Productivity comparison
Dreamlock vs Shortwave
iPhone users who want to capture a dream in seconds at 3 AM - mumble a voice note, Face ID keeps the journal locked, and wake to a written retelling with a painted card and symbol notes. The free tier (unlimited capture, 3 painted cards a week, 10 questions) is enough to decide. Not a fit for Android users (iPhone only), or for anyone who wants their notes to never leave the device - interpretation requires a server round-trip to Anthropic and OpenAI, which the policy states plainly. · AI email triage, summaries, and scheduled send in Gmail
| Decision point | Dreamlock | Shortwave |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | iPhone users who want to capture a dream in seconds at 3 AM - mumble a voice note, Face ID keeps the journal locked, and wake to a written retelling with a painted card and symbol notes. The free tier (unlimited capture, 3 painted cards a week, 10 questions) is enough to decide. Not a fit for Android users (iPhone only), or for anyone who wants their notes to never leave the device - interpretation requires a server round-trip to Anthropic and OpenAI, which the policy states plainly. | AI email triage, summaries, and scheduled send in Gmail |
| Category | Productivity | Productivity |
| Price | Free tier forever: unlimited dream capture, 3 painted dream cards per week, 10 questions. Dreamlock Plus: $4.99/month or $39.99/year (7-day free trial on the annual plan), billed by Apple In-App Purchase, cancelable in iOS Settings. Verified 2026-11-02 on the homepage. | Free + paid plans |
| AIToolsEssentials editorial score | 4.1/5 | 4.5/5 |
Scores are editorial product assessments of job fit, likely output quality, ease of adoption, and operational cost. They are not lab benchmarks, and no tool here has a published hands-on result. How we score.
Evidence status
Free tier forever: unlimited capture, 3 painted dream cards/week, 10 questions. Dreamlock Plus $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr (7-day free trial on annual), billed via Apple In-App Purchase, price shown in app before purchase. Checked 2026-11-02 on https://dreamlock.app/.
Official sources checked 2026-11-02Submitted via form 2026-10-31 13:11 UTC by costelgn@gmail.com; site publishes hello@dreamlock.app (AWS SES MX). Editorial entry written independently from live pages plus the App Store listing (seller named: Andrii Zagoruiko; App Privacy 'Data Not Linked to You'). Policy names the exact subprocessor path (Vercel relay -> Anthropic Claude for text, OpenAI image model from scene description only), states no advertising/training use with API-terms reasoning, and accurately discloses the two analytics scripts (Ahrefs cookieless + GA4) found in markup. Terms: Delaware governing law; Apple IAP billing/cancellation. Registered 2026-07-29 (Name.com); NS Vercel.
Business is $30/seat/month, Premier is $45/seat/month, and Max is $120/seat/month. Business includes standard intelligence (Claude Sonnet 4.6), roughly 150-300 AI requests/day, 5 years AI search history, 50 threads per AI search, 3 AI filters, and AI integrations. Premier adds advanced intelligence, 2x AI usage, unlimited AI search history, 100 threads per search, and 10 AI filters. Max adds expert intelligence (Claude Opus 4.6), 6x AI usage, 150 threads per search, and 50 AI filters. A 14-day free trial is advertised; no permanent free plan is listed on the pricing page.
Official sources checked 2026-09-18Open verification questions
- The Terms of Service are dated January 2023 and may not reflect current AI-feature-specific data-use practices.
- The pricing page does not publish exact API rate limits or team-plan entitlements beyond the listed AI usage tiers.
- No explicit AI-output ownership or commercial-use license clause was found in the retrieved Terms; users retain rights in User Content but commercial use of AI-generated output is not separately addressed.
Official pricing page checked 2026-09-01. Terms of Service last updated January 26, 2023; Privacy Policy last updated July 10, 2025. Terms state users own their User Content and grant Shortwave operational rights. Shortwave integrates with a sister product, Tasklet, for 24/7 workflow automation. The pricing page does not list a permanent free plan; only a 14-day free trial is advertised.
How you should decide
Run one job you already do in each finalist before you pay. Write down the time, the edits, and the monthly bill.
Before you commit
Use the trial checklist on each review and the free scorecard. Record time, corrections, and the monthly cost at the volume you actually expect.
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