Shortwave pricing 2026: what you actually get

Shortwave is an AI email client built by former Google Inbox engineers, exclusively for Gmail and Google Workspace. If you're evaluating it, you want to know what you're actually paying for at each tier — and whether there's a better option at the same price. Both questions deserve a direct answer.

Shortwave pricing plans in 2026

Free — $0/month
Covers personal Gmail accounts (gmail.com and .edu only). Core email features, inbox bundling, and a capped number of AI queries per month. Google Workspace accounts are not supported. The free plan is enough to evaluate the product; it is not enough to rely on it for professional use.

Pro — $14/month (or $7/month billed annually)
Unlocks unlimited AI queries, 3 years of AI-powered search history, Google Workspace support, writing style personalization, and autocomplete based on your sent emails. The gap between $7/month annual and $14/month monthly is significant — if you're committing, annual billing is the only version that makes financial sense.

Business — $24/month per user (billed annually)
Adds team inboxes, internal comments, email assignment, admin controls, and 5 years of AI search history. For 5 users, that's $120/month. For 10 users, $240/month. Shortwave's team collaboration features at this tier are genuinely well-executed.

Enterprise — custom pricing
SSO, advanced security, audit logs, dedicated support.

The hard limit that changes everything

Shortwave is exclusively for Gmail and Google Workspace. Not Outlook, not Exchange, not Microsoft 365. If you have any Outlook account — personal or work — Shortwave cannot connect it. For professionals managing both Gmail and Outlook (which is most professionals), this is a deal-breaker. You'd be paying for partial inbox intelligence while managing a second client for everything else.

What Shortwave's AI actually does

Shortwave's AI is reactive and prompt-driven: you open the assistant and ask it to do things — search, summarize a thread, draft a reply. It's capable and the search across years of email history is genuinely useful. But the inbox itself is still something you navigate manually. Shortwave makes Gmail more searchable and more summarizable. It does not make it organized. The decision of what to read, what to act on, and what to deprioritize is still entirely yours.

Faraday at $14/month: what Shortwave could have been

At the same $14/month as Shortwave Pro (monthly), Faraday does something Shortwave never attempts: it organizes your inbox automatically, before you ask it to. Every email is classified the moment it arrives. Relevant messages surface at the right level of attention. Noise is intelligently deprioritized. All of it without a single prompt, rule, or ongoing configuration.

The architectural difference is fundamental: Shortwave's AI is a tool you use. Faraday's intelligence is built into the inbox itself — running continuously, from within, the way your inbox should have always worked.

Beyond organization: Faraday supports both Gmail and Outlook natively — eliminating the Gmail-only wall that Shortwave hits immediately. Per-recipient AI drafts that genuinely adapt to how you write to each specific person (not one voice applied to everyone). A daily Glance that surfaces what's new and what needs follow-up before you've opened the inbox. Automatic follow-up detection so nothing drops. AES-256 encryption, zero human processing, no AI training on your email. ESOF-certified. Google-verified.

Shortwave Pro ($14/month monthly, $7 annually): Gmail only · prompt-driven AI · strong search · manual inbox
Faraday ($14/month): Gmail + Outlook · automatic AI organization · per-recipient drafts · daily Glance · Mac native app · AES-256 privacy

The verdict

Shortwave is a capable Gmail tool for users who want better AI search and are comfortable prompting for what they need. If that's your use case and you're Gmail-only, it does its job well.

But if you want an inbox that genuinely runs itself — one that organizes before you ask, drafts with real per-recipient intelligence, and works for both Gmail and Outlook — Faraday at the same price point isn't just an alternative. It's a categorically better product.