Serato has made two big moves on the same day. Serato DJ 5.0 is now officially out of public beta for Serato DJ Pro and Lite, and the company has launched Serato DJ for iOS, its first official DJ app for iPhone and iPad. Both landed on October 20, 2026.
Serato DJ for iOS: Serato in your pocket
Serato says the new app runs on the same engine as Serato DJ Pro, with the decks, crates, waveforms, and library rebuilt for smaller screens. It isn't a cut-down remote or a companion app. You can mix from the touchscreen in Handheld Mode, or plug into hardware.
Highlights include:
- 120+ supported DJ hardware setups, including controllers, mixers, and turntables from AlphaTheta, Pioneer DJ, Rane, Numark, Hercules, Denon DJ, Reloop, Roland, and more. The Roland SP-404MKII, Rane ONE MKII, AlphaTheta XDJ-AZ, and Pioneer DJ DDJ-FLX4 are all on the list.
- Real-time Serato Stems for isolating vocals, bass, melody, and drums, plus Stems FX on paid tiers.
- 60+ built-in FX, with up to six assignable per channel.
- Streaming from Apple Music, Beatport, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Tidal, with playlists and liked songs alongside your local files.
- DVS support for turntable and Control Vinyl setups on iPhone and iPad.
- Mix recording straight to your device (local and transferred tracks only, not streaming tracks).
- Cue points, Cue Loops, sampler, advanced pad modes like Slicer and Loop Roll, Key Sync, and Quantize.
- USB drive support, so you can play tracks directly from an external drive connected to your iPhone or iPad.
The app needs iOS or iPadOS 18.6 or later. There's no Android version.
iOS Transfer moves your crates from laptop to phone
The feature that ties it all together is Serato iOS Transfer. From Serato DJ Pro or Lite 5.0 on your laptop, you can send crates and songs to your iPhone or iPad over Wi-Fi, AirDrop, or a cable. Cue points, beatgrids, and metadata come along, and the music is stored on the device so you can play offline. If you've already spent years prepping a Serato library, that's the difference between a new app and a backup rig that actually knows your tracks.
Pricing
Serato DJ for iOS is a free download on the App Store. The free mode covers two-deck mixing with basic Stems, FX, cue points, samples, Auto Loop, music transfer, and selected hardware. Paid features such as Stems FX, the full 60+ FX set, recording, Quantize, Slip Mode, Beat Jump, Pitch Play, DVS, and the full hardware list unlock either with a one-time $149 USD purchase (iPhone and iPad only) or with a Serato DJ Suite license or subscription, which also covers Serato DJ Pro, its Expansions, and Serato Studio. There's a 7-day free trial of the paid features.
What's new in Serato DJ 5.0
On the desktop side, Serato DJ 5.0 was first released as a public beta in September and is now the official release.
Lucid Beatgrids is the headline. Serato rebuilt its analysis engine with better downbeat detection and, for the first time in Serato DJ, automatic tempo tracking. Tracks with tempo changes, live drummers, or loose intros and outros get tempo markers placed throughout, instead of a single fixed BPM. You can choose Flexible or Fixed modes, set BPM changes at bar or beat level, see BPM labels on the waveform where the tempo shifts, and use new editing tools like Set Grid Start and Set Beat/Set Bar.
Open Streaming lets you stay logged in to several streaming services at once and mix tracks from different providers in the same set. Each service appears as its own crate, and you can see BPM and key for streaming tracks before analysis.
Cue Loops trigger a hot cue and a loop from the same marker with a single press. This one is in DJ Pro, not Lite.
Recent updates also added support for the Hercules DJControl T10, AlphaTheta XDJ-AN, AlphaTheta CDJ-1500X, Numark Party Mix III and MixTrack Go, and Hercules DJControl Inpulse 200 MK3.
Why it matters
There have been plenty of DJ apps on iOS, but the big laptop DJ platform hasn't had an official one until now. For working DJs, the combination of a familiar library, iOS Transfer, DVS, and support for club-standard mixers turns an iPhone into a credible practice rig or emergency backup. For beginners, a free app that plugs straight into a DDJ-FLX4 or a Party Mix makes Serato's ecosystem much easier to start with.
Serato DJ 5.0 is a free update for Serato DJ Pro and Lite users, available from the Serato DJ Pro downloads page. You can find features and the supported hardware list on the Serato DJ for iOS page.
Images in this article are from Serato.