The short answer

Equilab is a free Hold’em equity calculator from PokerStrategy.com, and it ships as a Windows .exe. No Mac build, no iPhone build, no Android build, no browser version. If you’ve moved to a Mac or your study happens on a phone now, four replacements are worth your time: Power-Equilab from $3.49 a month, Flopzilla Pro at $25 for life, PokerCruncher at $12.99 on iOS, and GTO Preflop if what you actually want is the correct preflop decision rather than a raw equity number.

That last distinction is the one most people skip, so start there. Equilab tells you how often you win. It doesn’t tell you what to do. Most players open an equity calculator because they’re unsure about a spot, and equity is only half the answer to that.

Note:

Full disclosure: GTO Preflop is our app. Every price and platform claim below was checked against the vendor’s own listing on August 18, 2026, and we’ve said plainly where the free tools beat us.

Equilab alternatives at a glance

Platforms Price (Aug 2026) What it answers
Equilab Windows only Free How much equity does this hand have against that range?
Power-Equilab Windows From $3.49/mo, 14-day trial The same question, with deeper street-by-street scenario work
Flopzilla Pro Windows 7 or higher $25 once, two machines, lifetime upgrades How does my range actually hit this board?
PokerCruncher – Advanced iPhone, iPad $12.99 once, no in-app purchases Equity on a phone, hand versus range
Browser calculators Anything with a browser Free A quick one-off check with nothing saved
GTO Preflop iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple Silicon Mac Free download; Pro $19.99/mo or $119.99/yr What’s the solver’s play here, and what does the wrong one cost in EV?

Why players go looking for an Equilab alternative

Three reasons come up over and over, and only one of them is about features.

It’s Windows or nothing. PokerStrategy distributes Equilab as a Windows installer. Mac users have been asking about a native build on PokerStrategy’s own forum for years, and the answer hasn’t changed: run Windows in a virtual machine, dual boot, or use something else. PokerJudge, which maintains a browser-based calculator, puts it flatly in its own comparison: “Equilab is Windows-only.”

It can’t come with you. A desktop equity calculator is useless in the twenty minutes you actually have free. The train, the break between live levels, the queue for coffee. That’s where study time hides for most players, and it’s phone time.

PokerStars won’t let you have it open. This one surprises people. PokerStrategy’s own Equilab page carries a warning that it isn’t allowed to have the software open while you’re playing at the tables on PokerStars. Same restriction on Power-Equilab. So the tool meant to help you think through a spot has to be closed during the session where the spot happens.

None of that makes Equilab bad software. It calculates equity correctly and it costs nothing. It’s built for a 2012 study routine.

Where Equilab users actually end up

We run Apple Search Ads for GTO Preflop, which means we can see which desktop-tool names people search on the App Store right before installing a mobile app. Over the 30 days to August 11, 2026, “equilab” drove more attributed installs than any other desktop tool name in the account.

Bar chart showing equilab drove 19 attributed GTO Preflop installs in 30 days, ahead of piosolver at 8 and flopzilla at 7

Eight desktop tool names produced 53 attributed installs between them in that window. Those are floors, not totals: a large share of Apple Search Ads traffic runs through Search Match with no keyword attribution at all, so the real number is higher.

The read is straightforward. People who learned poker on Windows desktop software search the App Store by the name of the tool they already know, hoping someone built it for a phone. Nobody has built Equilab for a phone. Several people have built the thing Equilab users were reaching for.

1. GTO Preflop — for the decision, not the percentage

GTO Preflop is a mobile preflop trainer and range viewer for iPhone, iPad, Android and Apple Silicon Macs. It skips equity percentages and answers the question underneath them: in this exact spot, what does a solved strategy do, and how much EV do you burn by doing something else?

The range data is solved ahead of time and ships inside the app. That’s 11,385 decision points and just under two million hand-specific strategies across cash games, MTT ChipEV and Spin & Go, from 2-handed to 8-handed, at every position from UTG to the big blind. Cash covers 50BB and 100BB regular tables plus 100BB and 200BB with ante. MTT runs 3BB to 100BB. Spins go down to 2BB including asymmetrical stacks, which is where most short-stack tools quietly stop.

The trainer is the part that replaces a calculator session. It deals you spots, grades your action against the solved strategy, and reports EV loss per 100 hands with an ELO rating attached. You find out inside twenty hands whether your button opens are too wide and your blind defense too tight. Most players discover both at once.

Honest limits: it’s preflop only, by design. No board-texture analysis, no postflop equity, no hand-history import. If you need to know how A5s performs on 972 rainbow, this is the wrong tool and Flopzilla is the right one.

Free to download. Pro runs $19.99 a month or $119.99 a year on the standard plan, with a $7.99 weekly option. We run pricing experiments, so some users see different numbers. It holds 4.8 out of 5 across 240 US App Store ratings as of August 18, 2026.

Tip:

Try the thing Equilab can’t do: get the app and run twenty trainer hands on your commute. If your EV loss comes back near zero, your preflop game genuinely doesn’t need us.

2. Power-Equilab — the closest thing to Equilab itself

Built by the same developer as the free Equilab, Power-Equilab is what Equilab would be if it had kept growing. Hand range tools, playability profiles, a built-in equity trainer, and a scenario analyser that walks equity across turn and river cards.

PokerStrategy lists it from $3.49 a month with a 14-day trial. Over three years that’s roughly $126, which is real money in a category where the free option still works.

It’s also still Windows. If your reason for leaving Equilab was a Mac or a phone, Power-Equilab doesn’t solve your problem, and the PokerStars restriction applies here too. Pick it if you’re on Windows and you’ve outgrown the free version, not if you’re trying to escape Windows.

3. Flopzilla Pro — range versus board, done properly

Flopzilla is the specialist. Give it a range and a board and it breaks down exactly how that range connects: pairs, draws, overcards, equity distribution, the lot. For studying board texture it does something the equity calculators don’t attempt.

$25, one payment, lifetime upgrades, licensed for two computers you own. It requires Windows 7 or higher. There’s a GTO+ integration if you go further down the solver road later.

The value here is hard to argue with. If you’re a Windows player who wants one tool that pays for itself and never asks again, this is it. It won’t help you on a Mac or in a phone-shaped study window.

4. PokerCruncher — equity math that fits in a pocket

If you specifically want Equilab’s job done on an iPhone, PokerCruncher – Advanced is the closest match. Hand ranges, flop texture analysis, equity against multiple opponents, running natively on iOS 12 and later. $12.99, one payment, no in-app purchases, no subscription. It carries 4.9 stars across 253 ratings and was last updated in May 2026.

There’s a free preflop-only version and a cheaper Basic tier if you want to test the interface before paying. An iPad edition exists separately.

What you don’t get is a strategy. PokerCruncher is a calculator, faithfully so. It tells you your equity and leaves the decision to you. Pair it with a preflop trainer and you’ve covered both halves.

5. Browser calculators — free, cross-platform, disposable

Web-based odds calculators run anywhere with a browser: Mac, Linux, ChromeBook, phone. PokerJudge’s calculator is the one that most openly pitches itself as the browser upgrade to Equilab. CardPlayer and PokerNews both run free ones.

Use them for a single check. They’re fine for that. Nothing saves, nothing syncs, ranges have to be rebuilt every time, and features stop well short of Flopzilla’s board work. Free tools are the right answer for occasional questions and the wrong answer for a study routine.

What each option costs over three years

Bar chart of three-year cost: Equilab free, PokerCruncher $12.99, Flopzilla Pro $25, Power-Equilab about $126, GTO Preflop Pro $360

Read that chart with the categories in mind. The cheap end is one-time calculator purchases. The expensive end is a subscription to solved strategy that gets maintained. GTO Preflop is the most expensive line on the page over three years, and it should be: solving preflop trees across three formats and keeping them current is a different business from multiplying probabilities.

Whether the trade is worth it comes down to one thing, which is how much of your losses are preflop. Upswing Poker calls playing too many hands preflop the number one leak among losing players, and notes that no amount of postflop skill turns a bad preflop strategy into a winning one. Solver estimates put 70–80% of Spin & Go winnings down to preflop play alone. You make a preflop decision every single hand and reach the river a handful of times per orbit. If that’s your leak, $10 a month is cheap. If it isn’t, buy Flopzilla and keep your money.

What Equilab still does better than any of them

Credit where it’s owed:

  • It’s free, with no account and no upsell. Download, install, done.
  • Its equity engine is accurate and fast. Nothing on this page beats it at raw hand-versus-range math for zero dollars.
  • The Equity Trainer is genuinely good. Quiz yourself on equity estimates until the numbers become intuition. That skill transfers to every other tool you’ll ever touch.
  • It handles postflop. GTO Preflop stops at the flop. Equilab doesn’t.

If you own a Windows machine and your study happens there, there’s no urgent reason to replace Equilab. Add to it instead.

Which one should you pick?

  • On Windows, studying at a desk, spending nothing: keep Equilab. Add Flopzilla Pro for $25 when board texture starts mattering.
  • On Windows, outgrown the free version: Power-Equilab at $3.49 a month. Take the 14-day trial first.
  • On a Mac: Flopzilla and both Equilabs are out unless you run a Windows VM. Browser calculators for quick checks, PokerCruncher if you have an iPad, GTO Preflop for preflop work on Apple Silicon.
  • Phone-first, want equity numbers: PokerCruncher – Advanced, $12.99, one payment.
  • Phone-first, want to stop guessing preflop: GTO Preflop. That’s the gap we built the app to fill, and it’s the one the free tools have never covered.

Equilab alternatives: FAQ

Is there a Mac version of Equilab?

No. Equilab is distributed by PokerStrategy.com as a Windows installer and there is no native macOS build. Mac users run it inside a Windows virtual machine such as Parallels, dual boot, or switch to a browser-based calculator. Power-Equilab, from the same developer, is also Windows-only.

Is there an Equilab app for iPhone or Android?

There isn’t. No official Equilab mobile app exists on either store. On iOS, PokerCruncher – Advanced ($12.99, one-time) is the nearest equity-calculator equivalent. For preflop strategy rather than equity percentages, GTO Preflop covers iPhone, iPad and Android.

Is Equilab still free in 2026?

Yes. The standard Equilab remains a free download from PokerStrategy.com. Its paid sibling, Power-Equilab, starts at $3.49 a month and includes a 14-day trial.

Can I use Equilab while playing on PokerStars?

No. PokerStrategy’s own product page states that having the software open while you’re playing at the tables on PokerStars is not allowed. The same restriction is listed for Power-Equilab. Check your site’s current tool policy before installing anything.

What’s the difference between an equity calculator and a preflop solver?

An equity calculator answers “how often does this hand win against that range?” A preflop solver answers “what’s the game-theory-optimal action here, at what frequency, and what does deviating cost in EV?” Equilab, PokerCruncher and Flopzilla are calculators. GTO Preflop and GTO Wizard are solver-based tools. Most players who open a calculator preflop are really asking the second question.

What’s the best free Equilab alternative?

For Windows users, nothing free improves on Equilab itself. For everyone else, browser-based calculators from PokerJudge, CardPlayer or PokerNews cover a one-off equity check on any device at no cost, with no saving or syncing. Free tools stop being adequate once you want structured practice rather than answers to isolated questions.

Sources

All product names, logos and brands are property of their respective owners and are used for identification only. GTO Preflop is not affiliated with or endorsed by PokerStrategy.com, Flopzilla or PokerCruncher. Prices verified August 18, 2026 — check each vendor’s listing for current rates.