The Best Email Clients in 2026
A comparison of pricing, features, AI and supported devices and email accounts. We make it easy to see what each provider is best for.
Choosing an email client has become surprisingly complicated. A few years ago, the choice was mostly between Gmail and Outlook. Today, there are AI-first inboxes, keyboard-driven power tools, minimalist alternatives, and platforms that automate work well beyond your inbox.
This page helps you decide what's right for you, and covers what each is actually good at, where they fall short, and any other key considerations. We build Housecat, so we've called that out where relevant and tried to keep the rest of this comparison balanced.
The best email client isn't necessarily the one with the most AI or the prettiest interface — it's the one that solves your biggest pain and helps you get work done quicker. If you simply need to process email faster, you'll probably choose something different than a team trying to keep CRM records up to date after every customer conversation.
At a glance
Most email clients focus on helping you read and write email more efficiently. Housecat is the outlier — it's built around helping you get real work done before and after you send an email.
| Email client | Best for | AI features | Beyond email? | Works with | Devices | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail | Casual users | Gemini assistance | No | Gmail only | Web, iOS, Android | Free + paid plans |
| Superhuman | Speed and keyboard workflows | AI writing, summaries, Ask AI | No | Gmail, Outlook | Desktop, iOS, Android | From $40/month |
| Shortwave | AI-powered Gmail | AI organization, triage, drafting | No | Gmail only | Web, Desktop, iOS, Android | Free + paid plans |
| Spark | Multiple email accounts | AI writing | Limited integrations | Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, IMAP | Desktop, iOS, Android | Free + paid plans |
| HEY | Rethinking email | None | No | @hey.com only | Web, Desktop, iOS, Android | $99/year |
| Avec | Mobile-first email | AI prioritization, voice compose | No | Gmail only | iOS | Free (paid plan soon) |
| Housecat | When your work lives in your email | AI drafting + workflow automation | Yes | Gmail only (Outlook soon) | Web (Desktop & iOS soon) | From $20/month |
Gmail
Best for: People who don't have a major email problem
For many people, Gmail is a good enough email app, with basic functionality and a simple interface.
Google has steadily improved Gmail over the last few years with Gemini-powered writing assistance, better search, summaries, and smarter organization, while keeping the interface familiar. Spam filtering remains among the best available, and Gmail integrates with almost every productivity app on the market.
Where Gmail starts to show its limits is workflow. It helps you manage messages, but it doesn't do much once an email needs to become a CRM update, a task, or a follow-up.
Pros
- Free
- Excellent search and spam filtering
- Native Google Workspace integration
- Familiar to almost everyone
Cons
- Limited workflow automation
- AI features are improving but relatively lightweight
- Can become overwhelming for high-volume inboxes
Choose Gmail if: email isn't slowing you down and you simply want a reliable, familiar inbox.
Best for: People who spend hours every day in email
Superhuman is built around one idea: make every interaction with your inbox faster.
Everything — from keyboard shortcuts to navigation and message triage — is designed to reduce friction. The interface feels exceptionally polished, and its AI features make it easy to summarize long threads, draft replies, and quickly find information buried in old conversations.
Superhuman Mail is only available on the Business plan, at $40/month ($33/month billed annually) — one of the pricier options, with the value strongest for founders, executives, recruiters, and sales teams who live in email. It's focused on getting through email quickly rather than connecting to the rest of your stack, and has only limited integrations into third-party tools.
Pros
- Fastest inbox experience available
- Excellent keyboard shortcuts
- Strong AI writing and summarization
- Beautiful interface
Cons
- Mail requires the $40/month Business plan
- Focuses on email itself rather than downstream workflows
- Limited integrations into other tools
- Best suited to power users
Choose Superhuman if: your biggest pain point is getting through email faster.
Best for: Gmail users who want AI throughout their inbox
Shortwave takes a different approach. Rather than focusing primarily on speed, it uses AI to organize your inbox, summarize conversations, draft responses, and automatically prioritize what deserves attention.
Created by former Google Inbox engineers, it feels like an alternative future for Gmail rather than a completely separate product.
The main limitation is that it's built specifically for Gmail. Organizations running Microsoft 365 will need to look elsewhere.
Pros
- Excellent AI capabilities
- Smart inbox organization
- Automatic conversation summaries
- Strong search
Cons
- Gmail only
- Less useful outside Google's ecosystem
Choose Shortwave if: you're already committed to Gmail and want AI to do more of the work.
Best for: Managing multiple email accounts
Spark has always been one of the easiest recommendations for people balancing several inboxes.
Instead of reinventing email, it focuses on bringing work, personal, and shared inboxes together in one clean interface. It also works across nearly every major platform, making it a practical choice for people who switch constantly between desktop and mobile.
Its AI features are useful but aren't the main reason most people choose Spark.
Pros
- Great multi-account management
- Available on every major platform
- Clean interface
- Good collaboration features
Cons
- AI features aren't as advanced as dedicated AI-first clients
- Limited automation outside the inbox
Choose Spark if: you're constantly switching between multiple email accounts and devices.
Best for: People who want to rethink how email works
HEY isn't trying to make Gmail better. It's trying to replace many of the assumptions we've all accepted about email.
Every new sender has to earn a place in your inbox, newsletters live separately, and the interface intentionally encourages less email rather than more.
That philosophy has earned HEY an unusually loyal following, but it also requires buying into an entirely different way of working — including using a new @hey.com email address.
Pros
- Excellent spam and sender screening
- Thoughtful, distraction-free design
- Refreshingly different philosophy
Cons
- No AI features
- Requires a new @hey.com address — a dealbreaker for many people
- Less flexible than traditional email clients
Choose HEY if: you're willing to change your habits in exchange for a calmer inbox.
Avec
Best for: People who primarily manage email from their phone
Avec is one of the newest entries in this space, and it's designed around mobile rather than desktop.
The app uses AI to prioritize messages and includes voice-first email composition that makes replying from your phone feel faster than typing. While it's still early compared with more established products, it's one of the more interesting examples of what an AI-native mobile inbox can look like.
Pros
- Designed specifically for iPhone
- Strong mobile experience
- AI prioritization
- Voice-powered drafting
Cons
- iOS only
- Early-stage product
- Limited desktop workflow
Choose Avec if: most of your email happens on your phone.
Best for: When your work lives in your email
Full disclosure: this is our product.
Most email clients stop once you've replied. Housecat also helps with everything that happens before and after you send an email.
Housecat helps prioritize your emails with custom inboxes so you can focus on what's important. Then it handles the manual tasks hidden in your inbox — updating your CRM, saving attachments to Drive, sending messages in Slack, and triggering downstream workflows, even if you never open the app. As you complete tasks or trigger workflows you'll see what you did right inside the relevant email thread.
That means it's solving a different problem than most traditional email clients. If your goal is just clearing your inbox faster, other products like Superhuman and Shortwave may be a better fit. But if your biggest frustration is the manual work email creates — updating the CRM, updating documents, or triggering GTM sequences — that's where Housecat is designed to help.
Pros
- Automates CRM updates
- Connects email with the rest of your tools like Slack, Notion, Attio and GitHub
- Trigger AI agents from inside your inbox for research and automations
Cons
- Product is new — beta recently launched, so expect some bugs
- Paid only, starting at $20/month
Choose Housecat if: you live in your email but also have manual workflows across other tools like your CRM, Slack, or Notion.
Which email client is best?
There isn't one winner. The best email client depends on the problem you're trying to solve.
- Choose Gmail if you want a free, reliable default.
- Choose Superhuman if speed is your priority.
- Choose Shortwave if you want the strongest AI experience inside Gmail.
- Choose Spark if you manage multiple email accounts.
- Choose HEY if you're looking for a completely different approach to email.
- Choose Avec if your inbox mostly lives on your iPhone.
- Choose Housecat if you live in your email but also have manual workflows across other tools like your CRM, Slack, or Notion.
FAQ
What's the best email client in 2026?
There's no single winner — it depends on your bottleneck. Gmail is the best free default, Superhuman is fastest for high-volume email, Shortwave is the strongest AI experience inside Gmail, Spark is best for juggling multiple accounts, HEY is best if you want to rethink email entirely, Avec is best on mobile, and Housecat is best when your email creates follow-up work in other tools.
What's the best AI email client?
For AI writing and triage inside Gmail, Shortwave and Superhuman lead. For AI that goes beyond the inbox — updating your CRM, drafting follow-ups, and triggering workflows automatically — Housecat is built for that. Gmail's Gemini and Avec's mobile AI are solid lighter-weight options.
Which email clients work with my existing Gmail?
Superhuman, Shortwave, Spark, Avec, and Housecat all work with your existing Gmail account. HEY is the exception — it requires a new @hey.com address.
What's the best free email client?
Gmail is free and hard to beat as a default. Avec is free on iPhone, and Shortwave and Spark offer free tiers alongside paid plans. (Superhuman's inbox requires a paid Business plan.)
Do any email clients update my CRM automatically?
Housecat does — it updates CRMs like Attio and Affinity and pushes to tools like Slack and Notion directly from your inbox. Superhuman can surface CRM context inside the inbox, but doesn't do the updates for you. The others don't handle CRM work in a meaningful way.
Is Superhuman worth it?
If your main problem is getting through a high volume of email quickly, Superhuman is one of the best tools available and many power users find it worth the price. If your problem is the work email creates afterwards, a workflow-focused tool like Housecat may be a better fit.