The Maya Almanac vs WaveSpell
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
The Maya Almanac
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The Maya Almanac is a field guide to Maya cosmology, told in 125 cards arranged the way the Maya arranged the world: four realms at the four directions, and a center that holds today. The center is a real calendar. Each day the app computes the true day of the Tzolk'in count, the same 260-day round that daykeepers in highland Guatemala still keep, using the standard scholarly correlation (GMT 584283). It is not a shuffle. Everyone who opens the app sees the same day, because there is only one. The Haab' date, the trecena, and the nine-night cycle appear alongside it, each marked with how firmly it is attested. Around the center sit the four realms: The Sky, The Road Below, The Old Words, and The Green World. Gods and day signs, the Hero Twins, the ceiba, the milpa, the small ones who keep the cornfield. Every card names its sources and says plainly how we know what we claim to know: carved in stone, painted in a codex, recorded by a colonial hand, kept in living practice, or reconstructed by scholars. The honesty goes all the way down. 116 cards carry photographs, scans, or tracings of real artifacts, and every image is credited by author and license on a Sources page inside the app. Nine cards deliberately carry no image at all, because no attested image of those figures survives, and each of the nine says so on the card itself. I would rather show you an empty frame than an invention. One more thing the app says out loud: the Maya are a living people. Around six million Maya are alive today, and the count this app computes is still being kept this morning. Search across all 125 cards. Fully offline. No account, no tracking, no notifications, no streaks. Your time here stays yours. If the almanac becomes part of your days, there are four optional tips in Settings. Nothing in the app is gated behind them. Sixty percent of what is left after costs goes to the Endangered Alphabets Project, which carves the world's vanishing scripts into wood so they are not forgotten, and on every tenth tip all of it does.
WaveSpell
This app helps you discover personal patterns and cycles using a modern calendar system. Explore daily insights, relationship dynamics, and place-based context. Unlock deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you.
- Daily Kin insights
- Relationship resonance
- Place-based context
- 260-day cycle navigation
- Reference library
- Birth signature exploration
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WaveSpell is a modern Tzolk’in calendar and reflection app designed to help you notice patterns across days, personal cycles, relationships, and place. See your daily Kin and explore the tone, seal, color, and themes associated with each day. WaveSpell supports both the traditional GMT Tzolk’in count and the Dreamspell count, with calculations handled consistently throughout the app. Today brings the current day into focus with personal guidance, reflections, relationship context, and changing signals. Self explores your birth signature, archetype, tone role, color, strengths, patterns, and growth themes. People lets you add the people who matter to you and explore relationship resonance and timing. World adds place-based context through geographic timing and planetary world-line tools. Cycles makes the larger 260-day pattern easier to explore and navigate. Library gives you a deeper reference for the tones, seals, cycles, and concepts behind the system, including 13 original Tone Tome artworks. WaveSpell+ unlocks the full experience with monthly or annual subscription options. Eligible new subscribers can begin with a 3-day free trial. Subscriptions are managed through your Apple account and can be cancelled before renewal. WaveSpell is intended for personal reflection and informational purposes. It does not provide medical, psychological, financial, or other professional advice. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The Maya Almanac and WaveSpell are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. The Maya Almanac sells 4 one-off in-app purchases and WaveSpell sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $8.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | The Maya Almanac | WaveSpell |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 1 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 16.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 34 MB | 87 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Drew Douglass | Jeremy Case |
In-app purchases
The Maya Almanac
- A pinch of copal$1.99
- A handful of maize$4.99
- A cup of cacao$9.99
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- A bead of jade$19.99
WaveSpell
- WaveSpell+ Monthly3 Days trial$8.991 Month
- Wavespell + Annual3 Days trial$79.991 Year
Questions
Is The Maya Almanac free?
Is WaveSpell free?
Do The Maya Almanac or WaveSpell have ads?
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