How to split a bill and the tip fairly

The bill comes, someone says “let’s just split it”, and then the arithmetic starts. One person only had a salad, another ordered the wine, the tip is 12.5% of something, and four shares of £144.45 don’t come out even. Most of the time someone rounds, someone else feels short-changed, and nobody remembers who has paid back.

Shadowkit’s Split skill works it out for you: who pays what, the tip shared fairly, and shares that always add up to the penny.

Evenly, by items or by shares

There are three fair ways to split a bill, and which one is right depends on the table.

Evenly. Everyone ordered about the same, or nobody minds. Type the bill, pick a tip, set how many people.
By items. People had different things. Add each item with its price and tap it to say who had it: one person, a few, or everyone. A bottle of wine for the table is everyone’s; a pasta two of you shared is split between the two.
By shares. Some people count for more than others: a couple paying as two, someone who stayed two nights at the cabin instead of one. Each person has 1× to 20× shares, and anyone can pay a set amount instead, which comes off first before the rest is shared.

You can switch between them as you go, and nothing you typed is lost.

How the tip is shared

The tip chips are No tip, 10%, 12.5%, 15%, 18% and 20%, and Other takes a percentage of your own, like 17.5%. You can also add a tax or a fee that isn’t in the prices.

Take a dinner of £128.40 with a 12.5% tip. The tip is £16.05, so the total is £144.45.

Split evenly between four, that’s £36.11 and a quarter each. A quarter of a penny can’t be paid, so one person pays £36.12 and the other three £36.11. Split says so under the answer: “One of you pays £0.01 more, so it adds up to the penny.”

Split by items, the same dinner comes out as Me £32.06, Sam £31.78, Alex £32.91 and Jo £47.70. Jo had the ribeye and half the tiramisu, so Jo pays more. The tip and any tax are shared in proportion to what each person had, so whoever ate more also tips more. The tip is worked out on the items, not on a fee, since a fee may already be a service charge.

Why shares differ by a penny, and who gets it

Every amount in Split is a whole number of pennies (or cents, or yen). When a bill doesn’t divide exactly, each person first gets their share rounded down, and the pennies left over go one each to whoever was closest to the next penny. In the dinner above, Alex’s part of the tip works out at 365.625p, the largest fraction, so Alex pays the leftover penny. When it’s a tie, as when splitting evenly, it goes to the first person in the list.

The point is that the shares always add up to the total. Nobody covers a few stray pence at the end, and the person who paid gets back exactly what they paid.

Rounding up

Some groups would rather pay round numbers. Turn on Round each up and every share goes up to a whole pound, euro or dollar, and the extra goes to the tip. Split shows what that means before you decide: “£37.00 each · the tip becomes £19.60 (15.3%)”. A set amount stays exactly as set.

Who paid, and who has paid you back

Choose who paid the bill; it’s you unless you say otherwise. Then Save split, and it waits on Split’s page under Still to come, with what’s left to come back and how many have paid, like “1 of 3 paid”. As people pay you back, tap Mark paid next to their name. When everyone has, the split moves to Settled. A tick in the wrong place is one tap to undo.

Today, Home’s first page, shows the total still to come back across your open splits, and the app’s search finds a split by its name, a person or an item.

You don’t have to save anything. Leave a new split with Back and it’s gone, which is right for the many bills you only need to work out once.

Share sends the split as plain text through your phone’s own share sheet, to a group chat or a message:

Dinner at Nonna’s, Sat 17 Oct
£144.45 with a 12.5% tip

Me £32.06 (paid the bill)
Sam £31.78, paid
Alex £32.91
Jo £47.70

What it doesn’t do

Split is a calculator and a list, not a payments app. It doesn’t move money, link to a bank or send anyone a request or a reminder. Everyone pays you back however your group already does, and you tick them off.

Each split has one currency, your phone’s own by default, and you can pick another for a trip abroad. There are no exchange rates between them.

Private, like the rest of Shadowkit

Your splits are kept on your phone, in the profile you made them in, and never sent anywhere: the app doesn’t have internet access, and there’s no account to make, for you or for anyone you split with. The only thing that ever leaves is the text you choose to share. Splits are included in the app’s full backup.

The calculator is free with no limits: every mode, up to 50 people and 200 items, rounding and sharing. The free version holds 3 open splits at a time in a profile, those someone still owes you on; settled splits don’t count. Shadowkit Pro removes the limit. To keep track of your own spending rather than a shared bill, see how to track your spending without linking your bank.