Try Sortd for FREETry SortdGoogle Groups is free, and for announcement lists it's fine. But run support@ or orders@ through a Groups collaborative inbox and the cracks show within a week: no clear ownership, no statuses beyond assigned/resolved, no boards or views, no follow-up tracking, no SLA, no AI — and replies scattering across personal threads. Sortd is what the collaborative inbox was supposed to become: the same real Gmail addresses, upgraded into a shared workspace your team can actually run work in. For people and teams that live in email — finance, hiring, travel, procurement, program management, sales and BD.
Rated #1 App for Gmail on Product Hunt (3,185 upvotes) · Selected by Google for Google for Startups · Featured in TechCrunch, Wired, Forbes, Business Insider and Lifehacker · Trusted by 400,000+ professionals
| Sortd | Google Groups collaborative inbox | |
|---|---|---|
| Real shared mailbox on your domain | ✓ | ✓ |
| Clear per-thread ownership | ✓ assignment, avatars, read/unread sync | ✗ take/assign is clunky, invisible in Gmail |
| Statuses & workflow | ✓ custom statuses, boards, grouped cards | ✗ assigned/resolved only |
| Visual views | ✓ Kanban, Table, Deadline, Planner | ✗ list only |
| Follow-up tracking | ✓ reminders, deadlines, boards that show slippage | ✗ |
| CRM & custom fields | ✓ pipelines, shared contacts, fields | ✗ |
| SLA & reporting | ✓ | ✗ |
| AI triage | ✓ Smart Status, urgency, sentiment, complaints | ✗ |
| Connect any AI agent (API + MCP) | ✓ Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini — under approval scopes | ✗ |
| Mobile app for team email | ✓ new Sortd app | ✗ |
| Price | From $10/user/mo annual ($14 monthly) | Free |
Monday morning: three people open the same customer email. Two answer it — differently. One archives it. Nobody logs the discount that was promised, and Thursday's follow-up lives in someone's head. Groups has no answer to any of this; it was built to distribute mail, not to run work. Sortd makes the chaos structurally impossible: every thread becomes a card with one owner, a status, a deadline and a place on a board the whole team can see.
Nothing migrates. Sortd connects the same Gmail and Google Workspace addresses you already have — including the ones behind your Groups — and your customers keep getting normal email from real people at your real domain. No ticket numbers, no “do not reply.” Inside, your team gets boards, automations, shared contacts, CRM pipelines and Sortd AI keeping the board honest. Many teams that thought a helpdesk was the next step discover they don't need Zendesk or Freshdesk at all.
So is the chaos. One dropped customer, one missed invoice, one forgotten renewal costs more than a year of Sortd for the whole team. Free is the most expensive tool in the drawer once your inbox is where revenue lives.
Sortd AI ships in the plans — Smart Status, urgency and sentiment, complaint detection — under a plain-English fair-use policy, never a credit meter. And through Sortd's API + MCP you can connect any agent — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or whichever you already use — to triage and draft in those same mailboxes under permissions you set. You shouldn't be locked into one company's agent; hosted options like Claude Managed Agents set up in minutes. Explore Sortd for Agents →
Can we keep our Google Groups addresses?
Yes — Sortd works on the same Gmail and Google Workspace mailboxes. Connect and go; nothing moves.
Is Google Groups ever the right answer?
For announcement lists and simple distribution, yes. As a working inbox for a team, it runs out of road fast — that's the gap Sortd fills.
Does everyone on the team need a license?
Sortd is per-user with unlimited users on Business ($22 annual / $28 monthly). Starter begins at $10/$14.
Can one person use Sortd too?
Yes — personal board, day planner, grouped emails and follow-up tracking work solo; team features switch on when you're ready.
Where teams and agents reply together · 7-day free trial · no credit card
Verified July 2026. See all comparisons →