We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
If you're searching for Gmail alternatives, you're probably already using Gmail and are trying to figure out if paying for an email productivity tool like Superhuman is worth it. We'll make it easy and say yes—if you fit into the category below ⤵
Love or hate Gmail, Google has to consider billions of users with every single change that they roll out, this generally slows down their ability to innovate and build innovative features that the masses might not need. That said, when comparing Gmail vs Outlook (Microsoft 365), it is infinitely better, in our eyes. The biggest frustration though is that it's getting quite bloated with unnecessary widgets (e.g. now with the chat and everything there). In-fact, as an avid Gmail user for over a decade, I began finding that I have the thought to send an email, and by the time Gmail loads, I've totally forgotten what I was even about to do.
Enter Superhuman. Superhuman is a premium email tool built for tech savvy folks who just want a better email experience, both on the web and on mobile. The beautiful minimal interface that loads exceptionally quick not only saves us time, but makes the entire email inbox experience much more manageable.
Get through your inbox 2x as fast (for teams of all sizes).
Superhuman is the best email client made for busy professionals who want to enhance their email experience. If checking your emails is often an overwhelming, dreadful feat and wish there was a way you could spend less time on email, then Superhuman will almost certainly make your day better.
We've been using Superhuman for over 5 years as our email app and couldn't see life without it! And trust me, I used to bet the person that said "would never pay for email" but after trying it for the first month...I couldn't imagine going back, and here I am now 5+ years later, still a paying customer and am happier for it, it's that good.
Superhuman has a beautiful, minimal design and will help you get through your email faster. If you get more than 10 emails a week, we recommend trying Superhuman for at least 30 days (it's free) before committing to another solution.
Sign up here for a free month of Superhuman.
Superhuman is a layer atop of Gmail or Outlook. You no longer have to even log into Outlook or Gmail as when using Superhuman, you navigate your emails straight from the Superhuman web app, desktop app, or mobile app.
On the computer, you can use Superhuman without even touching your mouse, navigating email super fast through keyboard shortcuts alone (you can still use your mouse if you wish though!). If this sounds intimidating, don't let it! When you sign up for Superhuman, a specialist will take you through a 30-minute onboarding call, teaching you in the in's and out's of the tool.
With Superhuman you get through your emails super fast. Easily snooze emails for later, answer quickly using Superhuman's AI feature, and create Inbox Splits to help triage through specific types of emails in chunks. After using Superhuman for 2 weeks, our bet is you won't want to go back to life without it, it's a killer productivity app.
Get a free month of Superhuman.
Not only can you use AI to help you draft responses or write an email "in your tone" (it learns from your previous emails!), but their AI search is also fantastic.
AI search allows you to ask any question about your inbox in natural language, and Superhuman will return with an answer based on your inbox and provide the emails that it is referencing.
I can't tell you how much time I used to spend searching my inbox with "exact keywords". This is now totally elimintated with the AI search feature.
You can share email threads with others (whether they are on your team or not) so you can collaborate under email.
This has come super handy for us when we've had sales negotiations (very helpful to @mention each other and check-in if what is proposed makes sense), or to more thoughtfully respond to a customer. Read our entire Superhuman Team Comments review here.
If you share this link with your entire team, you will all get a free 30 days to test it out together.
There is no discount on annual pricing for Superhuman, although if you sign up using this link you will get your first-month free.
Secure business email, that makes it easier to stay on top of the work that matters (for teams of all sizes).
Gmail is the best email provider out there, and is infinitely better than Outlook (Microsoft 365). We've used it for many years, and in fact solely recommend teams use Google Workspace as the foundation for their business tech stack 🥞
For personal use, Gmail is free so of course, there's the clear benefit there.
For professional use, Gmail integrates seamlessly into the entire Google Workspace ecosystem, making it unbeatable. You have access to many of the apps you use daily alongside Gmail like Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Meet, etc.
But the reason we love Gmail most is because it has some of the most extensive integration capabilities and natively integrated apps of any email software on the market.
Overall, Gmail is a great email client and will work wonderfully as a part of the Google Workspace suite. But if you want supercharge email and have a faster email experience that is build more for professionals who enjoy beautiful UI/UX, then check out Superhuman.
Also, be sure to check out the integrations area for some of the tools that work with Gmail we love most like Superhuman and Mailman.
Gmail being as large as it is, has to take into account billions of users.
Just imagine, changing the color of a button can impact so many people (think of when an app you use daily changes their logo and you can no longer "find it" among your apps on your phone even though it's in the exact same place). Because of this, Gmail is not able to innovate much.
Gmail is also focused on building features for the masses that you might not need. For instance, the masses want a chat that easily allows you to talk to others, while you might already use Slack for this purpose and not need the feature at all. This leaves you with a widget that is not particularly helpful in anyway.
This leads to the final problem with Gmail. Because of the bloated features, Gmail has become so slow. It takes a few seconds to load, and with a simple distraction you can forget why you were going into your inbox in the first place 😅
The Gmail mobile app has a significantly better experience than even the web app in many ways. It's easy to navigate, loads relatively quickly, and is an overall good experience.
It also works great cross-platform and is quite stable overall. They let you also set swipe actions (Archive/Snooze/Delete) and get quite granular on the notification settings as well.
Although it has limitations around creating hyperlinks and other functionality when composing emails, which is where the mobile app features missing are another area where we feel like there could be some improvement, especially when comparing Gmail vs Superhuman.
Curious how this app compares to others?