Premail

AI email assistants

The best AI email assistants in 2026

Five AI email tools compared on price, where they run and what they actually do. They are not all the same kind of product, and that difference matters more than the feature lists. Every price was read from the vendor's own pricing page.

The five tools, side by side

Prices were read from each vendor's own pricing page in September 2026. Where a vendor offers both monthly and annual billing, both are shown as they frame them, rather than quoting only the cheaper one.

AppPriceRuns onHow it makes money
PremailFree for up to 2 personal inboxes, then $9/mo, $79/yr, or $99 onceYour own computerPaid licences, plus your own AI key
Superhuman$30/mo per member, or $25/mo billed annuallyCloud clientSubscriptions
Shortwave$30 per seat/mo (Business)Cloud clientSubscriptions
Spark MailFree, then $10/mo per userCloud clientFree tier, then subscriptions
Apple Intelligence in Apple MailFreeYour Mac, iPhone or iPadPart of the operating system

1. Premail

Free for up to 2 personal inboxes, then $9/mo, $79/yr, or $99 once

Best for: Acting on mail before you read it, without switching email clients

Premail is the odd one out here, and the difference is worth stating plainly: it is not an email client. It sits behind whatever client you already use and decides what to do with a message before you see it. You bring your own AI key, or run a local model, or use Apple Intelligence on a supported Mac, so the AI cost is whatever the provider charges you and nothing is marked up. If what you want is a better inbox to read, one of the clients below is the right answer instead.

SourcePremail pricing

2. Superhuman

$30/mo per member, or $25/mo billed annually

Best for: People who live in email and want it to feel fast

Superhuman is the best known name in this category and is built around speed: keyboard-first navigation, a split inbox, and AI for drafting, summarising and asking questions about your mail. It is a full replacement for your email client, not a layer on top of one, and it is priced per member with the more advanced AI held back for the Business tier.

Source

3. Shortwave

$30 per seat/mo (Business)

Best for: Searching and reasoning across a large mail history

Shortwave leans hardest into AI as the interface: AI search across years of mail, AI-written filters, summaries and integrations that can pull in context from elsewhere. Its tiers are unusual in that they meter the AI itself rather than the features, so how far back AI search reaches and how many AI filters you get are what separate the plans.

Source

4. Spark Mail

Free, then $10/mo per user

Best for: A capable client with AI attached, at the lowest price

Spark is a mature email client that added AI rather than an AI product that added email, and it is the only one here with a genuine free tier instead of a trial. Paid plans bring the AI assistant, meeting notes and team features. If you want most of the category benefit at a fraction of Superhuman or Shortwave, this is where to look first.

Source

5. Apple Intelligence in Apple Mail

Free

Best for: Summaries and priority hints with nothing to install or pay for

On supported Apple hardware, Mail already summarises messages, surfaces priority mail at the top of the inbox and offers writing tools, processed on the device at no cost. It will not act on mail for you or enforce rules, and it only covers Apple Mail. But it is free and already there, so it is worth trying before paying for anything, and it is the honest baseline any paid tool should be measured against.

SourceApple Intelligence in Premail

Two different products are being sold under one name

"AI email assistant" covers two things that barely overlap, and choosing badly usually comes down to not noticing which one you were buying.

The first is an AI email client. Superhuman, Shortwave and Spark all replace the app you read mail in, and the AI helps once you are there: summarising a long thread, drafting a reply, answering a question about your history. The promise is that the time you spend in your inbox is better spent. You do have to move in, which means a new client, new habits, and your mail passing through their service.

The second is an AI filter. It never asks you to change clients. It decides what happens to a message before you see it, so the mail that does not deserve your attention is already handled by the time you open your inbox. The promise is that you spend less time in your inbox rather than better time. Premail is this.

A useful test: are you trying to get through your inbox faster, or trying to open it less often? The first wants a client. The second wants a filter. Buying the wrong one is how people end up with an expensive subscription and the same number of messages.

What "the AI" costs, and who pays for it

Running a language model over your mail costs real money, and every product here makes a different decision about who absorbs it. It is worth knowing which, because it explains the price differences better than the feature lists do.

The cloud clients bundle it: you pay one subscription and they pay the model provider, which is why their tiers often meter AI usage rather than features. Apple Intelligence avoids the question by running on your own device at no marginal cost. Premail takes the third route and has you bring your own key, so you pay the provider directly at their rates with no markup, and you can see exactly what your classification is costing.

None of these is the correct answer. Bundled is simpler; bring-your-own is cheaper at low volume and transparent at any volume; on-device is free but limited to one vendor's hardware. What matters is not being surprised later. Premail's own approach, including running a model locally so nothing leaves your machine, is covered in the features page.