Shortwave Pricing Explained (2026): Every Plan & Seat Cost

Shortwave costs $30 per seat per month for Business ($24 billed annually), $45 per seat for Premier, and $120 per seat for Max. There's no permanent free plan anymore — every tier starts with a 14-day trial. The main thing that changes as you move up isn't a headline feature list, it's how much AI you get: usage multiplies, search history deepens, and the models get stronger.

Shortwave plans at a glance

All three plans share the same core client — AI Search, the AI Assistant, Ghostwriter drafting, thread summaries, bundles, and team inboxes. The tiers differ on AI usage allowance, the model behind the intelligence, search-history depth, thread caps per search, and how many AI Filters you get.

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Intelligence	Key limits
Business	$30/seat	$24/seat	Standard (Claude Sonnet 4.6)	5-yr search history · 3 AI Filters · 50 threads/search
Premier	$45/seat	Not published	Advanced (Sonnet 4.6 + thinking)	Unlimited history · 2× AI usage · 10 Filters · 100 threads/search
Max	$120/seat	Not published	Expert (Claude Opus 4.6 + thinking)	6× AI usage · 50 Filters · 150 threads/search

Only Business publishes an annual rate ($24/seat, a 20% discount on monthly). Premier and Max are listed monthly on Shortwave's pricing page, so treat any annual figure for those as unconfirmed until you see it at checkout.

Business — $30/seat ($24 annual)

Business is the entry point and the plan most people should buy. For $30/seat monthly or $24 annually, you get the full Shortwave client running on Claude Sonnet 4.6, five years of AI Search history, three plain-English AI Filters, team inboxes, and up to 50 threads pulled per AI search. That's more than enough AI headroom for a typical inbox.

Standard intelligence means good, fast answers on drafting and search. If your day is normal email volume — a few hundred messages a week — Business covers it without you ever hitting the AI ceiling. Ten seats runs $300/month ($240 annually), which is where teams start doing the math against Superhuman.

Premier — $45/seat

Premier is the "I use the AI constantly" plan. At $45/seat it doubles your AI usage allowance, upgrades the intelligence to Sonnet 4.6 with adaptive thinking (slower, more thorough reasoning on hard queries), removes the search-history cap so you can ask about anything you've ever received, bumps AI Filters to 10, and lifts each AI search to 100 threads.

The unlimited search history is the standout reason to upgrade. If you rely on "find the email where…" queries across years of mail, Premier is where that becomes reliable. For heavy drafters and researchers, the extra $15/seat pays for itself in not hitting limits.

Max — $120/seat

Max is the power-user ceiling. For $120/seat you get Expert intelligence powered by Claude Opus 4.6 with adaptive thinking, 6× the AI usage of Business, 50 AI Filters, and 150 threads per search. This is aimed at people who run complex, high-volume AI workflows — chained assistant tasks, deep cross-mailbox research, heavy automation via Tasklet.

For most users Max is overkill. The jump from $45 to $120 is steep, and Sonnet 4.6 on Premier already handles the vast majority of email tasks well. Buy Max only if you've genuinely outgrown Premier's usage allowance or you specifically want Opus-grade reasoning on every query.

What happened to the free plan?

Shortwave used to have a permanent free tier and cheaper individual plans (Personal and Pro in the roughly $8–$14 range). Those are discontinued. In 2026 the lineup is Business, Premier, and Max, each starting with a 14-day free trial and no free option after that. Many third-party review posts still cite the old $8.50–$14 pricing — it's outdated, so ignore it.

The upside of the restructure is that even the entry plan now runs on a frontier model. The downside is obvious: there's no way to use Shortwave long-term for free, which matters if you're comparing it to Gmail's built-in Gemini features at no extra cost.

Is Shortwave worth it?

Yes, for the right user. If you're a Gmail power user or a small team that leans on AI to search, draft, and organize, Business at $30/seat buys the best AI toolkit in any email client — and it runs on Claude 4.6. The value case is strongest when you actually use the AI daily; if you'd only touch it occasionally, the price is hard to justify against free Gmail AI.

Compared to Superhuman, Shortwave's Business tier ($30) sits below Superhuman's AI-enabled Business tier ($40), and Shortwave gives you more AI depth for the money — but only on Gmail. If you use Outlook, Shortwave isn't an option at all. For the full feature picture, read our Shortwave review, the head-to-head Superhuman vs Shortwave, or see the whole field in our best AI email assistants guide.