Frequently asked questions

Is Mathend free?

The editor is free forever, with no account, no trial period and no feature gates. The only thing you can pay for is the hosted AI agent, and only if you would rather not use your own API key.

Do I need an account to use it?

No. You can download Mathend and write, compute and export documents without signing up. An account is only needed to buy credits for the hosted agent.

Where are my notes stored?

On your own machine, in the browser or desktop app's local database. Mathend has no server-side store for your notes, so nothing is uploaded unless you send a specific request to an AI model.

Can I use my own AI API key?

Yes, and it is the cheapest option if you already pay for a model. Mathend supports Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Google Gemini, Zhipu GLM, DeepSeek, xAI Grok, Mistral, Groq and OpenRouter keys, plus GitHub Copilot through its device authorisation flow. Requests go from your machine straight to that provider.

How do agent credits work?

Credits are prepaid in packs of $5, $10 and $25. Each request through the hosted agent is billed at the model's cost plus a small per-model margin and deducted from your balance. There is no subscription and no seat count.

Do credits expire?

No. Unused balance stays on your account indefinitely.

Which models can the hosted agent use?

Fourteen models across three tiers, from cheap models for edits and formatting up to frontier models such as Claude Opus 5 for hard derivations. The pricing page lists the exact per-million-token rate for each one.

Which platforms does Mathend run on?

Desktop builds ship for Windows (64-bit installer) and Linux (AppImage). macOS is not available yet because the builds are not code-signed or notarized, which means Gatekeeper would block them.

Can I export to Word or PDF?

Yes. Documents import and export as both DOCX and PDF, with the mathematics intact rather than flattened to an image.

Does it work offline?

Everything except the AI agent works with no network connection, because your notes live locally. The agent needs a connection to reach whichever model provider you have configured.

How is this different from LaTeX?

LaTeX gives you precise output at the cost of learning a markup language and compiling to see the result. Mathend renders as you type through a virtual math keyboard, so there is no compile step and no syntax to memorise — while still exporting to the formats institutions ask for.