Good news, Substage is now on Setapp!

If you’ve already got a Setapp subscription, you can grab Substage right now for free. If not, this might be a nice excuse to give Setapp a try; I’ve always loved the idea of it, especially for smaller indie apps like mine where a subscription might feel like a bit much.

If you don't know it, Setapp is a curated collection of Mac apps you get access to with a single subscription. They’re pretty selective about what they include, so I was really pleased when they chose to accept Substage.

Even better, they gave me some super thoughtful feedback during the review process, stuff that actually led to improvements in the app itself, and that benefits everyone: I've added a brand new feature in the latest release of Substage, directly inspired by Setapp's feedback: full Spotlight search. You can now ask Substage things like “show me all jpg images created yesterday” and it’ll use Spotlight behind the scenes to find the right files:

So far, I've found that most people prefer to go for the "Bring Your Own AI" option over the subscription version, and I totally get that - it appeals most to a technical audience who might have access to their own API keys already, and people do get a bit weary of too many subscriptions. What's cool about Setapp is that you can get the benefit of bundling all your apps into a single subscription to keep things simple. It also lets you try out more apps without doing the whole “is this worth it?” calculation every time.

The version of Substage on Setapp includes GPT-4.1 Mini by default, which I’ve found to be a great all-rounder—quick, reliable, and good enough for almost everything I throw at it. But if you’re the kind of person who likes having more control (or already has your own API keys), you can still plug those in too. Just like the other editions of Substage, the Setapp version supports “Bring Your Own AI” as well.

That's it for now! By the way, I’m always keen to hear how people are using it (or what’s not working!) Come say hi in the Discord if you’ve got questions, feedback, or just want to compare AI models.