Productivity comparison
Shortwave vs Sonaopus
AI email triage, summaries, and scheduled send in Gmail · Structuring HR, EA, project, recruiting, and real-estate situations into prompts that produce usable documents
| Decision point | Shortwave | Sonaopus |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | AI email triage, summaries, and scheduled send in Gmail | Structuring HR, EA, project, recruiting, and real-estate situations into prompts that produce usable documents |
| Category | Productivity | Productivity |
| Price | Free + paid plans | $99 one-time per profession (five products) |
| AIToolsEssentials editorial score | 4.5/5 | 4.1/5 |
Scores are editorial product assessments — job fit, likely output quality, ease of adoption, and operational cost — not lab benchmarks, and no tool here has a published hands-on result. How we score.
Evidence status
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 2026-09-01Open 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.
$99 USD one-time per profession-specific product, no subscription and no recurring charge. Five products: HR Management, Executive Assistant, Project Management, Real Estate, Recruiting. Free tier: up to eight generations per profession before purchase, with no signup or card. Lifetime access covers future updates to that profession's tool. Terms state that except where required by law all purchases are final and no refunds are offered, with the free trial given as the reason. A stale third-party mirror (devadex.com) still lists a retired pre-launch $59 price; the mirrored store account sonaopusaiworkflow.gumroad.com now returns 404 and the price on every live vendor page is $99.
Official sources checked 2026-09-12Open verification questions
- The homepage FAQ answer “Nothing stored” contradicts the Privacy Policy, which correctly says workflow inputs are kept in your browser's local storage. The vendor agreed in writing on 2026-09-12 to correct the more absolute wording but the homepage copy still carries it as of 2026-09-13.
- No service address or city/country is published for the seller or data controller; the vendor declined to publish one beyond the Nigeria governing-law clause. The operator name is disclosed.
- The legal-review disclosure for legally sensitive outputs (ER case documents, offer letters, contracts, HR policies) appears inside workflow prompts rather than as a standalone, findable FAQ entry.
- No data-export feature exists for locally stored workflow data; the Privacy Policy states this and directs users to contact support.
- A stale third-party mirror (devadex.com) continues to advertise a retired $59 pre-launch price for the HR product. The mirrored Gumroad account now 404s; the mirror is outside the vendor's direct control.
- Affiliate program terms are advertised at 40% on the vendor site and via Gumroad, but no written program terms (cookie window, attribution, payment terms) were published for review.
Submitted via /submit-tool.html by the vendor on 2026-09-09 and held pending verification. The vendor published /privacy and /terms on 2026-09-12 and answered every outstanding question, so the listing was published 2026-09-13 with remaining caveats recorded in cons and unresolved_claims. Editorial entry written independently; no submission copy was reused. Verified on 2026-09-13: both legal pages live and substantive; all five Gumroad products at $99 with no subscription; shipped JavaScript writes only sonaopus_hr/_ea/_pm/_re/_role to localStorage, makes zero fetch/XHR/sendBeacon calls, and has no third-party script tags; handoff targets claude.ai/new, chatgpt.com/ and gemini.google.com/ carry no query parameters. Operator: Praise Boyinde, sole proprietor, no registered entity, governing law Nigeria. The domain publishes no MX records, so the Gmail address printed in both legal pages is the only reachable contact.
How to decide
Match each platform to your actual workflow constraints. Run one real workflow in each finalist before paying.
Quick recommendation
Use the trial checklist on each review page and the free scorecard to record time-to-result, corrections needed, and monthly cost at your expected volume before committing to a plan.