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 $$D_u$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mi>u</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> , $$D_s$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> , $$B_u$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:mi>u</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> , $$B_s$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> and $$B_c$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:mi>c</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> mesons and the heavy quarkonia $$\eta _c$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mi>c</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> and $$\eta _b$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>η</mml:mi> <mml:mi>b</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> 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.