Email teams need more than just inboxes. They need chat, collaboration, and ways to actually manage conversations without drowning in threads. Spike tries to solve this by combining conversational email, team chat, documents, and video calls into one platform. Think of it as email reimagined for how teams actually work in 2026.
But Spike isn't for everyone. Some teams find the conversational view too different from traditional email. Others need deeper features for specific workflows like customer support or sales. The pricing can add up quickly for larger teams, too. That's why we put together this list of Spike alternatives that might fit your team better.
From dedicated shared inbox tools like Missive to full collaboration platforms like ClickUp, these alternatives offer different approaches to team communication. Some focus purely on email efficiency. Others bundle in project management and knowledge bases. We'll break down what each does well and who they're actually built for.
Why Consider Spike Alternatives?
Common Pain Points with Spike
Spike's conversational email view is its signature feature, but it's also polarizing. The chat-style interface hides traditional email headers, threading, and formatting that some users rely on. If you work with clients who send formal emails or need to reference email metadata, Spike's simplified view can feel limiting.
Pricing is another factor. Spike charges per user with limited features on the free tier. Teams that need advanced collaboration, automation, or customer support features often hit the paywall quickly. At around $8-10 per user per month, costs scale fast for growing teams.
Integration depth matters too. While Spike connects with common tools, it doesn't offer the deep workflow automation that dedicated email clients or project management platforms provide. If your team lives in Slack, uses complex CRM workflows, or needs powerful email rules and filters, Spike might not integrate tightly enough.
Some teams also need specialized features Spike doesn't prioritize. Customer support teams want ticket routing and SLA tracking. Sales teams need CRM integration and email sequences. Marketing teams want campaign tools and analytics. Spike positions itself as a general team communication hub, which means it doesn't excel at these niche use cases the way focused alternatives do.
Lastly, the mobile experience and offline access can be hit or miss. Teams working across time zones or traveling frequently sometimes find Spike's sync and mobile apps less reliable than alternatives built specifically for email management.
What Makes a Good Spike Alternative?
Key Features to Look For
The best Spike alternatives handle the core problem Spike solves: making email collaboration less painful. That means shared access to inboxes, ways to assign and comment on messages, and keeping teams aligned without forwarding everything.
Flexible email views matter. Not everyone wants conversational threading. Good alternatives let you switch between traditional inbox views, conversation views, and custom layouts. This flexibility helps teams transition without forcing everyone to relearn email.
Customization and rules separate decent tools from great ones. You should be able to automate repetitive tasks, create custom workflows for different message types, and build systems that match how your team actually works. Spike keeps things simple, which is great until you need to get specific.
Integration breadth is critical. Your email tool should connect seamlessly with your project manager, CRM, support desk, calendar, and communication tools. Native integrations beat third-party bridges every time. Look for tools that treat integrations as first-class features, not afterthoughts.
Pricing transparency and value are key for teams. Some alternatives charge per inbox instead of per user, which can save money. Others bundle more features at similar price points. Free tiers vary wildly in usefulness. Make sure you understand what you're actually getting before committing.
Collaboration features beyond email distinguish the best alternatives. Internal chat about emails, shared drafts, templates, snippets, and knowledge bases all reduce context switching. If you're replacing Spike, you probably want these team features baked in.
Lastly, consider your specific workflow. Are you handling customer support? Sales prospecting? Team coordination? General business communication? Different alternatives excel at different use cases. The best Spike alternative for a support team looks nothing like the best option for a sales team.
Superhuman
Best for Speed and Email Power Users
Superhuman takes the opposite approach from Spike. Instead of making email feel like chat, it makes traditional email stupidly fast. Keyboard shortcuts for everything, AI-powered triage, instant search, and blazing performance define the experience.
The app targets individuals and teams who live in email. Sales professionals, executives, and anyone drowning in messages find value in Superhuman's speed optimizations. You can tear through 100 emails in the time it takes to process 30 in Gmail.
Key features include split inbox (important vs everything else), AI-powered email summaries, scheduled sends, read receipts, and follow-up reminders. The team collaboration adds shared comments and email assignments, though this isn't as full-featured as Spike's team chat.
Superhuman supports Gmail and Outlook, which covers most teams. The interface is gorgeous and refined, prioritizing speed and clarity over feature bloat. If Spike feels like it's trying to do too much, Superhuman feels laser-focused on making email itself better.
The major limitation is cost. Superhuman runs $30 per user per month, which is roughly 3x Spike's pricing. You're paying premium for premium execution. For teams where email velocity directly impacts revenue (sales, partnerships, executive teams), the ROI can justify it. For general team communication, it's expensive.
Another consideration is that Superhuman doesn't handle documents, wikis, or video calls like Spike does. It's purely an email client. You'll need separate tools for collaboration beyond messaging.
Best for teams where email speed and efficiency directly impact business outcomes. If your team sends hundreds of emails daily and every minute saved matters, Superhuman's premium price makes sense. Not ideal for teams seeking an all-in-one communication platform.
Missive
Best for Customization and Multi-Channel Support
Missive is probably the closest like-for-like Spike alternative if you focus on shared email and team collaboration. It handles shared inboxes, team chat, email assignments, and internal discussions about messages without leaving the app.
What sets Missive apart is customization. You can create rules, automate workflows, set up canned responses, and build systems that match your team's processes. It's way more flexible than Spike for teams with specific needs around email management.
Missive supports multiple email accounts and channels beyond email, including SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and live chat. This makes it strong for customer-facing teams managing communications across platforms. You can have support tickets, sales inquiries, and social messages all in one unified inbox.
The collaboration features are robust. Internal chat threads attached to emails, shared drafts, team assignments, and collision detection (so two people don't reply to the same message) all work smoothly. It feels purpose-built for teams, not retrofitted.
Pricing starts at $14 per user per month for the base plan, with advanced features like API access and integrations running $18 per user per month. That's a bit more than Spike but you get significantly more customization and channel support.
The interface takes more setup than Spike's simplified approach. You'll spend time configuring rules, integrations, and workflows initially. Once dialed in, it runs like a machine. But if you want something dead simple out of the box, Missive requires more investment.
Mobile apps exist but aren't quite as polished as the desktop experience. Teams that work primarily from computers will be happier than those needing strong mobile access.
Best for teams managing customer communication across multiple channels, especially support and sales teams that need customization and automation. If you outgrew Spike's simplicity and need powerful workflows, Missive delivers.
Slack
Best for Replacing Internal Email
Slack approaches the problem from the opposite direction. Instead of making email collaborative, it replaces email with channels and direct messages. Many teams use Slack alongside email, but it can actually reduce email volume significantly when adopted fully.
Slack's strength is real-time communication and organization. Channels keep conversations organized by project, team, or topic. Threads prevent notification hell. Search is powerful. Integrations with thousands of apps mean you can surface information from across your stack directly in Slack.
The recently added Canvas feature brings collaborative documents into Slack, similar to Spike's docs. You can create meeting notes, project briefs, and knowledge bases without leaving the app. It's not as full-featured as Notion, but it covers basic team documentation needs.
Slack Connect allows external communication with clients and partners through shared channels. This can replace some email workflows, though it requires the other party to use Slack too, which isn't always realistic.
For teams fully bought into Slack, it becomes the central nervous system. But it doesn't handle traditional email well. You'll still need Gmail, Outlook, or another email client for messages from people outside your Slack universe. This is fine for internal team communication but doesn't solve the shared inbox problem Spike addresses.
Pricing runs $8.75 per user per month for Pro, which includes message history beyond 90 days and advanced features. The free tier works for small teams but history limitations become painful quickly.
Slack's notification management can be overwhelming. Without discipline, it becomes as distracting as email. Teams need to establish norms around usage, or it turns into a chaos engine.
Best for teams wanting to move away from email entirely for internal communication. If most of your messaging is internal and you want rich integrations with other tools, Slack excels. Not ideal if you need actual email management for external communication.
ClickUp
Best for Integrated Project Management
ClickUp is a full project management platform that includes team chat, docs, and email as part of a broader workspace. If Spike feels limited because it doesn't handle project tasks well, ClickUp goes all-in on that side.
The platform bundles tasks, projects, docs, whiteboards, time tracking, goals, and team chat into one interface. You can manage entire workflows from initial email inquiry through project completion without switching tools. This level of integration appeals to teams tired of tool sprawl.
ClickUp's chat feature is an add-on, not the core product. It works fine for coordinating around projects but isn't as refined as Spike or Slack for pure communication. The real value is connecting communication directly to work. Comment on tasks, link messages to projects, and keep everything contextual.
Email integration exists through ClickUp's inbox feature, which can pull in emails and convert them to tasks. However, it's not a shared email client like Spike or Missive. You're using it to get email into your project system, not as a primary email interface.
Customization is ClickUp's superpower and Achilles heel. You can configure literally everything to match your workflow. This flexibility is amazing once set up but overwhelming initially. The learning curve is steep. Teams coming from Spike's simplicity will feel the difference immediately.
Pricing starts at $7 per user per month for Unlimited, which includes most features. The free tier is generous for small teams. Compared to Spike, you get way more functionality for similar or lower cost, but it's a completely different category of tool.
The AI features (ClickUp Brain) add another $5 per user per month. They handle things like summarizing project updates and generating content, which can be useful but aren't essential.
Best for teams that need project management and communication together. If your team's emails mostly relate to projects and tasks, ClickUp connects those dots better than Spike. Not ideal if you just need a better email client without full project management overhead.
Front
Best for Customer-Facing Teams
Front is purpose-built for teams managing shared inboxes, especially customer-facing communication. It takes the shared email concept Spike touches on and makes it the entire focus.
Front treats every channel (email, SMS, chat, social) as a unified conversation. Customer messages flow into shared inboxes where teams can collaborate, assign, comment, and resolve without forwarding or CCing. It's designed specifically for support, sales, and operations teams dealing with high message volume.
Collaboration features are deeper than Spike. Internal comments on messages, shared drafts, team mentions, collision detection, and conversation assignments all work seamlessly. You can see who's viewing what in real-time, preventing duplicate responses.
Automation and routing are where Front pulls ahead of most alternatives. Create rules to automatically assign conversations based on content, sender, or topic. Set up SLAs and response time tracking. Build workflows for common scenarios. This level of control matters for teams handling hundreds of daily messages.
Integrations with CRMs, help desks, and business tools are extensive. Front positions itself as the communication layer on top of your existing stack, not a replacement for everything. You can surface Salesforce data, create Jira tickets, or log interactions in your CRM without leaving Front.
Pricing starts at $19 per user per month, making it one of the pricier alternatives. You're paying for sophisticated team features and automation that consumer email tools don't offer. For teams where email response quality and speed impact revenue, the investment makes sense.
The interface is clean but takes time to learn. There are a lot of features, and new users need training to leverage them effectively. It's not as pick-up-and-play simple as Spike.
Best for customer-facing teams managing shared inboxes at scale. Support teams, sales teams, and operations groups handling external communication will appreciate Front's depth. Overkill for small teams just wanting better internal email collaboration.
Spark Mail
Best for Clean Team Email
Spark Mail focuses on collaborative email for teams without the complexity of tools like Missive or Front. It's a modern email client with team features sprinkled in, finding middle ground between consumer apps and enterprise platforms.
Spark's smart inbox automatically categorizes messages as personal, notifications, or newsletters. This triage happens instantly, helping you focus on what matters. The natural language search is excellent, finding messages faster than most clients.
Team collaboration includes shared drafts, email discussions, and the ability to create emails together in real-time. It's not as full-featured as Spike's team workspace but covers the basics well. You can loop teammates into conversations and work on responses collaboratively.
The interface is beautiful and fast. Spark feels responsive and modern, especially compared to clunky enterprise email tools. It works across Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android with solid sync. Mobile apps are particularly polished.
Spark recently added AI writing assistance to help compose and improve emails. It's useful for quick rewrites and tone adjustments, though not groundbreaking. The feature exists in most modern email tools now.
Pricing runs $6.39 per user per month for Premium (Teams), which includes all collaboration features. That's cheaper than Spike while providing a cleaner, more focused email experience. The free tier works fine for individual use but limits team features.
Spark doesn't try to be an all-in-one platform. No built-in docs, wikis, or video calls like Spike offers. It's purely about making email better, which is a strength if you don't need those extras. You'll use separate tools for other collaboration needs.
Customization is limited compared to Missive or Superhuman. You get some preferences and settings but can't build complex automation or workflows. It's opinionated about how email should work.
Best for teams wanting clean, collaborative email without complexity. If Spike feels bloated with features you don't use, Spark strips back to email essentials done well. Not suitable for teams needing heavy automation or multi-channel support.
Spark Mail app is a reliable, all-round way to handle and send emails now using AI.
How to Switch from Spike
Transition Best Practices
Moving off Spike requires planning, especially if your team relies on its integrated docs, chat, and email. The good news is that your actual emails live in Gmail, Outlook, or whatever provider you use. Spike is just a client accessing those accounts. This means switching email clients is mostly about changing how you access messages, not migrating data.
Start by exporting any important data stored in Spike's proprietary features. If you use Spike Notes or created documents within the platform, export those to your new system before cutting over. Most alternatives don't have a direct import for Spike-specific content.
For team chat history, there's no great migration path. If conversations in Spike contain critical information, screenshot or copy important threads into your knowledge base before switching. This is admittedly painful, but Spike doesn't offer chat export that other tools can import.
Email transitions smoothly since you're just connecting your same accounts to a new client. Connect your Gmail, Outlook, or other providers to your new tool. Messages sync automatically. The only loss is Spike's conversation threading if your new tool uses different threading logic.
Set up your new tool's team features before fully migrating. Configure shared inboxes, create automation rules, set up integrations, and train your team. Running both tools in parallel for a week helps catch gaps before fully cutting over.
Communicate the change to your team with specific reasoning. Explain what's better in the new tool and acknowledge what you'll lose. People resist change less when they understand the why and have support learning new workflows.
If you used Spike for video calls, set up your replacement before removing Spike. Whether that's Zoom, Google Meet, or another solution, make sure it's configured and tested. Don't leave your team without a video option during the transition.
For integrations and workflows built around Spike, audit what needs to be recreated. API connections, Zapier automations, or custom integrations might need updates to point at your new platform. Test these thoroughly before going live.
Consider a staged rollout if you have a larger team. Migrate a small group first, gather feedback, refine the setup, then expand. This prevents organization-wide chaos if something doesn't work as expected.
Keep Spike accounts active for at least a month after migration. You'll inevitably need to reference something or discover a forgotten workflow. Having the safety net reduces stress during the transition.
Spike Alternatives FAQ
Common Questions About Switching
What's the closest alternative to Spike's all-in-one approach?
Missive comes closest if you focus on email and team collaboration. It handles shared inboxes, team chat about emails, and multi-channel communication without the conversational email view Spike uses. If you want docs and video calls bundled in too, you're looking at platform tools like ClickUp or bundling separate best-in-class tools.
Can I get Spike's features for less money?
Spark Mail costs about half of Spike ($6.39 vs $12 per user per month) and covers collaborative email well. You lose integrated docs and video but gain a cleaner, faster email experience. For teams only using Spike's email features, Spark delivers better value. If you actually use all of Spike's tools, splitting them across multiple apps might end up costing more.
Which alternative is best for customer support teams?
Front or Missive, depending on scale. Front is purpose-built for support teams with features like SLA tracking, sophisticated routing, and deep CRM integrations. It costs more ($19+ per user) but handles high-volume support better. Missive works well for smaller support teams needing multi-channel inbox management at a lower price point ($14 per user).
Do any alternatives offer Spike's conversational email view?
Not exactly. Spike's chat-style email interface is pretty unique. Most alternatives stick with traditional email views or offer threaded conversations that still look like email. If you love Spike's conversational view specifically, you might not find that exact experience elsewhere. Superhuman and Spark have clean, modern interfaces but present email traditionally.
What if I just need better team email, not all the extras?
Spark Mail or Superhuman, depending on budget. Spark offers team collaboration features at $6.39 per user monthly with a clean, focused email experience. Superhuman costs more ($30 per user) but makes email incredibly fast for power users. Both skip the docs, wikis, and video calls to focus purely on making email better.
Can I use these alternatives with Gmail and Outlook?
Yes, all the alternatives listed support Gmail and Outlook. Some, like Missive and Front, also handle other channels like SMS and social media. Your existing email accounts work with any of these tools since they're clients accessing your existing providers, not new email services.
Which Spike Alternative Should You Choose?
Making the Decision
The best Spike alternative depends entirely on what you actually used Spike for and what frustrated you about it.
If you mainly used Spike for fast, collaborative email and found the extra features distracting, go with Spark Mail or Superhuman. Spark costs half of Spike and focuses on email done well. Superhuman costs triple but makes email absurdly fast for power users.
If you need shared inbox management with customization Spike couldn't offer, Missive or Front are your top choices. Missive handles multi-channel communication with deep workflow automation. Front is purpose-built for customer-facing teams managing high message volume.
If you wanted more project management integration than Spike provided, ClickUp bundles email, chat, docs, and full project management. You'll trade Spike's simplicity for significantly more functionality.
If you're trying to reduce email entirely and move to real-time chat, Slack replaces internal email effectively. You'll still need an email client for external communication, but Slack can eliminate most internal email.
Honestly, the hardest part is admitting when a tool isn't working and committing to change. Most teams stick with suboptimal tools way too long because switching feels like work. It is work. But using the wrong communication tool wastes way more time long-term than a planned migration.
Try a couple alternatives with a small group before committing. Most offer free trials. See which fits your actual workflow, not which has the best marketing site.