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Abstract The ladder kernel of the Bethe–Salpeter equation is amended by introducing a different flavor dependence of the dressing functions in the heavy-quark sector. Compared with earlier work this allows for the simultaneous calculation of the mass spectrum and leptonic decay constants of light pseudoscalar mesons, the $$D_u$$ D u , $$D_s$$ D s , $$B_u$$ B u , $$B_s$$ B s and $$B_c$$ B c mesons and the heavy quarkonia $$\eta _c$$ η c and $$\eta _b$$ η b within the same framework at a physical pion mass. The corresponding Bethe–Salpeter amplitudes are projected onto the light front and we reconstruct the distribution amplitudes of the mesons in the full theory. A comparison with the first inverse moment of the heavy meson distribution amplitude in heavy quark effective theory is made.