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November 11, 2023
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Is Superhuman Email Worth It: The Good, the Bad, and the Better Alternative


If you're an email power user, you're no stranger to the relentless battle of keeping your inbox organized and fending off chaos. Gmail, while reliable and functional, may not offer the full-fledged solution you need to master your email management.

You need a tool that can supercharge your email game, saving you precious time, bringing order to the chaos, and easing email-related stress.

For some time now, Superhuman Email has claimed to be the answer. The email client aims to redefine your email experience, turning it from a daily chore into a smooth sail. Billed as “the fastest email experience ever made” it offers a suite of features that help you breeze through your inbox and reach email harmony.

But, of course, with the hype, comes the fine print. The premium price tag and the steep learning curve might give you a reason to reflect. What if there was another way to experience the benefits of an organized inbox and effective email management without burning a hole in your wallet?

In this article, we're going to take a closer look at Superhuman, explore what it's good at, where it falls short, and introduce you to a different, more affordable option that could be just what you're looking for.

Note: Stop drowning in email overload. Sign up now to try Tatem, the email productivity client that helps you get through emails faster, organize your inbox, and boost productivity. With powerful features like smart sorting, template responses, and focused inboxes, Tatem gives you back control over your email so you can focus on what matters. Sign up today.

Introducing Superhuman Email

Superhuman was conceived by three individuals: Conrad Irwin, Rahul Vohra, and Vivek Sodera. They aimed to create an email client that could take on the email giants (Gmail, Outlook, etc) and offer an email experience that catered to power users, entrepreneurs, and anyone drowning in an overflowing inbox.

The concept behind Superhuman Email is simple – to help users achieve Inbox Zero (that elusive state where your inbox is completely clear) efficiently. It's designed to help you breeze through emails, freeing up your valuable time for more important tasks. But how does it do this? Let's look at the features below:

Superhuman Email Features

Superhuman packs a wide range of features, but let's focus on the ones that align with the best practices for inbox management. These features are specifically designed to help you manage your email efficiently, ensuring that you can navigate through your inbox with ease and effectiveness. By leveraging these tools, you'll find that handling your email becomes a more streamlined and less time-consuming task. Let's review a few here:

Keyboard Shortcuts

Superhuman offers an array of keyboard shortcuts that make your life easier. You have a built-in command palette, a mix of familiar Gmail shortcuts, and some clever extras, like adding or removing recipients as you type.

Plus, a command-seeking system lets you perform almost any action from anywhere with a few quick keystrokes Need to find a keyboard shortcut quickly? Just press Cmd+K to bring up a list of all the available shortcuts or search for specific features and actions.

Split Inbox

Tired of your inbox being a mixed bag of everything?

Superhuman split inbox lets you divide it into multiple categories that you define. Once you've set your preferred splits, you can command the system to categorize similar emails. This feature is highly customizable, allowing you to sort emails by important senders, team messages, or projects. You can set up a VIP inbox where all your important messages land.

Unsubscribe

The email client makes unsubscribing from unwanted emails a breeze. You can instantly bid farewell to bothersome email subscriptions and block senders or entire domains to shield your inbox from spam.

Scheduled Sends and Follow-ups

Superhuman ensures that no message falls through the cracks. It lets you schedule messages to send at specific times, even adjusting for different time zones. Plus, you can set up automatic follow up reminders to ensure you never forget to follow up or take action.

Snippets

For those moments when you find yourself repeatedly using the same phrases or templates, Superhuman's Snippets come to the rescue. Think of them as pre-built templates that you can quickly insert into your emails, whether it's a complete message, a paragraph, an instant intro, or a frequently used phrase. You can even include attachments and automatically add people to CC or BCC.

Personalized Onboarding

Superhuman goes the extra mile to help you make the most of its features. You can schedule a white-glove onboarding call to learn about the other superhuman features and keyboard shortcuts that suit your needs. If you prefer to dive in yourself, instant self-serve access is also an option.

What Superhuman Gets Right

Credit where it's due – Superhuman has remarkable speed. It follows the 100ms rule, where digital interactions must be faster than 100 milliseconds to feel instant.

Gmail's creator, Paul Buchheit, championed this concept, and Superhuman takes it a step further by aiming for latencies under 50ms whenever possible. Part of its secret lies in storing information locally within your browser instead of relying on Google's servers, resulting in lightning-fast navigation between emails.

The calendar feature also deserves a nod of approval. You can quickly propose meeting times without switching between apps. Simply type a date and time in an email, and your Superhuman or Google calendar appears in the sidebar, making scheduling a breeze. Mention a date, and Superhuman automatically brings up your calendar for an easy meeting or call setup.

The AI capabilities of Superhuman are genuinely impressive, especially in helping you better manage inbox overload. Its latest feature, enables you to transform a few phrases into a fully written email, mirroring your unique style and tone. This not only streamlines your email composition process but also significantly reduces the time and effort needed to manage a busy inbox. With Superhuman, you can rectify spelling and grammar, enhance clarity, and adjust the length of your emails – all with just a few keystrokes.

Its clean and distraction-free user interface fosters an uninterrupted flow of inbox management. There are no distractions to divert your focus, allowing you to concentrate on your tasks, improve the quality and speed of your responses, and maintain your workflow.

Superhuman has come a long way too. It used to be invite-only and had limited cross-platform support. But now, anyone can sign up. Superhuman is available as an Android app, Windows email app, Mac app, and even in a Chrome-based browser. It's available wherever you need it.

What Superhuman Gets Wrong

Let's be honest here: the price is the elephant in the room.

At $30 per month, it can be a financial stretch for most people. To put it in perspective, you could subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Spotify and still spend less. Sure, it might be worth it if you've got an avalanche of emails to tackle daily or you're a top-tier executive, but for most email users, it's a tough pill to swallow.

The platform offers three subscription tiers: Starter, Growth, and Enterprise. Both Starter and Growth are priced at $30 per month, with Enterprise requiring a call with the sales team. Starter is suitable for individuals and small teams, while Growth targets larger teams with five or more users.

You won't find a free version or trial here, which might disappoint those who like to test a service before committing to it. However, Superhuman offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, giving you a chance to explore the platform and decide if it suits your email management needs in the initial period.

Superhuman's approach might also come off as somewhat assertive. It's designed to work primarily with keyboard shortcuts, essentially nudging users toward keyboard navigation rather than the trackpad.

This keyboard-centric approach comes with a steep learning curve. You'll need to adapt to a new way of interacting with email, which can take some time and effort. To their credit, though, the company eases this transition by offering a one-on-one session to help users harness the full potential of Superhuman.

The final quirk is that Superhuman doesn't have a unified inbox. This means you can't see all your inboxes in one place, which may be a deal-breaker if you're used to this feature.

Introducing Tatem: A Game-Changing Email Experience

Tatem is the future of email. Powered by AI, it is a next-gen email client that seamlessly integrates with Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, iOS, and Android. Its advanced features and user-friendly interface easily rank it a top email client. The email client empowers you to take charge of your inbox and zip through emails faster than ever before, redefining efficiency and ease of use in email management.

It's the solution you've been seeking to simplify your email experience, reply quickly, and say goodbye to email-related stress, and we'll explain below why:

Tatem: Your Better Alternative

Now, we know it might sound like we're playing favorites here, but let's set that aside and dive into the facts.

First off, the price. While Superhuman costs $30 per month, Tatem offers a free plan, making it accessible right from the start. We also have a Plus plan for just $10 per user per month and a Pro plan for $15 per user per month.

Superhuman prides itself on speed – emails that load almost instantaneously. But guess what? Tatem isn't playing second fiddle when it comes to speed. We've made our email client for productivity ridiculously fast, boasting interactions that take less than 50 milliseconds and real-time sync, saving you a precious three hours per week. That's three more hours for innovation, relaxation, or whatever fuels your passion.

We also understand that not everyone is a tech guru. That's why we've built Tatem to provide an email client experience that's not just for the tech elite but accessible to everyday Gmail app and Outlook users too. You get all of Superhuman's cutting-edge features and more, with the added option to turn off any features that seem too complex.

And unlike Superhuman, which takes a firm stance on how you should interact with their platform (think mandatory keyboard shortcuts), we believe in freedom of choice. Our product is designed to adapt to your needs, not the other way around. You get to tailor your inbox experience according to your preferences. It's your inbox, after all.

And that's not all. You also get access to these other features:

Intelligent Replies

We all have those days when writing emails feels like an Olympic sport. Tatem's got your back with AI-drafted emails. They're written in your voice and at your command, helping you breeze through your inbox without writer's block.

Smart Search

Ever had that "tip of the tongue" feeling with your emails? You vaguely remember an email, but the details elude you.

Enter Tatem's Smart Search. Even if you only have a fragment of the title, subject, body, or sender in your memory, our Smart Search is your memory's best friend. Find what you're looking for in mere seconds, and wave goodbye to the endless scroll.

Rules & Automation

Create filters to automatically sort messages as they arrive. No more sifting through piles of emails and previous email conversations. Every time a new email drops in, it'll be assigned to its rightful folder. Inbox Zen, achieved.

Beautiful User Interface

With Tatem, you get more than just functionality – you get style too. Our modern interface is a feast for the eyes, and we give you the freedom to customize it to your heart's content. Dark mode, light mode, custom wallpapers, themes, and even transition effects. Your inbox, your style.

Split Inboxes

Split Inbox to prioritize and organize your Gmail inbox into categories. Tatem lets you create multiple inboxes to store emails based on different categories. Say goodbye to inbox clutter and hello to laser-focused organization. Plus, you can label emails for extra insights.

We weren't around a decade ago, and that's a good thing. Why? Because it means we're not dragging the baggage of outdated technology. This enables us to offer users features that just weren’t possible when our predecessors built their products. Sign up today to experience these features in action.

Is Superhuman Email Worth It? The Takeaway

If you've made it this far in the article, you've likely noticed that Tatem and Superhuman do have some common ground. To recap:

  • They're ahead of most modern email apps, revolutionizing how we handle our inboxes with fresh, innovative approaches and advanced features.
  • They stand out as the top choices for tech teams, startups, and those who crave efficient and swift inbox management.
  • If you're a devoted Gmail user, both Tatem and Superhuman are your loyal companions, seamlessly integrating with your Gmail account.
  • They share a few features that overlap.

However, in the world of email management, differences often make all the difference. Tatem shines with its accessible pricing, time-saving speed, and its commitment to adapting to your preferences. So, why not dive in? Take that leap, sign up for Tatem today, and unlock an email experience tailored just for you – efficient, budget-friendly, and effortlessly user-friendly.


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Chelsea Faith

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