Search for “what is Setapp” and half the answers come from Reddit threads and Instagram posts, many of them quoting old prices. This guide sticks to what Setapp’s own pricing page, help center and terms say in October 2026, plus the sign-up screens we went through ourselves, right up to the payment step. If you want to know what you pay, what you get and what the 7-day trial really asks for, start here.
Setapp in Plain Terms: What It Is and Who It Suits
Setapp is a subscription for Mac apps: one fee unlocks a catalog that Setapp’s homepage describes as “300+ Mac, iOS, and web apps in one subscription” (Setapp). MacPaw runs it. The site footer reads “Crafted by” MacPaw, and the copyright line names MacPaw Way Ltd. in Limassol, Cyprus. Think of it as a streaming service, but for utilities, writing tools, design helpers and video apps instead of movies.
So what is Setapp used for? Mostly for replacing a pile of separate app purchases. Instead of buying a screenshot tool, a menu bar organizer, a PDF editor and a video converter one by one, you install the Setapp desktop app, browse the catalog and add what you need. Setapp’s how-it-works page says the desktop app “takes up just 300 MB” and that “one flat fee covers everything, including new apps added later” (How Setapp works).
Who does it suit? Our read, based on the prices below rather than months of daily use, is people who already rely on three or more paid Mac utilities, and people who enjoy trying new apps. Setapp makes a similar pitch: its own page calls the membership the popular choice if “You regularly use 3 or more Mac apps.” It suits you less if you need one specific app, need Windows, or want to own a license for good.
One thing up front about how we put this guide together. Indie Stack Lab has not opened any app inside the Setapp catalog. Setapp’s trial asks for payment details before it starts, and our review rules stop at that point. So the facts here come from Setapp’s official pages, read on October 23, 2026, plus the screens we saw on the way to the payment step. You won’t find app-by-app opinions here, because we don’t have any to give yet.
Key Takeaways
Setapp’s Mac plan costs $14.99/month plus tax, or $107.88/year, and every plan starts with a 7-day trial that needs a payment method. Setapp’s help center says its promise of full features with no limits or ads “successfully works for ~97% of Setapp apps” (Limitations in Setapp apps); the rest, mostly AI and cloud features, come on a reduced plan. Cancel, and the apps stop working at the end of the billing period, while your files stay on your Mac.
How We Researched Setapp: The Trial Flow We Went Through
On October 21, 2026, we followed Setapp’s sign-up flow from the pricing page to the payment step, four screens in all, and stopped there without entering anything. Here is what each screen showed, copied word for word from our research log:
- The pricing page listed three plans, each with a “Start 7-day free trial” button and the note “+ tax, billed monthly.” Its FAQ said: “The Setapp Membership has a 7-day free trial.”
- The Mac plan’s trial button led to “Sign in to Setapp,” with a “Continue with Google” option. The Google consent screen asked only for name, profile picture and email address.
- The next page was titled “Customize your plan — Mac plan (Free for 7 days).” It offered Monthly at $14.99/month + tax after the trial, or Annual at $8.99/month + tax, spelled out as $107.88/year after the trial and labeled “40% cheaper.” The button read “Start your 7-day trial.”
- The last page read: “Add payment details — Please enter your details — We collect this information to help combat fraud, and to keep your payment secure.” It asked for an email address and a country, then showed a Continue button, with “Sold by Paddle” on the page.
That last screen is where the trail ends for this guide. Our rules say no payment details, so we never installed or opened an app from the catalog. Why spell this out? Because many posts that call themselves a Setapp review read as if the writer lived with the apps for months. This page doesn’t, and you should weigh it that way.
What surprised us was the order of the steps. The pricing page says “free trial” in large type, but the payment question comes before you see a single app. If you plan to try Setapp, have a card ready, and set a reminder before the week runs out.
How a Setapp Membership Works: One Subscription, One Catalog
A Setapp Membership gives you the full version of every app in the catalog for one fee, and Setapp’s help center says that promise holds for “~97% of Setapp apps” (Limitations in Setapp apps). You install the desktop app, sign in, and each app installs from inside it.
A few rules shape the experience:
- Same apps as the developer’s own version. The how-it-works FAQ says “You get the full premium version — same features, same updates,” and updates are handled for you.
- Some apps come with limits. The help center lists them: CleanShot X comes with a 10 GB cloud storage cap, Spark Mail comes as its “Plus” plan, Luminar Neo leaves out generative tools such as GenErase, and FocuSee leaves out AI features like Virtual Avatars. The reason given is that those features cost the developer money every time someone uses them.
- Apps can leave. Setapp says the most common reason, covering “over 90% of all cases,” is that the developer stops supporting or retires the app (Apps removed from Setapp). An installed app keeps working, but once you uninstall it you can’t install it again. Setapp says it emails users before an app is removed.
- No sharing. The subscription plans article says you “can not share your subscription with other people” on any of its personal plans (Subscription plans).
There is also a second way to buy: the Setapp Marketplace, which is what many people mean when they search for the Setapp store. The Marketplace “lets you subscribe to individual apps at per-app pricing,” and those apps install without the Setapp client. CleanMyMac is a good example. Its Setapp page lists the membership “From $14.99/month” and the app alone “From $9.95/month” (CleanMyMac on Setapp). If you only need one tool, the Marketplace price can beat the membership.
How many apps are there, exactly? Setapp’s pages don’t agree. The homepage and the how-it-works page say 300+, while the summary Setapp publishes for AI assistants says “260+ curated apps” (Setapp llms.txt). Part of the gap may be the standalone Marketplace apps, but Setapp doesn’t say.
What kind of apps? The Create category alone shows video tools such as Filmage Editor, Permute, Downie and VidCap next to design helpers such as Sip, Mockuuups Studio, IconJar, Typeface, Glyphs Mini and Flinto (Setapp Create apps). Is that enough for serious video work? Probably not on its own. If editing is the main job, compare full editors first in our guide to video editing software for Mac, from iMovie to Final Cut, and see the video editing picks for every budget we keep up to date.
Setapp Plans and Prices in 2026: Mac, Mac + iOS and Power User
Setapp’s pricing page lists three main plans in October 2026, from $14.99/month for one Mac to $22.99/month for four Macs and four iOS devices, all “+ tax, billed monthly” (Setapp pricing). The help center lists four more plans and the annual prices (Subscription plans). Here is the full grid in US dollars:
| Plan | Devices | Monthly price | Annual price | AI credits per month (monthly billing) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mac | 1 Mac | $14.99 | $107.88 | 1,000 |
| Mac + iOS | 1 Mac, 4 iOS devices | $18.99 | $134.88 | 1,000 |
| Power User | 4 Macs, 4 iOS devices | $22.99 | $161.88 | 2,000 |
| iOS | 2 iOS devices | $7.99 | $53.89 | 1,000 |
| Two Macs | 2 Macs | $18.99 | $134.88 | 1,000 |
| AI Enthusiast | 1 Mac | $22.99 | $161.88 | 6,000 |
| AI Expert | 4 Macs, 4 iOS devices | $35.99 | $259.08 | 9,000 |
The help center adds: “Price excludes taxes.” Checkout adds tax based on where you live.
A few details are easy to miss:
- The annual Mac plan works out to $8.99/month, the figure the trial screen showed. That is where the “40% cheaper” label and the pricing page’s “Save up to 40% yearly” come from: $107.88 against $179.88 for twelve monthly payments.
- Annual plans come with fewer AI credits per month. The same help article lists 300 a month on the regular annual plans, 3,750 on AI Enthusiast and 7,500 on AI Expert.
- Students get a discount. The help center lists “educational discounts (20% off annual “Mac+iOS” plan),“ shown as $107.88/year.
- Registering from a Mac starts you on the Mac plan. To start on another plan, the help center says to “go to the Pricing page and click Start 7-day free trial for the plan you need.” The iOS plan has to be started from an iPhone or iPad.
Why do older posts quote different prices? Setapp has changed its plans over the years, and its help center keeps a separate “Why is my price different?” article for returning members on older plans. Trust the price at checkout over any article, including this one. Discounts, the education plan and promo timing will get a deeper look in our upcoming Setapp pricing guide.
The 7-Day Free Trial Asks for Payment Details First
Yes, the Setapp trial needs a payment method: Setapp’s FAQ answers “Yes. You need a valid payment method to activate the trial,” and adds that “You won’t be charged until day 8” (How Setapp works). That matches the screens we saw, where “Add payment details” came right after the plan choice.
Here is what the trial includes and how it ends, per Setapp’s help center (Free trial period) and the how-it-works FAQ:
- Every new user gets 7 days. The trial defaults to the Mac plan unless you change it.
- When the trial ends, Setapp bills the plan you are on for the next period.
- A reminder email goes out on day 6, “so you’re never caught off guard.”
- Canceling during the trial is free. After that, “Setapp and its apps will no longer be available.”
- iOS apps installed during the trial lose their activation and keep working in their free mode.
- AI credits left over from the trial do not carry over into your paid plan.
- Each friend you invite who joins on a paid plan earns you an extra free month.
The fine print matters here. Setapp’s terms of use say you must cancel “AT LEAST 24 HOURS BEFORE THE END OF THE TRIAL OR CURRENT SUBSCRIPTION PERIOD,” and that “DELETING THE SERVICES DOESN’T CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS OR FREE TRIALS” (Setapp Terms of Use). The terms carry an effective date of August 20, 2026. So the real deadline is the end of day 6, not day 7, and dragging the app to the Trash does nothing for your bill.
Can you just look around for free? Not really: there is no free plan to fall back on. When the 7 days end, you pay or you lose access. If that bothers you, browse the catalog on setapp.com first. Every app has a public page with a description, the current version, its download size and the macOS version it needs, and you can read all of that without an account.
Who Bills You: Setapp, MacPaw and Paddle
Paddle processes your Setapp charge, and Setapp’s help center calls it “Setapp’s official billing partner” (About Paddle charges in Setapp). That is why the payment page in the sign-up flow said “Sold by Paddle,” and why your card statement may show Paddle instead of Setapp.
Is Setapp legit, then? Based on public facts, yes:
- The company behind it is MacPaw. Setapp’s site names MacPaw Way Ltd. with an address in Cyprus, and its help center lists a US toll-free customer care number.
- Paddle “handles the transaction on behalf of Setapp,” on a system the help center says meets PCI DSS, the card industry’s security standard.
- Paddle also works out sales tax or VAT “based on your location,” which is why every price on the pricing page says “+ tax.”
Is Setapp safe to install? Setapp publishes what its desktop app needs: “around 300 Mb” of disk space, macOS Ventura 13.0 or later recommended, and High Sierra 10.13 as the minimum (Setapp system requirements). We can’t vouch for each app inside, because we haven’t installed them. What we can say is narrower: on our way to the payment page, the Google sign-in asked only for name, profile picture and email, and the payment page explained why it wanted details (“to help combat fraud”).
Is there any reason for caution? One small one. Since the merchant name on your statement is Paddle, a renewal can look unfamiliar months later. Note the date you start the trial and the plan you picked, and that line on your statement will make sense when it shows up.
Setapp AI: What the AI Credits in Each Plan Cover
Every Setapp plan now includes AI credits, from 1,000 a month on the Mac plan to 9,000 on AI Expert with monthly billing, and Setapp defines a credit as “the unit used to calculate your AI usage across all Setapp AI+ apps” (About AI+ plans). How many tokens a credit buys depends on the AI model the app calls.
Here is how Setapp AI works in practice, per that help article:
- Credits sit in one pool that all AI+ apps in your plan draw from, so you don’t manage a separate balance per app.
- The text models come from “OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Perplexity, xAI (Grok)”; images use DALL-E and Gemini; voice uses Whisper. Each app’s developer chooses the models.
- “Unused credits are reset and will not be carried over to the next billing period.”
- If you run out, you can subscribe to extra credits on top of your plan.
- Some apps accept your own API key. Then your AI provider bills you directly, and “Setapp cannot track AI usage when you use a personal API key.”
Do Setapp’s numbers agree with each other? Not quite. The plan cards say 1,000 or 2,000 AI credits. The help center shows 300 a month on the regular annual plans. And one answer in the pricing page’s FAQ says all plans include “10 AI credits per month.” We can’t tell which line is out of date. If AI tools are part of why you want Setapp, check the credit balance in your account on the first day of the trial, before you pick monthly or annual.
Credit-based pricing is common across AI tools, and the logic is always the same: a fixed allowance that runs out faster on heavier jobs. Our look at how fast InVideo AI’s free credits ran out on one short video shows how quickly a credit budget can disappear on generation-heavy work.
One App vs a Subscription: An Amadine Example
Amadine, a vector design app from BeLight Software, shows the other way to pay for Mac software: a one-time license of $29.99, or $39.99 for a family license with 5 seats, as its in-app store listed on October 21, 2026. It is a useful contrast because Amadine is not part of Setapp. When we checked Setapp’s catalog in October 2026, no Amadine listing appeared, and setapp.com/apps/amadine returned a “Sorry, page not found” page.
Here is what Amadine’s free download does, from our own run of it on October 21, 2026:
- The download comes from amadine.com, about 78 MB, with no account needed. The app is signed by BeLight Software and notarized by Apple.
- Creating a new document brings up “This copy of Amadine is not licensed. Export, printing and image tracing are disabled.” A Try It button lets you keep working.
- Drawing and text tools work in the unlicensed copy, and documents save.
- The Export window looks fully available, with SVG, EPS, PDF, TIFF, PNG and JPEG. Pressing Export brings back the block message, and no file is written.
So how does the math work? $29.99 once is the same as two months of the Setapp Mac plan at monthly billing. If one design app is all you need, buying it outright costs less within the first year, and it keeps working after that. Amadine’s site lists macOS 11 or later for the Mac version and iOS or iPadOS 15 or later for iPhone and iPad (Amadine). A subscription only comes out ahead when several paid apps replace several purchases.
Is this tradeoff unique to design apps? No. Video editors face the same choice. See what Movavi’s free version leaves out and Movavi’s plan and lifetime license prices for another one-time-versus-subscription decision. A full look at Amadine on its own is on our list.
Setapp on iPhone and iPad
Setapp works on iPhone and iPad through plans with iOS slots: the iOS plan covers 2 iOS devices for $7.99/month, and Mac + iOS, Power User and AI Expert each cover up to 4 (Subscription plans). The apps themselves come from the App Store, and Setapp then activates them.
There are two ways to get an iOS app running, per the help article (Install and activate iOS app):
- From your Mac: open the app’s page in Setapp, click the Get iOS App button and scan the QR code with the iPhone’s built-in Camera app. Install the app from the App Store, then scan a second QR code to activate it. This path isn’t available on the iOS-only plan.
- From the iPhone or iPad: sign in at setapp.com in Safari, open Setapp Membership, choose the Apps for iOS tab, tap Get, install from the App Store, then come back and tap Activate. Setapp asks you to use Safari for this.
The same article answers a common worry: “Don’t worry about the app’s price on the App Store: you won’t need to pay anything on top of your Setapp payments.” An app without a Get iOS App button has no iOS version in Setapp. Setapp for Teams members can’t install from the iPhone itself and have to use the Mac route.
What about Setapp Mobile? That was a separate alternative app store for users in the EU. Setapp’s notice says “Setapp Mobile was sunset on February 16, 2026,” and that all of its apps were removed from the platform that day (Setapp Mobile notice). The iOS plans above are a different thing and still appear on the pricing page. A full guide to the iOS plan is coming in its own article.
Is Setapp Worth It? A Break-Even Way to Decide
Setapp is worth it when the paid apps you would use cost more than the plan: Setapp’s own Mac Apps Report put the average Mac user’s spending at “US$139 on apps” a year (MacTech), more than the $107.88 annual Mac plan but less than $179.88 for twelve months of monthly billing. That report covers 2022 and comes from Setapp itself, so treat it as a rough benchmark. The rest of this section is our own arithmetic, not a promise.
A three-step way to decide:
- List the paid Mac apps you use every week, then look each one up on setapp.com/apps.
- Add up what the ones in the catalog would cost you per year if bought directly, using each developer’s own price.
- Compare that total with the plan you need from the table below.
| Plan and billing | Cost per year | Same money as one-time licenses at $29.99 |
|---|---|---|
| Mac, annual | $107.88 | About 3.6 |
| Mac + iOS, annual | $134.88 | About 4.5 |
| Power User, annual | $161.88 | About 5.4 |
| Mac, monthly | $179.88 | About 6 |
There is a catch in that last column. A one-time license doesn’t renew every year, and Setapp does. A $29.99 app you keep for three years costs about $10 a year. So the fair comparison isn’t against apps you would buy once and forget. It is against apps you would subscribe to anyway, or pay to upgrade every year or two.
Subscriptions add up quickly, though. CleanMyMac’s standalone price on Setapp’s own site starts at $9.95/month, which is $119.40 a year for that one app, already more than the annual Mac plan with the whole catalog. Setapp’s FAQ makes the same point from the other side: “If you’re already using 3 or more Marketplace apps, Membership usually works out cheaper.”
So, is Setapp worth it for you? In plain terms: if three or more of your regular paid apps are in the catalog and at least one of them is a subscription, the annual Mac plan likely pays for itself. If you need one or two apps, buy them directly. A roundup of other ways to get paid Mac apps, from the Mac App Store to developer licenses, is on our list for a future article.
Canceling Setapp: What Happens to Your Apps
When you cancel Setapp, your account stays active until the end of the current billing period, and then the apps stop working, though Setapp says “Your files and data stay on your device — Setapp doesn’t delete anything” (How Setapp works). Canceling takes three steps in your account, per the help center (Cancel subscription):
- Go to the Subscription page of your Setapp account and click Manage subscription.
- Click Cancel subscription at the bottom of the page.
- Answer the short survey and confirm.
What should you expect afterward?
- The apps “will still be installed on your Mac or device,” but you can’t use them once the account is deactivated.
- There is no refund for the rest of a paid period. The terms of use say “A canceled subscription will not be refunded for the unused part of the ongoing Services period.”
- You can renew at any time and get full access back, with your data still in place.
- Deleting the Setapp app does not cancel anything. Only the account setting does.
Will you lose your work? Setapp says it doesn’t delete files. But a file is only useful if some app can open it. Before canceling, export the documents you care about into common formats such as PDF, PNG, Markdown or plain text, so a different app can read them later. That habit also protects you if an app leaves the catalog while you are still a member. This series will add a step-by-step guide to installing and fully uninstalling the Setapp desktop app.
Before You Start the Setapp Trial: A Short Checklist
Setapp makes the most sense when you go in with a list, because seven days is short and the terms want you to cancel 24 hours before the end, which leaves six. What should those seven days answer? A few concrete questions, instead of random browsing.
A checklist to take with you:
- Write down the paid Mac apps you use now and check each one on setapp.com/apps.
- Decide monthly or annual before day 6; the annual Mac plan is $107.88 a year plus tax.
- If AI tools matter to you, check the credit balance in your account on the first day.
- Set a reminder for day 5, so you have time to cancel or switch plans.
- Keep your own license for any app you rely on that isn’t in the catalog, like Amadine.
- Export anything important to a common file format before you cancel.
Have a card ready, read the plan screen before you press Continue, and you will know within a week whether Setapp earns its place on your Mac.
References
- Setapp: Homepage
- Setapp: Pricing
- Setapp: How Setapp works
- Setapp Support: Subscription plans
- Setapp Support: Free trial period
- Setapp Support: Limitations in Setapp apps
- Setapp Support: Apps removed from Setapp
- Setapp Support: About AI+ plans
- Setapp Support: About Paddle charges in Setapp
- Setapp Support: Install and activate iOS app
- Setapp Support: Setapp Mobile notice
- Setapp Support: Cancel subscription
- Setapp Support: Setapp system requirements
- Setapp: Terms of Use
- Setapp: Create apps
- Setapp: CleanMyMac
- Setapp: llms.txt
- MacTech: Mac Apps Report
- Amadine