ShareMail vs Google Collaborative Inbox
Google Groups has a Collaborative Inbox built in, it is free with Workspace, and for a low-volume team it is genuinely enough. It runs out at a predictable point: the moment two people need to talk about an email without replying to the customer.
What Google Collaborative Inbox does well
- Free, and already switched on in your Workspace
- Assign a conversation to a member; mark it complete, duplicate or no-action
- Labels, pinning, and filtering to unresolved conversations
Their pricing, as published
Free, included with Google Workspace. Assignment and resolution actions are gated by Google Group moderation permissions, so not every member can use every function.
Side by side
| ShareMail | Google Collaborative Inbox | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $6/user/mo | Free with Google Workspace |
| Internal comments | In the conversation timeline, invisible to the customer, with @mentions | None. Every reply is a reply to the group |
| Shared drafts | Yes, locked to the assignee so two people cannot overwrite each other | None |
| Automation rules | Unlimited: tag, assign, round-robin, notify | None |
| Search | Messages and internal comments in one query, with Gmail-style operators | Group search over messages |
| Who can assign | Anyone who can see the inbox | Gated by group moderation permissions |
| Where your email lives | In your Gmail | In the Google Group |
Google Collaborative Inbox column: their published pricing and documentation, read September 2026 (source). Pricing and packaging change, so verify current terms with Google Collaborative Inbox directly before you decide. ShareMail's column describes the product as it runs today plus the commitments in our pledge; anything not yet shipped says so. This is the honest one: if a Collaborative Inbox covers you, use it. It costs nothing and it is already there. Come back when your team starts forwarding emails to each other to discuss them.
Choose Google Collaborative Inbox if…
Your volume is low, you only need "who has this" and "is it done", and you would rather configure a Google Group than add a tool.
Choose ShareMail if…
Your team answers email out of Gmail, you want comments, assignments, shared drafts and rules on top of it, and you would rather not pay per seat for a platform, or for AI you did not ask for. The whole inbox is on every plan, from $6 a seat.
Other comparisons
We keep these current and we do not hide the parts where the other tool wins.