Convert OnceTipping
Tipping in 152 countries, in one tile
Every country in Convert Once carries its own tipping custom, written by hand: whether to tip at all, whether service is already on the bill, which figure people actually leave, and what a tour guide expects. It is shown beside the price you typed, at the moment you need it. The customs themselves live in the app. This page is about how the app treats them.
A sentence where a button would lie
A 20% button in Tokyo teaches exactly the wrong thing. So in the countries where tipping is not done, the app offers no percentages at all. The tile reads No tip, and the note says what to do instead.
Three kinds of tipping country
Where staff are paid out of tips, in the Americas above all, the tip is a share of the bill however large the bill is. The app names the figure people actually leave, because a row of percentages does not say which of them is normal.
Where service is already on the bill, across most of Europe, the tip is a gesture. It is real on a small bill and bounded on a large one. Ten per cent of a €500 dinner is €50, and nobody leaves €50. So the app stops the arithmetic where the custom does, and the cell reads Round up instead of a percentage.
Where nothing is expected, the app offers No tip as a choice and remembers it. Only there. In the United States that choice would be a faux pas, so it is never offered.
One tile, and the total you hand over
The tip sits beside the currency because they are the same question in the same moment: what does this cost, and what do I leave on top. The tile shows the percentage, the tip and the sum. The sum is the number that matters, because it is the one you hand over.
Tap the tile and the choices open beneath it. The one you pick is kept for that country, and your habit follows you to the next country that offers the same figure.
Tour guides are a different custom
Often the opposite of the restaurant. In Japan nobody tips a waiter, and a guide who has spent the day with you is the one exception people are told about. In Australia it is the other way round. So every country carries a second entry, for guides.
It answers two questions. What a “free” walking tour actually costs, since the tip is the fare, per person, and has nothing to do with the number you typed. And what a paid tour gets on top: a share of the price, a flat amount per person per day, or nothing.
Where the customs come from
All 152 entries were written by hand and checked against each other. Read side by side, a free walking tour costs about the same everywhere in real money, and the entry that does not is the one that gets a second look. There is no default. A country without an entry does not build.
Customs vary by region, by venue and over time, and no short note is right everywhere. If you know one of ours to be wrong, write to [email protected]. Those are the corrections we most want.
Customs vary by region, by venue and over time. Use your judgement and your eyes.