidentified developer the first time you open it. macOS 14 or later. Its latest release on GitHub is v2.7.3, from November 2025.
• Atoll is open source under GPL-3.0 and free, with a GitHub Sponsors button if you want to pay something. macOS 14 or later.
• Notchy says “Free forever” and runs on macOS 13 Ventura or later.
• TopNotch, from the makers of CleanShot, is a free download that does one thing, in its own words: it “makes the notch disappear”. It works through your wallpaper, Dynamic Desktop ones included, and needs macOS 11 or later. If what you searched for was a notch filter, this is it, and it costs nothing.
• Crest’s free tier needs no account and never runs out: Now Playing with synced lyrics, the Shelf, the Clipboard, window snapping and Allow or Deny for Claude Code, Codex and Copilot CLI. Pro adds the widgets on top.

If you would rather pay by the month

Among the apps on this page, Crest is the only one with a monthly plan today: $2.99 a month or $14.99 a year, for the same Crest Pro, Take and Minutes. Stop any time and Crest goes back to the free tier with your setup kept. NotchNook used to offer $3 a month next to its one-time price; it is not on sale anywhere we could find.

If you plan to keep the app for more than about eight months, buying once costs less than paying monthly. That is the whole reason both options exist.

Which ones have a free trial

• Crest: 7 days of every Pro feature when you sign in, no card. The free tier needs no sign-in at all.
• Alcove: 72 hours, from its download page.
• Droppy: three days with every feature.
• MediaMate: a demo mode in the free download.
• DynamicLake Pro: no trial, a 14-day refund instead.

The free apps need no trial. Most of the paid ones refund within 14 days if a trial is not enough; Crest refunds within 7.

How we checked

On 6 October 2026 we opened each maker’s own page in a browser and copied the price, the trial and the refund terms as written, then read the free apps’ GitHub pages for their licences and requirements. Where a page shows a price for your country, we used the price in its own product data. We left out any price we could not find on the maker’s own page that day. For a deeper look at what each app does, see the best Mac notch apps in 2026.

Sources

• Crest: crestnotch.app/pricing
• Alcove: tryalcove.com and tryalcove.com/faqs
• DynamicLake Pro: dynamiclake.com and its Gumroad page, linked from dynamiclake.com/buy
• Droppy: getdroppy.app
• MediaMate: wouter01.gumroad.com/l/mediamate and wouter01.github.io/MediaMate
• The Boring Notch: github.com/TheBoredTeam/boring.notch
• Atoll: github.com/Ebullioscopic/Atoll
• Notchy: notchy.dev
• TopNotch: topnotch.app
• NotchNook: its old page at lo.cafe/notchnook answered “page not found”, and Setapp’s NotchNook address opens its general catalog.

FAQ

Keep reading: Best Mac notch apps in 2026 · MediaMate vs Alcove · Crest vs Alcove · Crest vs Droppy · Crest pricing · Facts and prices