What's New in Madeen: Wallet Advisor, 3,944-Card Catalog, and Web Encyclopedia

If you carry more than one credit card, you probably split your time between two jobs: picking the right card at checkout, and researching what to add next. Madeen’s 2026 release expands both sides — a sharper iPhone app for payment-time decisions, and a much larger web surface for discovery, research, and reference.

What’s new in Madeen in 2026?

Madeen now pairs a 3,944-card rewards catalog with an iPhone app that includes a wallet advisor (Ask tab), Home Screen widgets, and an expanded Discover tab — plus web-only tools: a sortable card directory, per-card landing pages, benefit value estimates, and a 754-page credit card encyclopedia at madeen.app/encyclopedia/. Everything stays local-first on iPhone: no bank login required.

What is the wallet advisor (Ask tab)?

The wallet advisor is Madeen’s chat companion on iPhone. Open Ask to get plain-language answers about rewards, annual fees, perks, trade-offs, and cards that may fit your spending — using Madeen’s catalog, not your bank data.

It is built for card literacy at the moment you have a question, not for account aggregation. You do not connect bank accounts or enter card numbers. The advisor streams answers from Madeen’s published card rules and detail pages.

Starter prompts focus on practical questions: which card wins for dining or travel, how a sign-up bonus compares to an Annual fee, or what card might complement a wallet you already carry.

How big is Madeen’s card catalog now?

Madeen’s catalog now covers 3,944 U.S. credit cards across 349 issuers, with 3,268 category reward rules indexed on the Card Rules Index. The data is sourced from structured issuer and aggregator feeds, enriched with editorial review for signup bonuses and benefit valuations, and exported to both the iPhone app and the website.

When you add cards in the app or browse Discover, you are searching the same snapshot. Online users receive catalog updates when the app refreshes from Madeen’s published runtime export; offline users fall back to the bundled catalog in the app binary.

Catalog stats, methodology notes, and freshness dates are published on madeen.app/card-rules/ so you can see what the snapshot includes before you rely on a specific rate or Bonus figure.

What is the Madeen card directory?

The card directory is a searchable, sortable table of every card in the catalog. You can rank cards by estimated sign-up Bonus value, Annual fee, category earn rates, benefit count, and total annual benefit value — Madeen’s editorial estimate of credits and perks.

Each row links to a dedicated card page at /cards/<cardKey>/ with reward breakdowns, fee details, Welcome bonus copy, benefit lists with dollar estimates where available, and Madeen effective-rate analysis for major spend categories.

Bonus values in the directory show estimated cash value in dollars as the primary figure, with compact points or miles shorthand underneath when the offer is not pure cash. Cash-back offers display the dollar value only. See how Madeen values benefits for the editorial rules behind the Total benefits column.

What is the Madeen credit card encyclopedia?

The encyclopedia is a reference library of 754 indexable pages covering reward programs, card benefits, transfer partners, network tiers, spend categories, issuer rules, and glossary terms.

Use it when you want context beyond a single card page — for example, how Ultimate Rewards transfer partners work, what a specific credit type means, or which cards share a benefit taxonomy entry. Encyclopedia pages cross-link to card pages and blog articles where relevant.

The encyclopedia is a web-only research surface. It complements the iPhone app’s payment-time recommendations and wallet advisor without changing the app’s v1 scope.

What’s new in the iPhone app?

Recent iPhone releases focus on discovery and wallet clarity while keeping Pay and Wallet as the primary loop for owned-card recommendations.

Wallet advisor (1.1–1.2): Ask tab for benefits, fees, and card-fit questions — no account required.

Home Screen widgets (1.2): Small, medium, and large widgets show your best card for Dining, groceries, gas, Travel, and everyday spend. Small and medium rotate categories; large includes a segment picker.

Discover improvements (1.3): Sort unowned cards by sign-up bonus, effective rate, or Annual fee, with an optional spend-category filter. Discover is separate from owned-card recommendations on Pay and Wallet — it is for finding a new card, not replacing your checkout pick.

Wallet fee total (1.3): See combined annual fees on the Wallet tab so you know what your stack costs each year.

Ranking mode: Toggle between effective rate and highest multiplier when comparing cards — two pre-set comparators over the same catalog data, not user-configurable point valuations.

App vs web: where each feature lives

Feature	iPhone app	Website
Payment-time category pick (owned cards)	Yes — Pay / Wallet	No
Wallet advisor chat	Yes — Ask tab	No
Home Screen widgets	Yes	No
Discover (unowned cards)	Yes	Card directory table
Per-card detail pages	Card detail in app	/cards/<cardKey>/
Benefit dollar estimates	In card detail	Card pages + directory
Encyclopedia (programs, benefits, glossary)	No	/encyclopedia/
Card Rules Index / catalog stats	Referenced in support	/card-rules/
Blog guides	No	/blog/

Both surfaces share the same underlying catalog export. Web pages add SEO-friendly depth, methodology disclosures, and browse-first layouts; the app optimizes for low-tap checkout decisions.

What Madeen does not do (v1)

Madeen is an informational rewards tool, not a bank or a marketplace with live account data.

Madeen does not link bank accounts, read transactions, auto-activate rotating categories, estimate approval odds, or push real-time issuer offers in the app today. Card pages and Discover may link to issuer application URLs from catalog data; affiliate disclosures and paid placement are planned for a later release.

Card terms, caps, and welcome offers change. Always confirm current terms on the issuer’s site before you apply or change your spending strategy.

What should you explore first?

If you already use Madeen on iPhone, try Discover sorted by effective rate in a category you spend on most, or ask the wallet advisor how a card’s Annual fee compares to its credits.

If you are researching from a browser, start with the card directory for bonus and fee comparisons, or the encyclopedia hub for program and benefit context. The Card Rules Index shows catalog scale and snapshot date in one place.

Madeen is free on iPhone — download on the App Store — and the web catalog is open at madeen.app/cards/ with no login required.