Canary Mail vs eM Client
Both are bought outright, both sit in email & tasks, and both are bought by people leaving Mimestream, Spark Premium, Superhuman. Here is what actually differs — including what each price does not buy.
The short answer
- eM Client has the cleaner licence: buy once, own forever, against lifetime plan available for Canary Mail.
- Canary Mail needs an account with the developer; eM Client does not.
Side by side
 Canary Mail$100Lifetime tier |  eM Client€39.95Perpetual | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | ai mail client that still sells a one-time lifetime bundle | mail, calendar and contacts client whose one-time licence covers future versions |
| Price | $100 | €39.95 |
| Licence | Lifetime plan available | Buy once, own forever |
| What you get | Normally sold as a subscription, but a genuine one-time lifetime option exists. | One payment. Updates included, indefinitely. |
| The catch | Apple's store sells a $99.99 lifetime bundle; the website's Pro+ lifetime is $300 for the same name | VIP Support is free for the first year only, then needs a paid extension |
| Macs per licence | 5 | 3 |
| Account required | yes | no |
| Works offline | partly | partly |
| Apple Silicon | Yes | No |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| On Setapp | No | No |
| Minimum macOS | macOS 12 | not established |
| App Store rating | not established | not established |
| Last updated | not established | not established |
| Price checked | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
Apple’s public API reports a rating for only a small minority of Mac apps, and returns zero for most of the rest even when the store page plainly shows reviews. A blank here means we could not read a number, never that an app is unrated or disliked.
In their own right
Canary Mail
A cross-platform mail client with end-to-end encryption and an AI assistant, sold as either a yearly subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase covering all four platforms.
eM Client
A desktop mail client that also does calendar, contacts, tasks and chat, with PGP and S/MIME built in. The one-time Personal licence includes Lifetime Upgrades, so it stays valid for future major versions rather than only the one you installed.