Superhuman Alternatives in 2026: Spark, Missive, Shortwave and Merlin

The right Superhuman alternative depends on what's pushing you out. Spark is the low-cost route, with a free plan and paid plans from $99 a year. Missive is built for teams that share inboxes. Shortwave is the closest like-for-like swap if you're on Gmail and want more AI. Merlin is a Mac assistant that works alongside Gmail instead of replacing your mail app.

Superhuman built its name on fast, keyboard-driven email, and plenty of people still pay for it gladly. Over the past year the company around it changed: Mail is now one product in a larger suite, and the plans have been redrawn. Below: what's different, what Superhuman Mail still does better than most, four alternatives matched to the common reasons for leaving, and a table of the published prices and limits.

What changed at Superhuman

Superhuman Mail now belongs to the company that used to be called Grammarly. In its rebrand announcement, Grammarly said it was changing its company name to Superhuman, bringing Grammarly, Coda and Superhuman Mail under one brand and adding a new assistant, Superhuman Go. The Superhuman homepage now lists Go, Agents, Mail, Calendar, Docs and Databases as parts of one suite.

The plans followed. On Superhuman's plans page, the Free plan and the Pro plan ($12 per member a month billed annually, or $15 billed monthly) cover Grammarly, Docs and Go, but not Mail. Mail starts on Business, at $33 per member a month billed annually or $40 billed monthly, which also includes Grammarly, Docs, Go and read and update access to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive from the inbox. Enterprise is priced by quote. The Mail app page puts it plainly: Mail is included with the Business plan.

If your team already uses Grammarly and Docs, that bundle can be good value. If the email app was the only part you opened, you're now buying a suite to keep it.

On data, the announcement says the company doesn't sell or monetize user content, and that its third-party service providers may not train their models on it.

What Superhuman Mail still does well

Superhuman Mail remains a full-featured client for Gmail and Outlook, and it runs everywhere: native apps for Mac and Windows, apps for iOS and Android, and a Chrome extension for the web, per the Mail app page. The Mail product page lists what most switchers end up trying to replace:

• Split Inbox, which sorts incoming mail into streams such as your team, VIPs, and tools like Google Docs, Notion and Asana.
• Follow-up reminders that bring a thread back if nobody replies within the time you chose, plus Snooze, Send Later and Instant Reply.
• Snippets, reusable text or whole emails that can carry attachments and Cc or Bcc recipients, shareable with a team.
• Read statuses that show when someone read your email and on which device.
• Team features for sharing a live view of a thread that colleagues can comment on even without Superhuman, and alerts when a teammate is replying to the same email.
• Superhuman AI, which organizes the inbox, writes drafts in your tone, summarizes and searches, and can send on your behalf.

If your company pays for Business, you move between a Windows laptop and an Android phone, and your hands rarely leave the keyboard, staying put is a reasonable answer. None of the alternatives below matches every item on that list.

Four alternatives, matched to the reason you're leaving

Four reasons for leaving Superhuman come up again and again: the per-seat price, a team that needs one shared inbox, a mail account Superhuman doesn't support, or wanting help with what comes after the inbox. Each alternative below answers one of them better than Superhuman does.

Spark, when the price is the problem

Spark is the only email app here with a free plan. The Spark pricing page lists Free at $0 with the Smart Inbox, unlimited email accounts, smart notifications and a calendar. Plus costs $10 a user a month or $99 a year and adds the AI assistant, templates and 40 AI meeting notes a month. Pro costs $20 a month or $199 a year and adds auto-drafts, read statuses, Autopilot and a HubSpot integration. Plus and Pro come with a seven-day trial when you subscribe in the app.

Spark connects Gmail, Outlook and other providers and runs on Mac, Windows, iOS and Android, so it's also worth a look if your mail lives with a provider other than Google or Microsoft. The trade-off is how the AI is metered: Spark +AI is off by default and draws on a monthly quota, with one-time add-ons once it runs out. A solo user on Pro paid yearly spends about half of what one Superhuman Business seat costs.

Missive, when a team shares the inbox

Missive is a team inbox first. Its pricing page lists Starter at $14 a user a month billed yearly for up to five users, Productive at $24 for up to 50 with rules, integrations and API access, and Business at $36 with SAML single sign-on and advanced reporting. Missive lists no free plan, but Productive comes with a 30-day trial that needs no card.

Where Superhuman's team features let colleagues see and comment on a thread, Missive is built around team inboxes and conversations everyone works from. It connects Gmail and Google Workspace, Outlook and IMAP accounts, and the same window can hold SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. Each user gets up to 10 personal and 5 shared accounts. It runs on the web, iOS, Android, macOS and Windows, and its AI writes drafts, summarizes and translates, with the option to bring your own AI key. A support desk or an agency answering clients from shared addresses will feel the difference most.

Shortwave, when you want more AI on Gmail

Shortwave is the closest swap for a solo Gmail user who liked Superhuman's speed and wants a stronger AI assistant. It even publishes a guide to migrating from Superhuman: splits, a Remind me option next to the send button, a command palette on ⌘K, many of the same keyboard shortcuts, and labels, stars, signatures and aliases that sync with Gmail. Its AI searches your mail in plain language and writes replies and drafts.

Shortwave supports Gmail and Google Workspace accounts only, per that guide, so Outlook users should look elsewhere. The Shortwave pricing page lists Business at $30 a seat a month, Premier at $45 and Max at $120, each tier with more AI usage than the last, and a 14-day free trial. Apps cover macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, per its download page. At the Business tier, it costs about what Superhuman Mail does; the case for it is the AI, not the savings.

Merlin, when follow-ups slip rather than the inbox

Merlin is our product, and it isn't an email client. It's a Mac assistant that works from your inbox and calendar on Google, then acts on what it finds there. A built-in routine called Inbox Watcher reads new mail as it arrives and sends a short note in chat when something needs you, with the email under it; newsletters and promotions stay out of the way. A Daily Digest at 8 a.m. covers important mail and the day's meetings across every connected Google account. The People panel lists the people whose emails to you are still unanswered, and a Meeting Brief covering who you're about to meet and what you last discussed arrives shortly before each call.

Tell Merlin to reply, forward or send, and it shows a card with the sending account, recipients, subject and body; you edit what you like, and the email waits for your confirm. Routines you set up yourself are different: they run unattended, and if you allow one to send, it sends without a card.

The limits matter for anyone leaving Superhuman. Merlin runs only on a Mac, with no Windows, phone or web app. It connects Google accounts only (two on Free, five on paid plans); Outlook and IMAP aren't supported. Merlin has an email address of its own, and its Email tab shows that inbox, not your Gmail, so you'd keep a mail app for reading and archiving. It has no shared team inbox. The pricing starts with a free plan that includes 5,000 credits a month, which the assistant spends as it works; the Pro plan costs $29 monthly, with 20% off billed annually, and there are no trials.

It fits someone on Gmail and a Mac whose problem was never inbox speed, but the reply they meant to send on Tuesday.

Superhuman vs. Spark vs. Missive vs. Shortwave vs. Merlin

Prices are as each company lists them, in US dollars, for one user. Annual prices are shown the way each company states them.

Three questions that settle it

1. Who pays, and for how many? One person paying out of pocket will save most with Spark, which is free or $99 a year on Plus. A team of five or more that shares addresses should price Missive against Superhuman Business seat for seat.
2. Which accounts do you use? Superhuman covers Gmail and Outlook. If you're on Outlook, Shortwave and Merlin are out, and Spark or Missive remain. If your mail is with another provider, Spark lists support for other providers and Missive connects over IMAP.
3. Which devices? If you need Windows or a phone, Merlin won't fit. If your desk is a Mac and your mail is Gmail, every option on this page is open to you.

If you'd rather drop third-party clients altogether and stay in Gmail, our guide to Gemini for Google Workspace covers the AI Google builds in.

Leaving Superhuman without losing your setup

Superhuman Mail works on top of your Gmail or Outlook account, so the email itself stays with Google or Microsoft when you cancel. What you'll rebuild is the way you'd arranged it: split rules, snippets and any reminders still waiting. Copy your snippets into a document before you go, and write down how your splits were defined.

Shortwave's migration guide shows how that looks in practice: you set splits up again under Settings > Inbox Setup > Splits, while labels, stars, your default Gmail signature and aliases sync from Gmail on their own. If you're going back to plain Gmail, labels and filters do much of the work splits did; our guide to Gmail labels covers setting them up.

Cancel after the replacement has been running for a week or two. Most of the new apps above have a trial or free plan, so there's no need to overlap paid subscriptions for long.