Canary Mail vs Shortwave
Canary Mail
canarymail.io
Shortwave
shortwave.comSide by side
| Figure | Canary Mail | Shortwave |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $3/mo | $30/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 3 |
| Spec score · Email clients | 9.1 (#8) | 8.8 (#17) |
| App coverage | Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows, and Android. | all |
| Calendar tools | Yes | Yes |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| App integrations | Growth includes app integrations. | The AI can connect with apps including Slack, Calendar, Notion, Asana, and HubSpot; the pricing page also describes built-in integrations or MCP. |
| Supported platforms | macOS, iOS, Android, and Windows. | The download page offers iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows apps and links to other desktop platforms; Shortwave also offers a web app. |
| Scheduled sending | Yes | Yes |
| Paid from | 3 | 30 |
| Support channels | Support is available through the website chatbot, help guides, or [email protected]. | The pricing page describes plan support as direct help from a real person on the Shortwave team. |
| Unified inbox | Yes | No |
Plans
Canary Mail
- FreeFree
- Growth$3 a month
- Growth Lifetime$100, paid once
- Pro+$10 a month
- Pro+ Lifetime$300, paid once
In their own words
Canary Mail
Canary Mail is an email app for macOS, iOS, Android, and Windows, with a unified inbox, offline access, scheduled sending, and calendar tools. Its Free plan includes unlimited mail accounts and core inbox features such as lite read receipts, snooze, pinning, templates, and Inbox Zero, with support for up to two devices. AI tools include email writing, thread summarization, and automatic categorization. A seven-day trial opens paid features without a credit card or automatic billing; accounts that do not upgrade move to Free. Growth and Pro+ support up to five devices, and Growth includes app integrations. Pro+ includes PGP Encryption and SecureSend Encryption for HIPAA compliance. Canary Mail states that it is HIPAA and GDPR compliant and that email is not used to train AI models or shared with third-party AI providers for training. Licenses are single-user, not for teams or organizations. Free is free; Growth is $3 a month, billed yearly at $36/year; and Pro+ is $10 a month, billed yearly at $100/year.
Shortwave
Shortwave is an AI email app for organizing, writing, scheduling, and searching messages with prompts. Email tools include inbox splits, bundles, delivery schedules, todos, summaries, AI filters, and AI-assisted search. Teams can share live threads, comment privately, assign next steps, and use shared labels. Connections include Slack, Calendar, Notion, Asana, and HubSpot; the pricing page also describes built-in integrations or MCP. Shortwave runs on Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows, and includes calendar tools and scheduled sending. It offers a free plan and a 14-day trial; paid plans start at $30/user/mo. Business is $30 a month per seat and includes five years of AI search history, up to 50 threads per search, and three AI-powered filters. Premier and Max cost $45.00 USD and $120 a month per seat, respectively, with unlimited history and higher search-thread and filter limits. Shortwave says data is encrypted at rest and in transit, and customer data is not used to train third-party LLMs. It lists CASA Tier 2 compliance and annual third-party security audits.