AI email assistants sort the inbox, draft replies, summarise threads or chase follow-ups so a person spends fewer hours on mail.
This guide ranks eleven of them on setup effort, the bill once credits and extra inboxes count, how you leave, vendor independence and the kind of mailbox owner each one suits. Smaller vendors with posted prices come first.
Vendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
In short
What AI email assistants software does
An AI email assistant connects to one or more mailboxes, triages incoming messages, drafts or rewrites replies, summarises conversations and automates routine follow-up, usually within limits on credits or inboxes.
Setup effort, true cost, data portability, exit options and buyer fit are the five tests, applied in that order to every AI email assistants tool here. One rule sits on top of those tests: places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. We explain on how we work why the tests are these five and why no product receives a score.
Credit-metered inbox assistant with a personal plan and per-person team rates
Ranked #1 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingElsewhere
Every action carries a credit price: 0.2 per sorted email, 5 per flow run, 20 per chat message and 1 per recorded minute. Pro gives 3,000 credits a month per paid member, while Team pools 6,000 per member across the group.
That table lets you estimate a bill from your own mail volume before paying. The risk is the launch offer of unlimited credits for three months, which hides real consumption until it ends.
What stands out
Credit-based usage
Pooled team credits
Per-email sorting cost
Where it costs you
Sorting and auto-drafting are missing from the personal tier, though most buyers come for exactly those jobs.
Unlimited credits last only three months as a launch offer, so the first bills understate the later ones.
The terms page states no legal entity, address or country.
Right for
Small teams wanting posted prices and a cost for every AI action
Wrong for
Buyers who must name the contracting company and country first
Not stated by the vendorPublished per-person monthly prices, cheaper yearly; free plan with 400 credits; 14-day trial on paid plans
Email client with unlimited accounts and tiered AI features, based in Dublin
Ranked #2 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
The ladder is easy to read. Free brings Smart Inbox and unlimited accounts; Plus adds a Spark +AI quota and a monthly allowance of 40 meeting notes; Pro unlocks unlimited notes, Autopilot, Auto-Drafts, read statuses and a HubSpot integration.
Paid plans can be billed yearly at a discount, and the seven-day trial is tied to subscribing inside the app. The compromise is that the features people associate with an assistant only arrive at the top self-serve tier.
What stands out
Unlimited accounts
Auto-Drafts on Pro
HubSpot integration
Where it costs you
Auto-Drafts and Autopilot are reserved for Pro, so the cheaper Plus plan buys little drafting.
Team collaboration on Plus stops at two free active collaborators, too few for a department.
Right for
Individuals juggling several mailboxes who want AI drafting without a large bill
Wrong for
Teams needing shared drafting on the middle plan
IrelandPublished monthly or yearly prices; free plan with Smart Inbox; seven-day trial on paid plans
AI email assistant sold by credits, with a seven-day card-backed trial
Ranked #3 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Jace splits its plans by mailbox count and memory. On Plus the ceiling is two inboxes; Pro raises it to eight, extends memory to three years and adds priority support, with credit bands rising far above the 20,000 base.
Yearly billing lowers the monthly figure. The weak point is the credit meter: allowances are listed, but nothing in the checked pages ties a credit to a reply or a summary, so you learn real cost only by using it.
What stands out
Credit allowance
Inbox caps per plan
Email history limit
Where it costs you
A card is required to start the trial, which is friction for a quick evaluation.
Credit cost per action is not stated in the sources, so monthly consumption cannot be predicted.
Right for
Executives with a few inboxes who accept metered credits and pay yearly
Wrong for
Anyone managing more than eight inboxes without a custom contract
United StatesPublished per-user monthly and yearly prices; credit allowance by tier; 7-day trial
Geneva-based team email tool with caps on conversations, rules and AI labels
Ranked #4 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Three numbers decide the bill: users, conversations and rule executions. Meli covers five users and 5,000 conversations; Growth takes 50 users with 10,000 rule executions; Pro lifts both conversations and executions to 100,000 and offers 20 custom AI labels.
Enterprise starts at 50 users with no usage caps. The trial opens Growth, so you test a tier above the cheapest one, then must pick a paid plan by card.
What stands out
Custom AI labels
Rule execution caps
Swiss company
Where it costs you
The Meli plan allows no rule executions, so automation is absent at the lowest price.
Unpaid accounts are suspended once the 7-day trial ends, and the entry tier still needs a card.
Right for
Small groups that want rule-based automation and a named Swiss provider
Wrong for
Buyers who need a standing plan without payment details
SwitzerlandPublished per-user prices, lower when billed yearly; 7-day trial, paid plan needed afterwards
Folder-based inbox sorting with an optional AI bundle for drafts and summaries
Ranked #5 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
The core idea is triage by folder: important mail stays visible while the rest is moved aside, with Daily Digest summarising what was held back and Snooze or Reminder bringing items back later. BlackHole removes senders you never want to see.
SaneDrafts and SaneSummary come only with the AI Bundle. Compatibility is wide, covering Microsoft 365, iCloud and standards-based servers, but the vendor leaves the cost and the company location unstated.
What stands out
Works over IMAP
AI Bundle add-on
BlackHole sender removal
Where it costs you
Neither plan names nor figures appear in the pricing text, so cost cannot be checked before sign-up.
Drafting and summaries belong to a separate AI Bundle rather than the core sorting service.
Right for
People on mixed mail providers who want sorting first and drafting later
Wrong for
Buyers needing a posted price or a stated country
Not stated by the vendorQuoted: pricing page shows no amounts; the try-it button leads to sign-up
Team inbox covering email, SMS and social, with a 30-day card-free trial
Ranked #6 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
In this market Missive is a connector more than an assistant. Productive offers an API and MCP access, letting outside AI tools reach the inbox, and allows up to 1,000 rules for routing.
Accounts per user are capped at ten personal and five shared. Starter is limited to five users and Productive to fifty, with unlimited seats only on Business. The 30-day trial needs no card, the longest evaluation window in this list.
What stands out
Team inbox
MCP and API access
SOC 2 Type II
Where it costs you
The checked pages name no built-in AI drafting or summary feature.
The Starter plan stops at 5 users, so growth forces a move to Productive.
Right for
Small teams sharing one inbox who plan to connect their own AI tools
Wrong for
People shopping mainly for automatic reply drafting tools
CanadaPublished per-user prices billed yearly; 30-day trial without a card
Shared inbox plans priced per user, with a voice add-on and trial
Ranked #7 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Published pricingElsewhere
Hiver is a shared inbox product, and its limits are about structure rather than AI. Growth covers 10 users, 2 shared inboxes and 12 months of analytics; Pro unlimited users, 5 inboxes and 18 months; Elite removes caps on automations and custom fields.
Plans begin at two seats, and the voice add-on charges per seat with 1,000 minutes included. Treat it as inbox plumbing and test whether its automations replace drafting for your workflow.
What stands out
Shared inboxes
Voice add-on
Automation limits
Where it costs you
Trial accounts are suspended after seven days unless upgraded.
Growth allows only 2 shared inboxes and 10 automations per inbox.
No legal entity or country appears on the pages read.
Right for
Support or operations groups that need several shared inboxes with automations
Wrong for
Solo users wanting an assistant that writes their replies
Not stated by the vendorPublished per-user prices with a billing toggle; 7-day Elite trial; voice add-on per seat
Per-seat inbox with AI search and filters, tiered by intelligence level
Ranked #8 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
The tiers scale one thing: how much the AI can look at and do. Business keeps five years of search history, 50 threads per search and 3 filters; Premier removes the history limit, reaches 100 threads and 10 filters; Max goes to 150 threads and 50 filters.
Usage multiplies by two and six on the upper tiers. A 14-day trial covers each plan, though the dollar rates are shown without a currency code.
What stands out
AI search history
AI-powered filters
Intelligence tiers
Where it costs you
The entry tier costs a full seat price and offers only 3 AI-powered filters.
Threads per AI search are capped, at 50 on Business.
Right for
Heavy email searchers willing to pay per seat for deeper AI search
Wrong for
Cost-sensitive users who want a no-card starter tier
United StatesPublished per-seat monthly prices; 14-day trial on every plan
Mail-first product family from San Francisco whose plan pages show no amounts
Ranked #9 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
Superhuman has widened beyond a mailbox. Its home page lists Mail, Grammarly, Docs, Go, Calendar, Agents and Databases, and plans for Go with Agents, Mail, Docs and the Suite are linked without prices.
Docs connects to 800 or more tools and has an MCP option, as does Mail. The downside is opacity: with no amounts shown, the true cost of each module is unknown until you ask.
What stands out
Mail and Docs
MCP option
Go assistant
Where it costs you
Plans carry no visible amounts, so cost cannot be compared online.
Mail is one of several products, which complicates deciding what you actually buy.
Right for
Buyers happy to talk to sales and wanting mail plus a wider suite
Wrong for
Anyone who needs to compare prices before speaking to anyone
United StatesQuoted: plan pages show no amounts; team enquiries go through contact sales
Campaign sending limits by plan, from a free tier to 60,000 emails
Ranked #10 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Plan limits are the whole story here. Hobby gives 500 emails a month and 3 campaigns; Starter 5,000 a month; Premium 30,000 with five senders, five follow-ups and one warmup; Professional 60,000 with ten senders, follow-ups and Sheets Automations.
Contact caps climb from 5,000 to 1,000,000. Yearly billing shows three months free. Because no AI function is named, treat it as the neighbour of an assistant, not a replacement for one.
What stands out
Sending caps
Sheets Automations
Email warmup
Where it costs you
No AI drafting or summary feature is named on the pages read.
Hobby is capped at 500 emails a month and 50 a day, with one sender.
Right for
Sellers sending outbound campaigns from spreadsheets who start on a free plan
General agent platform billed in credits, with a seven-day starter allowance
Ranked #11 of 11 in Best AI Email Assistants in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Pricing is a credit bank. Team starts per active user and buys 5,000 pooled credits, with 14 tiers up to 1,750,000; extra credits cost a set rate per 1,000. Everyday Asks use 2 to 250 credits, Deep Work 250 to 1,000 and Big Builds 1,000 to 2,500.
Nothing in the checked material names mailbox functions, so a buyer should trial it on real messages before assuming it can replace a purpose-built assistant.
What stands out
Credit tiers
Pooled credits
General agents
Where it costs you
Task costs range from 2 to 2,500 credits, which makes the monthly bill hard to forecast.
The free credits are a one-time grant that lasts only 7 days.
Right for
Teams exploring agents beyond email who can budget for credit swings
Wrong for
Buyers wanting a defined inbox feature set at a fixed seat price
United StatesPublished credit-based prices per active user; free plan with one-time credits; extra credits per 1,000
An AI email assistant connects to one or more mailboxes, triages incoming messages, drafts or rewrites replies, summarises conversations and automates routine follow-up, usually within limits on credits or inboxes. Rather than compare features, settle the following points one after another.
01
Check who publishes a price
2 vendors on this page sell by quote, while 9 publish a pricing model you can read today: Fyxer AI, Spark Mail, Jace, Gmelius, Missive, Hiver, Shortwave, Mailmeteor, Lindy.
02
Ask which country the contract runs through
Check the vendor's home market (North America 5, Europe 3, Elsewhere 3), because that is where subpoenas and data requests arrive first, whatever region holds your files.
AI email assistants: what a credit buys in Fyxer AI, Jace and Lindy
Most assistants now meter AI work, and the unit differs by product. Fyxer AI publishes a rate card where sorting an email costs a fraction of a credit and a chat message costs twenty, so a busy inbox spends credits mainly on sorting, while long chats and recorded calls cost far more each. Jace sells monthly allowances starting at 10,000 credits on Plus, but the pages we checked give no per-action price.
Lindy lets one task cost between 2 and 2,500 credits. Shortwave meters differently, with 2x and 6x multipliers of AI usage on its upper tiers. Before comparing seat prices, convert your own mail volume into each vendor's unit and ask what happens when the allowance runs out, whether work stops or extra credits are billed.
Estimate monthly emails, chat requests and meeting minutes
Ask whether unused credits roll over
Find out what happens when the allowance ends
Inbox, history and thread limits: Jace, Shortwave and Missive
Plan limits in this market are often about how much mail the assistant can see. Jace caps Plus at two inboxes and Pro at eight, with history running one year and three years respectively. Shortwave Business keeps five years of AI search history and reads up to 50 threads per search, rising to 150 on Max. Missive limits every user to ten personal accounts plus five shared ones.
Gmelius counts conversations a month, from 5,000 on Meli to 100,000 on Pro. A buyer with a decade of archives or many mailboxes can hit these ceilings quickly, so check them against your real accounts and archive size, not just the unread messages you see today. Hiver adds its own ceilings, with two shared inboxes on Growth and five on Pro.
Count the mailboxes and aliases you want connected
Check how many years of history the plan reads
Note any cap on threads per query
Trials and suspension: Gmelius, Hiver and the card question
Trial terms are the quickest way to lose data access by accident. Gmelius gives seven days on the Growth plan, then asks for a card or suspends the account. Hiver offers seven days of Elite without a card and suspends the account unless you upgrade. Jace needs a card before its seven-day trial, though nothing is charged during it.
Missive runs 30 days on Productive with no card, and Fyxer AI gives 14 days on its paid plans. Spark Mail gives seven days only if you subscribe inside the app. Decide in advance who will test, on which mailbox, and what you will export if the trial lapses, because a suspended account can also lock you out of the rules and labels you built.
Note the trial length and whether a card is required
Plan the test on a real mailbox within the window
Confirm what is suspended or kept at the end
Where drafting sits in the plan: Spark Mail, SaneBox and Fyxer AI
The headline feature, writing replies, is frequently not in the cheapest plan. On Fyxer AI the personal tier omits both sorting and automatic drafting. Spark Mail reserves Auto-Drafts and Autopilot for Pro, while its free plan offers Spark +AI only as a preview. SaneBox sorts first and sells SaneDrafts and SaneSummary inside a separate AI Bundle.
Superhuman links separate plan pages for Go with Agents, Mail and Docs. Missive and Hiver, by contrast, centre on shared inboxes and name no drafting tool in the pages we checked. Read each plan table for the exact feature you want, not the product page, and check whether the AI works on your own mail or only on a preview allowance.
List the AI jobs you need, such as drafting or summaries
Match each job to the plan that actually includes it
Price the add-on or higher tier, not the entry plan
What goes wrong most often when buying AI email assistants software
Buying a seat plan before checking that automatic reply drafting is included, since Fyxer AI and Spark Mail both hold it back from entry tiers.
Comparing credit allowances across vendors as if a credit were a fixed unit, when Fyxer AI, Jace and Lindy each define it differently.
Letting a trial lapse unnoticed on Gmelius or Hiver, where the account is suspended once the seven days end.
Choosing a shared inbox such as Missive or Hiver for AI drafting, when the pages checked describe routing and automation instead.
07
Frequently asked questions
6 answers
What is the best AI email assistants in 2026?
First of 11 on this page is Fyxer AI. Fyxer AI takes first place because its pricing page shows the figures a buyer needs: a free personal plan, Pro and Team rates per person, and a credit cost for each action.
The catch is that the free plan leaves out inbox sorting and automatic reply drafting. Its terms page names no company, address or country, so confirm who you would be contracting with.
Which AI email assistants tools publish their pricing?
9 of the 11, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Fyxer AI: Published per-person monthly prices, cheaper yearly; free plan with 400 credits; 14-day trial on paid plans.
Spark Mail: Published monthly or yearly prices; free plan with Smart Inbox; seven-day trial on paid plans.
Jace: Published per-user monthly and yearly prices; credit allowance by tier; 7-day trial.
Gmelius: Published per-user prices, lower when billed yearly; 7-day trial, paid plan needed afterwards.
Missive: Published per-user prices billed yearly; 30-day trial without a card.
Hiver: Published per-user prices with a billing toggle; 7-day Elite trial; voice add-on per seat.
Shortwave: Published per-seat monthly prices; 14-day trial on every plan.
Mailmeteor: Published per-user monthly prices in USD; free plan; yearly billing shows 3 months free.
Lindy: Published credit-based prices per active user; free plan with one-time credits; extra credits per 1,000.
The remaining 2 sell by quote.
Is there a free AI email assistants tool?
Fyxer AI, Spark Mail, Mailmeteor, Lindy offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these AI email assistants vendors established?
Vendor countries on this page, North America 5, Europe 3, Elsewhere 3:
Fyxer AI: Not stated by the vendor.
Spark Mail: Ireland.
Jace: United States.
Gmelius: Switzerland.
SaneBox: Not stated by the vendor.
Missive: Canada.
Hiver: Not stated by the vendor.
Shortwave: United States.
Superhuman: United States.
Mailmeteor: France.
Lindy: United States.
What should you use instead of Fyxer AI?
Look at Spark Mail (made for Individuals juggling several mailboxes who want AI drafting without a large bill) and Jace (made for Executives with a few inboxes who accept metered credits and pay yearly), which hold places two and three.
Who should not buy Fyxer AI?
Buyers who must name the contracting company and country first. Sorting and auto-drafting are missing from the personal tier, though most buyers come for exactly those jobs..
We rank 11 AI email assistants products on this page. If we missed one, its maker can write to us about its purpose and customers. We pick what gets added; the terms of a listing are set out under software advice.
