Shortwave
€28-110 a seat a month for the most open MCP integration in email AI, but it still won't send, archive or delete anything without you clicking first — a very good assistant you drive by hand, not yet the autonomous one the marketing implies.
PRICING
| Business | $30/seat/mo | Standard AI (Claude Sonnet 4.6), 5 years AI search history, 50 threads/search, 3 AI filters |
| Premier | $45/seat/mo | Advanced AI with adaptive thinking, unlimited AI search history, 100 threads/search, 10 AI filters, 2x context tokens |
| Max | $120/seat/mo | Expert AI (Claude Opus 4.6 with adaptive thinking), 150 threads/search, 50 AI filters, 3x context tokens, live 1:1 training |
| Enterprise | Custom | Contact sales; security, support, and deployment requirements |
Prices shown are per-seat/month as displayed on the live pricing page 06/08/2026; third-party trackers report a lower annual-billing rate (e.g. Business ~$24/seat/mo annual vs $30 shown) and disagree on whether a stripped-down free tier and a sub-$20 Individual/Pro plan still exist — the official page showed no free-tier card at audit time. Gmail and Google Workspace only; no Outlook, Exchange, Yahoo, or IMAP support at any tier.
checked 2026-08-06 · vendor pricing page
Element scores
Strengths
The most open Model Context Protocol implementation of any tool RXed has audited in this category — local and remote MCP servers, documented setup, and an explicit invitation to point at any community or custom server, on top of one-click integrations for HubSpot, Notion, Slack, Asana, and Linear. Search and the AI Assistant are genuinely grounded in the user's own inbox, calendar, and connected data, and the founders have built a deliberate human-in-the-loop default: nothing sends, archives, or deletes without a click.
Honest dings
Gmail and Google Workspace only — no Outlook, Exchange, Yahoo, or IMAP at any price. No audit trail of what the AI itself decided or did, only read-receipt-style tracking of recipients. Pricing has climbed and simplified toward business seats ($30-120/seat/month on the live page), and third-party trackers disagree with each other and with the official page on whether a free tier or a sub-$20 individual plan still exists — a sign the ladder is being reworked faster than reviewers can keep up.
Sources
Every audit lists the research it rests on — transparency and traceability are the product. Tools evolve: each audit is a snapshot of its audit date, and re-audits supersede older versions (kept below for reference).
- shortwave.com/pricing — Official pricing page: Business $30, Premier $45, Max $120 per seat/month; full feature matrix; no free-tier card visible at fetch time (accessed 2026-08-06)
- shortwave.com — Official homepage: product positioning ('Agentic AI'), integration list, Tasklet cross-sell (accessed 2026-08-06)
- shortwave.com/docs/how-tos/using-mcp — Official MCP documentation: local and remote MCP server setup, troubleshooting via main.log (accessed 2026-08-06)
- shortwave.com/docs/guides/ai-assistant — Official AI Assistant guide: Saved prompts, AI Memories, AI Integrations list, Tasklet 24/7 automation, calendar management (accessed 2026-08-06)
- shortwave.com/docs/guides/security — Official security page: CASA Tier 2, SOC2/GDPR on request, sub-processors (Google Cloud, OpenAI, Anthropic, Pinecone), no third-party LLM training (accessed 2026-08-06)
- shortwave.com/about — Official about page: founders Andrew Lee and Jonny Dimond, investors Union Square Ventures and Lightspeed (accessed 2026-08-06)
- cognitiverevolution.ai/the-ai-email-assistant-ive-b… — Independent podcast transcript, co-founder Andrew Lee on record: no action (send/archive/delete) happens without an explicit user click, by design (accessed 2026-08-06)
- techcrunch.com/2024/01/29/shortwave-email-client-wi… — Official user figure via founder interview: 20,000 monthly active users (Sept 2023), plus pricing history (accessed 2026-08-06)
- thisandthat.chat/blog/shortwave-pricing — Independent pricing breakdown flagging the Individual/Pro tier and the annual-vs-monthly rate discrepancy (accessed 2026-08-06)
- cmdk.email/post/shortwave-review — Independent review: Gmail-only limitation, pricing trend (free plan shrinking, individual plan price roughly doubled since launch) (accessed 2026-08-06)
- altexsoft.com/blog/model-context-protocol — Independent technical explainer naming Shortwave as a real-world MCP client example (accessed 2026-08-06)
- linkedin.com/posts/getshortwave_shortwave-be-epic-i… — Official company LinkedIn post announcing AI Integrations with MCP support, cross-app workflow examples (accessed 2026-08-06)