Comparison

SetAway vs Meridian Dispatch | Travel

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

SetAway

Streamline group trip planning by consolidating communication, date selection, voting, and expense splitting into one app. Organize everything from weekend getaways to family holidays with shared itineraries and collaborative checklists.

Highlights
  • Group date availability matching
  • Democratic voting and polls
  • Multi-currency expense splitting
  • Shared day-by-day itinerary
  • Collaborative packing checklists
  • Web access for all participants
Features
Read full description

Stop planning group trips across five different WhatsApp groups, messy spreadsheets, and lost notes. SetAway brings your entire crew together in one place, from finding a date that works for everyone to splitting the final restaurant bill. Whether you're organizing a summer villa with friends, a ski trip, a bachelor or bachelorette party, a weekend city break, or a family holiday, SetAway keeps everyone aligned without the usual organiser stress. WHY GROUPS LOVE SETAWAY • NO MORE DATE GUESSWORK Find dates that actually work for everyone. Each friend marks their availability, and SetAway automatically highlights overlapping days where the whole group is free. • DEMOCRATIC VOTING & POLLS Can’t agree on where to go or what to do? Create quick polls for destinations, accommodation ideas, and group activities. Lock in winners once the crew decides. • SPLIT EXPENSES WITHOUT THE MATHS Track every group expense as it happens. Support for multi-currency trips, custom splits, and uneven shares. Settle up at the end of the holiday with fewer transfers and 1-tap payment links (Revolut, PayPal, and more). • DAY-BY-DAY SHARED ITINERARY Keep your daily plans, accommodation details, reservations, and activities in a clean timeline. Everyone knows where they need to be, even when offline. • COLLABORATIVE PACKING & CHECKLISTS Assign checklist items to specific friends so nobody brings two speaker docks and everyone remembers passports, chargers, and beach towels. • WORKS FOR EVERYONE IN YOUR CREW Inviting friends is as easy as sharing a link. Friends on any device can view the trip and participate directly via the web — no friction, no barriers. PERFECT FOR: - Weekend city breaks with friends - Stag and hen dos (bachelor/bachelorette trips) - Ski and snowboarding getaways - Summer villas and beach holidays - Road trips and multi-stop adventures - Family holidays and reunions PLAN FOR FREE - OR UPGRADE TO SETAWAY PRO SetAway is free to use for planning your group trip. For power organizers and frequent travelers, SetAway Pro unlocks: - Unlimited active group trips - Unlimited expense tracking and receipt capture - Detailed spending analytics & CSV/Excel export - Full offline access to itineraries and expenses on the go Subscriptions are billed monthly or annually and can be managed or cancelled anytime in your Apple ID Account Settings. PRIVACY & TERMS We respect your privacy. No ads, no selling your personal data. Terms of Service (EULA): https://setaway.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://setaway.app/privacy Support: https://setaway.app/support

About

Meridian Dispatch | Travel

This travel journal automatically creates detailed records of your trips using your photo library and booking emails. It identifies locations, writes descriptive prose, and lays out your memories like a magazine. Plan future adventures by forwarding confirmations to a private inbox.

Highlights
  • Automatic trip detection from photos
  • Magazine-style layout for memories
  • Prose generation for journal entries
  • Interactive 3D globe map
  • Itinerary planning from email bookings
  • Private and secure by design
Features
Read full description

Meridian Dispatch | Plan the trip. Keep the journal. Plan your next trip with any AI assistant and add it in one tap. Explore the best places in the world. Then let your photographs turn every trip, past and future, into a day-by-day journal. PLAN Start any way you like. Ask any AI assistant for an itinerary and tap the link: the whole trip lands in the app, day by day. Pick one of our ready-made routes. Forward your flight and hotel confirmations and let the trip assemble itself. Or start from scratch with a country and dates. However it begins, each day is laid out on a map with the distance from your hotel and the walk between stops, and the plan reminds you what is left to book. EXPLORE Spin the globe, zoom into a country, a town, a single street, and see the places worth the journey. Every one comes with a verdict attached: why it earns the detour, how long it honestly takes, how to do it well, and the one thing to know before you go. Add any of them to your day in a tap. GO Nothing to do. No tracking to remember or switch on, no evening spent captioning. Your photographs are the record, so just take plenty. As you travel they fill in the plan, and by the time you are home it has quietly become a travel journal. DISPATCHES The trips you took before you downloaded the app are already here. Meridian Dispatch finds your international trips in the photographs you already took and writes them up: every place named, every day written, laid out like a magazine rather than a camera roll. Your best frames lead, the near-duplicates never make it in, and no two pages fall the same way. Every word is yours to rewrite. Then download or print: a magazine-style journal, a short film cut from your own photographs, or a 3D globe that lights every country you have been to so you can relive your best travel moments. WHAT IT WILL NOT DO No followers, no feed, no profile. No badges, no streaks, no distance travelled. No star ratings, ever: a place is worth the detour or it is not, and that takes a sentence. Nothing to check in to and nobody to perform for. YOUR PHOTOS NEVER LEAVE YOUR PHONE Your photographs are never copied, never edited, and never uploaded. They stay on your device privately. FREE TO DOWNLOAD Sign in with Apple, grant photo access, and the archive starts building. Free covers the last five years and one trip in planning. Membership opens every trip you have ever taken, and as many plans as you like. Privacy Policy: https://meridiandispatch.com/privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://meridiandispatch.com/terms

Screenshots

SetAway4 screens
Meridian Dispatch | Travel4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Meridian Dispatch | Travel at 5.0 against SetAway's 2.5. Meridian Dispatch | Travel also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 3 months) and ratings volume (7 vs 2). SetAway's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. SetAway sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Meridian Dispatch | Travel sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $19.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Meridian Dispatch | Travel holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 7 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SetAway ships an update every 3 months, Meridian Dispatch | Travel every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
SetAway versus Meridian Dispatch | Travel: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSetAwayMeridian Dispatch | Travel
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.5 (2 ratings)5.0 (7 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings27 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size9 MB106 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperLucas SeewaldAlice Capital LLC

Customer experience

SetAway

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

Meridian Dispatch | Travel

All ratings7 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews8 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

5 purchases

SetAway

Subscriptions5
  • SetAway Pro (Monthly)$3.991 Month
  • SetAway Tourist$3.991 Month
  • SetAway Explorer$6.991 Month
Show 2 more
  • SetAway Pro (Yearly)$24.991 Year
  • SetAway Jetsetter$34.991 Year
1 purchases

Meridian Dispatch | Travel

Subscriptions1
  • Meridian Dispatch Member$19.991 Year

Questions

Is SetAway free?
SetAway is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Meridian Dispatch | Travel free?
Meridian Dispatch | Travel is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, SetAway or Meridian Dispatch | Travel?
Meridian Dispatch | Travel is rated higher. SetAway averages 2.5 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while Meridian Dispatch | Travel averages 5.0 from 7 ratings.
Do SetAway or Meridian Dispatch | Travel have ads?
Neither SetAway nor Meridian Dispatch | Travel shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SetAway or Meridian Dispatch | Travel?
SetAway ships an update every 3 months, and Meridian Dispatch | Travel every 2 weeks. Most recently, SetAway was updated on October 25, 2026 and Meridian Dispatch | Travel on October 8, 2026.

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