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CardSwipe
Early access

How it works

Three inputs, none of them a password

CardSwipe answers one question, so the machinery behind it is small enough to explain on a single page. Nothing here needs a bank connection. See what it never asks for.
Platforms
iOS 18, watchOS 11
Market
US cards
Launch
Late 2026
Bank login
Never asked

Setup, once

First

You name the cards you carry

Search the issuer, pick the product. Amex Gold, Sapphire Reserve, whatever is actually in your wallet. That is the entire setup, and it takes under a minute.

Then

The rules are already loaded

Category multipliers, quarterly rotators, spend caps, activation state. CardSwipe knows what your cards earn, so you never type a reward rate.

From then on

The answer arrives before you do

Walk up to a counter and the Lock Screen already shows the card to reach for. Open the app only when you want to check the ranking yourself.

What happens at the counter

Four steps, in order, every time you approach a merchant.
  1. 1

    Name the merchant

    Location resolves the store you are standing at, on the device. The store maps to a merchant category, which is what card rules are actually written against.

  2. 2

    Apply the published rules

    Each card in your wallet carries its earn rules: category multipliers, quarterly rotators, spend caps and activation state. The rule that applies at this category is selected, not averaged.

  3. 3

    Convert to cash

    Points become dollars at your point valuation, set in Settings and defaulting to a deliberately conservative number. Cash back cards skip the conversion.

  4. 4

    Rank, then state the doubt

    The wallet is ordered by cash-equivalent return per $100. If the merchant codes unreliably, the app says so instead of hiding it behind a confident number.

Apple Watch showing the best card for Harborview Market: 4x on groceries, worth $8.00 back per $100 and three dollars more than the next card
The end of the sequence: one card named, with what it is worth.
A person checking CardSwipe on their Apple Watch, the screen naming the best card for the market they are standing in
The answer takes about as long to read as it takes to reach the terminal.

Questions people ask before installing

Does CardSwipe need my bank login?
No. You type in the names of the cards you carry, such as Amex Gold or Chase Sapphire Reserve. CardSwipe never asks for a bank username, password, card number, balance or transaction history.
How does it know which card wins at a store?
CardSwipe keeps the published earn rules for each card: category multipliers, quarterly rotators, spend caps and activation state. It matches the merchant to a category, applies your point valuation, and ranks your wallet by cash-equivalent return.
What does it do with my location?
Location is used on the device to name the merchant you are standing at, so the widget can answer before you unlock the phone. It is not kept as a history and is not sent anywhere as a record of where you shop.
How accurate are the reward rates?
Rates come from published issuer terms and are shown as estimates, with the cap or exclusion stated alongside. Where merchant coding is uncertain, such as a coffee kiosk inside a grocery store, CardSwipe says so rather than guessing.
Which cards and countries are supported?
US consumer cards at launch, on iOS 18 and watchOS 11. More issuers and regions follow after launch.
How does CardSwipe make money?
Not yet. There are no affiliate links and no paid placement anywhere on this site today. When apply links do arrive, CardSwipe may be paid when someone is approved for a card, each link will be labelled where it appears, and rankings will stay computed from published issuer terms rather than from what a card pays us.

Be the reflex, not the afterthought

Join the early access list. No bank login required to sign up, which is rather the point.

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