Price, and what the paid copy actually buys
Free is the real price. The App Store copy is a way to pay the developer. Three tabs cover every scenario, then a comparison with the paid tools.
Cost by scenario
Price: $0. The build on keka.io is the full app, with every format, encryption, splitting and Finder integration. It updates itself through the built-in updater. No registration, no nag screen, no feature locks.
| Scenario | Copies | You pay |
|---|---|---|
| One personal Mac | 1 | $0 |
| Design studio | 12 Macs | $0 |
| School lab | 200 Macs, deployed by MDM | $0 |
There is no license text that prohibits business use; the project is open source.
Price: $6.49 one-time. Same app, distributed and updated through the App Store, tied to your Apple ID so it installs on every Mac you own. Optional in-app tips. Because App Store apps are sandboxed, setting Keka as the default opener for archive types needs the free KekaExternalHelper.
| Scenario | Copies | You pay |
|---|---|---|
| One Apple ID, three Macs | 3 | $6.49 |
| Small team, five Apple IDs | 5 | $32.45 |
| Volume purchase via Apple Business Manager | 50 | Apple volume terms |
Donation: any amount by PayPal or cryptocurrency from keka.io. It changes nothing in the app.
Keka for iOS: a separate purchase on the iOS App Store for iPhone and iPad. Price is set by region; it is not bundled with the Mac app and the Mac app does not need it.
What the money funds: one developer, library updates (7-Zip, XZ, UnRAR, Zstandard), notarization and App Store fees, and localization work. Release notes for {VER} list updated 7ZZ, XZ and UNRAR libraries, a task-counter fix and better password-encoding detection.
Free versus paid archivers
| App | Price | Create | Extract | Browse inside | RAR create |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keka | Free / $6.49 | 19 formats | 40+ | No | No |
| The Unarchiver | Free | None | 40+ | No | No |
| Archive Utility (macOS) | Included | Zip only | Zip, gz, bz2, tar | No | No |
| BetterZip 5 | $24.95 | Zip, 7z, tar, dmg… | 30+ | Yes | With RAR CLI |
| WinRAR (rar CLI for Mac) | $29 / yr trial nag | RAR, Zip | RAR, Zip, 7z… | CLI only | Yes |
The decision is short. If you need to browse inside archives or make RAR files, pay for BetterZip or the RAR command line. Otherwise Keka covers everything at zero cost.
Is anything hidden?
No. No trial expiry, no watermark, no feature gates, no upsell inside the free build, no telemetry. The App Store listing shows in-app purchases: those are tips. The only cost we found anywhere is the RAR license that prevents RAR creation in every free tool.