Charm and Elephas are both Mac writing tools that can run entirely on your own machine, but they do genuinely different jobs. Elephas is a broad AI assistant: it rewrites, summarises, continues your text, and answers questions about your own documents. Charm does one narrow thing continuously, correcting spelling and grammar and predicting your next word as you type. Elephas is a subscription starting at around $19 a month. Charm is $9.99 once. The honest deciding question is whether you want on-demand AI help or invisible always-on correction.
What does each app actually do?
Elephas is an assistant you invoke. You select text or open its window, then ask it to rewrite a paragraph, shorten an email, change the tone, or answer a question using documents you have loaded. Charm is a background service you never invoke. It watches what you type and fixes it.
Charm has three parts. Spells corrects spelling in real time, Polish corrects grammar when you finish a sentence, and Oracle predicts your next word so you can accept it with Tab. All three run inline in whatever app you are already typing in. There is no window to open and no prompt to write.
They solve opposite halves of the writing problem. Elephas helps you produce and reshape text. Charm cleans up the text you produce yourself, and never touches your meaning.
Is Elephas a subscription?
Yes. Elephas has a limited free plan with a small monthly credit allowance, then subscription tiers starting at around $19 a month, rising through higher tiers with more usage and features, with a discount for paying yearly. There is no lifetime or one-time licence on its official pricing page. It is also bundled into a Setapp membership, which is itself a monthly subscription.
Charm is $9.99 once. One payment covers up to 3 Macs, updates are included, and there is a 14-day money-back guarantee. Nothing recurs and nothing expires.
Over a single year, an entry Elephas plan costs roughly $228, and the higher tiers more. That is not an argument that Elephas is overpriced, because it is doing far more work. It just means the two sit in different budget categories, which for many people settles the decision.
Are both apps actually on-device?
Both can be, and we want to be precise here rather than claim an advantage we do not have. Elephas supports a fully offline mode running local models, and states that your data does not leave your device in that mode. If you keep it there, its privacy story is genuinely comparable to Charm's.
The differences are in the defaults. Elephas is also built to connect to cloud providers, so being private is a configuration choice you make and maintain, and its offline option sits on the top tier. Charm has no cloud mode at all: no API key field, no account, nothing to switch off. It runs local models on your Mac, works with the Wi-Fi off, and skips password fields entirely.
For background, we have written more on what on-device AI actually means and the privacy risks of cloud writing tools.
How do Charm and Elephas compare feature by feature?
Elephas is wider and Charm is deeper on one thing. Elephas covers rewriting, summarising and personal knowledge bases, plus an iOS companion. Charm covers continuous correction and word prediction, Mac only, for a one-time price.
| Feature | Charm | Elephas |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | $9.99 once | Subscription from around $19/month |
| Corrects as you type | Yes, continuously | No, on demand |
| Word prediction | Yes, Oracle | No |
| Rewrites and summarises | No, never rewords you | Yes |
| Knowledge base over your files | No | Yes, Super Brain |
| On-device option | Yes, on-device only | Yes, offline mode available |
| iOS companion | No, Mac only | Yes |
Where does Elephas genuinely win?
Elephas wins everywhere the job is bigger than a typo. Its Super Brain feature builds searchable knowledge bases from your own documents, PDFs, notes and web pages, so you can ask questions and get answers grounded in your own material. Charm has nothing like it.
It also does the classic AI writing work: rewriting a clumsy paragraph, changing an email's tone, continuing a stalled draft, and summarising something long. It integrates with Word, Gmail, Obsidian, Notion and Slack, and syncs with an iOS companion app so your work follows you off the Mac.
If your problem is having too much to read and too much to draft, Elephas is built for that and no amount of spelling correction will solve it. Charm will not write a single sentence for you.
Where does Charm win?
Charm wins on price model, on continuity, and on staying out of your way. It costs $9.99 once against an ongoing subscription, so the cost stops after one payment rather than compounding for as long as you use it.
It also corrects while you type rather than waiting to be asked. On-demand tools only help the text you remember to select, so important documents get cleaned up and Slack messages, form fields and quick replies do not. Charm covers all of it, including next-word prediction, which Elephas does not offer.
There is no setup, no account and no prompt writing, and Charm never rewords your voice. It fixes mechanics and leaves your sentences alone, which matters if you have ever watched an AI tool flatten your writing. For more options, see our roundups of the best writing assistants for Mac and the best Mac writing apps in 2026.
Which one should you choose?
Choose Elephas if you want an AI assistant that drafts, rewrites, summarises and searches your own documents, and you are comfortable with a monthly subscription. Choose Charm if you write plenty already and simply want it to come out clean, everywhere, for a one-time $9.99.
They are not mutually exclusive. Charm runs quietly underneath whatever else you use, so people who keep an AI assistant for drafting often still want continuous correction everywhere else. Before you buy Charm: it is English only, needs macOS 14 or later, and in browsers and Electron apps it uses Fix Selection with Option-Command-V rather than live inline correction.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Charm and Elephas?
Elephas is a broad Mac AI assistant. It rewrites, summarises, continues text, and builds knowledge bases from your own documents and PDFs, with integrations for Word, Gmail, Obsidian, Notion and Slack. Charm is narrower and continuous: it corrects spelling and grammar and predicts your next word as you type, in every Mac app, without you asking. Elephas is a subscription; Charm is $9.99 once.
Is Elephas a subscription?
Yes. Elephas has a limited free plan with a small monthly credit allowance, then subscription tiers starting at around $19 a month, with higher tiers above that and a discount for paying yearly. There is no lifetime or one-time licence. It is also included with a Setapp membership. Charm is a single $9.99 payment covering up to 3 Macs, with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Are Charm and Elephas both on-device?
Both can be. Charm is on-device by default and has no cloud mode at all, no account, and works offline. Elephas offers a fully offline mode with local models, and states that your data does not leave your device in that mode, but it also supports cloud providers and its offline option sits on the top subscription tier. If you keep Elephas in offline mode, the privacy story is genuinely comparable.
Can Charm rewrite or summarise my writing like Elephas?
No, and that is deliberate. Charm fixes mechanics, meaning spelling, grammar and punctuation, and never rewords your sentences or changes your tone. If you want a tool that rewrites a paragraph, shortens an email, changes the tone, or summarises a long document, Elephas does all of that and Charm does none of it.
Which one is better for fixing typos while I type?
Charm. It runs continuously in the background and corrects words as you type them, so typos are gone before you notice them. Elephas is on-demand: you select text and invoke it with a shortcut. In browsers and Electron apps, Charm uses Fix Selection with Option-Command-V instead of live correction, because those apps do not support reliable inline text replacement.