Is Superhuman Worth It? 5 Signs You're Ready to Leave Gmail & Outlook in 2024

Checking emails doesn't have to be be dreadful. There's a better way to use email and in this article we'll share 5 very telling signs it might be time for you to make the switch to Superhuman.

But we want to make sure we're not leading you in the wrong direction, so at the end of the article we'll also share 3 scenarios where Superhuman won't fix your email problems. Lets get into it. ⤵

What Is Superhuman?

Superhuman is email that is designed to reduce the fatigue of getting through your emails, instead making it a fast and one might even say "enjoyable" experience.

Superhuman has a beautiful minimal design, an incredibly quick loading interface, and a myriad of helpful features, like easy-to-understand keyboard shortcuts that you'll actually use—though I'll share more about this in just a bit.

When Alex, my husband and business partner, first introduced me to Superhuman (we were dating at the time), I told him there is NO WAY I'd pay for checking my emails, and refused to even try the software.

He made me a bet and said if I didn't love Superhuman and I didn't want to keep using it, he'd personally refund me my first month. Since then, he hasn't had to refund me, and I've used it daily ever since for almost 4 years now.

With that, I don't think I could ever go back to using regular Gmail after using Superhuman. So here are 5 signs you should give it a shot too!

Get 30 day free trial of Superhuman.

1: Email Dread

Sign #1: You Hate Email

Sign number one that you're ready to start using Superhuman is that you absolutely hate opening up Gmail or Outlook to check your email.

It's simply a dreadful, overwhelming task, your email is cluttered, and it feels like there are dozens of messages vying for your attention. it's hard to distinguish what is important and what is not, so there is cognitive overload every time you open up that inbox.

It's not that you don't want to respond to people, it's just that you're always trying to figure out what is actually important and what's not.

Superhuman helps reduce this cognitive overload. For example, you can create Split Inboxes that group similar emails together, allowing you to actually focus by triaging through that specific type of email, all without getting distracted by that tempting newsletter (it happens to the best of us 😅).

Lets go through some Inbox Splits that we use:

• Important → 1:1 emails from humans, a person is writing to you, and it likely requires a response of some kind.
• Calendar → Meeting invites, scheduler bookings, and changes to existing events, how often have you been waiting on a call, only to miss that they've sent you an email asking you to reschedule or let you know they are running late. With Superhuman, you'll actually see this.
• Support Tickets → this is a Split Inbox for support requests that we've written out to other companies (not to be confused with internal support tickets). Troubleshooting is often time consuming and a rabbit hole, so having that mixed in with other emails is a surefire way to sidetrack you for hours in the middle of your workday
• Newsletters (for obvious reasons)
• Team Blocking → We've seen this one pop up quite a bit especially if you're a higher-up role at a company, this might be as simple as all emails from team members, or more specifically, emails that you've individually labeled as blocking the team from getting their work done.

Emails automatically sort as they come in once you've set up your inbox splits, so you can focus only on what's most important.

The best part about Split Inboxes is that they can even be spun up on a whim as a quick solution to help you get through an unnaturally overwhelming emails for the week. For example, we were just looking for additional video editors, and hundreds of applications came in, overwhelming my inbox. I was able to quickly spin up a Split Inbox to segment these applications out based on basic search criteria (like if the word "application" is in the subject line). This allows me to have control over my inbox again, and I'll simply remove this Split once we find a few more video editors. P.S. if that could be you and you love software as much as we do, let us know 😉

Believe it or not, the Split Inbox feature coupled with a few others that we'll share later in the article might even result in you actually enjoying your email experience—I know, I couldn't believe it at first either.

Get 30 day free trial of Superhuman.

2: Gmail/Outlook is Slow

Sign #2: You think Gmail/Outlook is Slow & Clunky

One of the reasons you might also hate checking your emails is because Gmail and Outlook has a slow email experience—this was actually one of my main frustrations with Gmail.

You know those those 3-5 seconds you often need to wait for Gmail to load—yeah, Superhuman is literally instant. Want to write an email? Open Superhuman and press [c] and you'll be writing that email for a solid 2–3 seconds before Gmail loads. While it might not sound like much, it stacks up, and it's easy to forget what you even opened up your email for when you're waiting Gmail to load.

Add in all the colors, sidebars, and attention-grabbing components in Gmail, and you're sure to get sidetracked, if not by that, by that random chat message calling your name. Gmail and Outlook were not built for focus, they were built and then extended upon by different product teams building "new advanced features", all vying for your attention, and sometimes totally unrelated to email itself. If you feel overwhelmed in Gmail or Outlook, it makes total sense as to why.

Superhuman mobile app

I also love using Superhuman on my phone—it's one of my most used mobile apps. In the mornings, before I even get to my computer, I often fly through the important inbox splits in just a couple minutes right from my phone, snoozing the more keyboard-heavy responses to remind me when I sit down and use the desktop app (yes, there's actually a snooze option for this) 🤯

You can customize your swipe actions based on what you use most, for me it's the Trash and Archive. One swipe to the left and I delete a message, one swipe to the right and I mark it as done.

Get 30 day free trial of Superhuman.

3: Quality Software

Sign #3: You enjoy quality software that has thoughtful functionality and design

Superhuman makes email more enjoyable because of the little details, like the use of their keyboard shortcuts and command bar.

For example, on the desktop you can triage your emails super fast:

• Tap [E] to archive an email
• Tap [C] to compose (ESC to exit, CMD enter to SEND)
• [L] to add a label
• Want to respond inline to specific parts of the email? Simply highlight a paragraph or any number of words with your mouse before pressing "enter", and just like that, the highlighted text appears in quotes, slightly grayed out, for you to respond specifically to that part of the message. People you're emailing will love you for this.
• Best of all, [H] to snooze your email conversations for later (you can write in natural language, e.g. "in 2 weeks" or even "next Thursday at 3pm in Australia" and it'll do all of that awful time zone conversion for you, it makes Snoozing emails for the perfect time totally frictionless). And just like that, Superhuman will resurface the email when you asked it to—and you can even set the snooze reminder to trigger only if there's "no reply", or you can leave it to trigger "regardless" as you'd normally expect. Often though, you only really want to be notified of an email you sent if you haven't received a response in a set amount of time.
• Looking for an action? Simply hit CMD [K] and you'll open up the command bar where you can use natural language to find what you're looking for 👀

And here's what some of those features look like in Gmail, it's a much slower and kludgy experience:

• Let's take for example the snooze functionality in Gmail. Even with keyboard shortcuts enabled, the entire experience well... requires a lot of mouse usage 😅 You either pick a pre-defined time to snooze, or if you want to select your own date, there are several clicks and unstructured time input fields involved. On top of that, if you want to change the time zone, whelp, you're stuck doing the time conversion in another tab 🤷 All this makes snoozing email conversations in Gmail an under utilized feature.

Superhuman AI

Superhuman even has those magic AI features that summarize entire email threads each time a new message comes in. Or if you prefer to use Superhuman AI to help you write emails more quickly? You can do that as well.

Simply write a quick message with gist of what you're trying to say and Superhuman AI will generate a message for you — you can either Accept it or ask it to shorten, or lengthen or even "rewrite in my voice" which it learns from your other emails!

Get 30 day free trial of Superhuman.

4: Clean & Organized Inbox

Sign #4: You value a clean/organized inbox

Sign number 4 is that when your inbox is clear, you feel more organized and on top of things.

While you still need to be checking your Superhuman email, the features we mentioned above result in getting to Inbox Zero more often than before. On-top of that, they have a slight level of gamification and streaks built in each time you hit inbox 0 for the day/week. While that's not something I particularly enjoy, I'd be lying if it hasn't helped push me over the line to just get a few more emails archived and dealt with (so as silly as it may seem, it does work).

Prior to Superhuman email, I hardly hit Inbox Zero because I was just used to my inbox being cluttered and it was easy for that to became my norm.

When I got Superhuman, I started fresh. With CMD A, I selected all my emails in my inbox, and hit E on my keyboard to auto-archive them clearing out my inbox entirely.

From that day on, I only had fresh emails in my inbox and have made sure to deal with each — whether its replying or snoozing for later or marking done — as soon as possible, helping me keep things nice and neat and organized.

Get 30 day free trial of Superhuman.

5: Save Time

Sign #5: You're willing to pay for things that save you time and bring enjoyment

While most people would relate with the sentiment "I would never pay to check email", I get it, because I too was fully in that camp. It wasn't until I used it for a free month that my entire perspective changed.

I went from dreading to check my emails to actually enjoying it and feeling first-hand how much time I was saving in the day-to-day.

The dread I had for email that existed in the past was no longer there and I was actually happy to pay to keep that dread away. Is it the fastest email experience? Well it's the fastest I've ever used, so I'd say so!

Get 30 day free trial of Superhuman.

Is Superhuman Worth It?

The truth of the matter is, many Superhuman users (myself included) say once they start using Superhuman, it's difficult to imagine no longer being able to use it. You can use it for multiple email accounts (so paying for it for your work account, will give you access to use it for your personal accounts too), making it even more worth the money.

And with Superhuman adding AI features that learn to write emails in your voice, it makes it even more worthwhile now than it has been in the past.

Superhuman has made my email experience 10x better, so yes, I'd say it's worth the price for something I use multiple times a day.

If you're on the line, claim your free 30 day trial, and see if it makes the same difference for you as it did for me. While there is no free version, the trial is going to let you know for certain if the tool will be worth keeping around for you.

When Superhuman Isn't Worth It

Now for where Superhuman won't fix your email problems (because we don't want to lead you astray):

1: Deep Team Collaboration Is Needed

#1 Your team needs to collaborate on emails and you're sending rough drafts to each other through Slack or other channels

What you should be looking at in this case is a shared inbox, aka a help desk — something like Help Scout.

A shared inbox allows teams to easily collaborate on the same email. For example, both Alex (my co founder) and I use Superhuman for our work emails, but for support tickets and sales requests, we use Help Scout as these types of emails usually require both of our inputs.

Superhuman's promise of being the fastest email experience won't help you here, as using a tool that allows for team collaboration will help you ten times over.

2: You Need A Shared Inbox

#2 You're a business owner and your inbox is overflowing with emails from customers or sales requests

If you're growing a business you need to be aware of when you should be using your personal inbox vs a support email for example.

Your personal inbox should be reserved for emails that only pertain to you, and anything that can be delegated to your team should go to another email address (e.g. [email protected]) where your team can help out.

The more you rope up your personal inbox into the business, the more difficult it will be to scale.

Training Customers To Write Into Support

With that, comes a training of customers to stop writing you as the Founder, and writing into your new support email.

A way we recommend doing this is if customers accidentally write to your personal email once you've mentioned they should be writing to support, make sure you don't respond from your personal email.

Forward it to the shared inbox for your team to reply, and make sure to have the team let your customer know in that they'll get a faster response if they write to your support email directly as it's more closely monitored—(it's helpful sometimes delay responding a bit especially if this continues to happen), as it's the only way to not set the expectation of "emailing you directly get's a faster/more urgent reply", as it's not the behavior you want.

You're trying to build habits up with your customers, and repetition and guidance is the only way you're going to do that.

Multiple Email Accounts Workaround

If you are an individual and setting up a help desk feels like too much, then you set up another email "[email protected]" and add it as an additional account within Superhuman as Superhuman supports multiple email accounts with your subscription. Just keep in mind that Superhuman is an email client, not a help desk so at a certain size and scale, getting a Help desk will eventually make the most sense.    

3: Gmail Email Extensions

#3 You're relying on certain email extensions as a part of your workflow

For example, CRMs like folk or Copper both utilize Gmail extensions to help you add contacts and view CRM data. These extensions don't work within Superhuman email though, so you'd have to consider consider the tradeoff.

While Superhuman has recently built a Salesforce integration/extension, it's uncertain if this well eventually expand to other CRMs, so just be mindful of that.

Sometimes the only way to know for certain is by giving it a try for yourself. While there is no free version, here's 1 free month of Superhuman (there is no longer a waiting list!).

Still unsure? Read the full Superhuman Review.

Get 30 day free trial of Superhuman.