Shortwave: our review
Shortwave adds an AI panel to an existing Gmail inbox: thread summary, automatic sorting into folders and suggested replies, without changing email provider.
What we take away from it
What counts in its favor
- The Business plan starts at $30 per user per month, with the Claude Sonnet 4.6 model included from that first tier.
What counts against it
- No permanent free tier: only a fourteen-day trial before choosing between Business, Premier and Max.
A logical choice for a team already on Gmail that wants AI without changing inbox. Avoid it if the emails must not pass through American servers.
The facts
What happens to your data
- Is your data used to train their models?
Shortwave in detail
Shortwave sits on top of an existing Gmail account and adds an AI panel: thread summaries, automatic folder sorting, suggested replies, plain- language search. The inbox stays with Google; Shortwave doesn't become its provider.
The Business plan starts at $30 per user per month, with the Claude Sonnet 4.6 model and five years of AI search history. The Premier plan moves up to $45 for doubled context, the Max plan to $120 for Claude Opus 4.6 and tripled context. No permanent free tier: only a fourteen-day trial.
The security page states it plainly: no message feeds the training of a third-party model, and content only passes through four named subcontractors — Google Cloud, OpenAI, Anthropic and Pinecone. All four, as the privacy policy specifies, process data from servers located in the United States.
Who it's for, and who it isn't
Suited for
- Team already settled on Gmail that wants sorting and summarising without migrating its email
Not a fit
- Organisation that forbids its email passing through servers located in the United States
Our sources
- Pricing page — Business, Premier, Max plansaccessed on 31 July 2026
- Privacy policy — hosting in the United Statesaccessed on 31 July 2026
- Security page — third-party models not trained on dataaccessed on 31 July 2026
Prices and hosting terms change often. We recheck them periodically, but the publisher's page remains the only up-to-date reference.