I signed up for 8 AI email tools last month. I gave each one the same job: write 10 real emails I actually needed to send for my consulting business. Customer follow-ups, project updates, cold outreach, and one tricky "sorry we messed up" apology.
Most of them were garbage dressed up in a nice website.
But two of them? Two of them would've saved me 6 hours a week when I was running my HVAC shop. Here's the honest breakdown.
How I Tested Them
I didn't test with fake prompts. I used real situations from real businesses:
- Follow up with a customer who hasn't responded in a week
- Send a project status update to a client
- Cold outreach to a potential partnership
- Apologize for a scheduling mistake
- Respond to a negative review (via email)
I graded each tool on:
- Speed - How fast did it produce something usable?
- Quality - Did it sound like a human or a robot?
- Customization - Could I make it sound like MY business, not a generic template?
- Price - Is it worth what they're charging?
The 2 Winners
1. ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) - Best Overall
Yeah, it's the obvious answer. And it won for an obvious reason: it's the most flexible.
The trick isn't using ChatGPT as an "email tool." It's using it as a writing partner. I created a custom instruction that said:
"I run a tech consulting business for trade companies (HVAC, plumbing, electrical). My clients are blue-collar business owners. Keep emails short, direct, no corporate speak. If I wouldn't say it to a customer's face, don't write it."
After that, every email it wrote sounded like me. Not perfect - I'd tweak maybe 20% - but that's 80% of the work done in 30 seconds.
For the apology email test: It nailed the tone - honest, direct, no over-apologizing. "Here's what happened, here's what we're doing about it, here's how we'll make it right." That's exactly how you handle it.
Verdict: This one's a keeper.
2. Grammarly's AI Compose ($12/month as part of Grammarly Premium)
If you already use Grammarly (and if you write emails all day, you should), their AI compose feature is surprisingly good. It lives right in your email client, so there's no copy-pasting between apps.
The difference from ChatGPT: it's better at rewriting what you've already started. I'd bang out a rough draft in 30 seconds - messy, grammatically questionable - and Grammarly would clean it up and offer a better version. Less starting-from-scratch, more polishing-your-rough-draft.
For the cold outreach test: It suggested a version that was 40% shorter than what I wrote. And it was better. Sometimes saying less is the move.
Verdict: Best for people who have ideas but hate writing.
The 6 Losers (And Why)
Tool A - $89/month AI Email Platform
Literally just ChatGPT with a nicer interface and a 4x markup. I'm not naming it because they'll probably improve, but charging $89 for what you can do with a $20 ChatGPT subscription is insulting.
Tool B - $49/month "Email Intelligence Suite"
Generated emails that read like a LinkedIn influencer having an existential crisis. "I hope this message finds you thriving in your business journey!" Nobody talks like that.
Tool C - $29/month AI Email Writer
Decent output but slow. Like, noticeably slow. And the free version was so limited it was basically a demo.
Tool D - $39/month "Business Communication AI"
Made every email 3 paragraphs too long. My clients don't read long emails. Your customers don't read long emails. Nobody reads long emails.
Tool E - $15/month
Templates. That's all it was. Templates with a few AI-generated words swapped in. Save your money and Google "business email templates" for free.
Tool F - $25/month
Required so much setup and "training" that by the time I got it working, I could have just written the emails myself. The irony was painful.
The Bottom Line
If you send more than 10 business emails a day, you should be using ChatGPT to draft them. Set up a custom instruction, learn to give it context, and let it do the first draft. You'll save 30-60 minutes a day.
If you're already a Grammarly user, turn on the AI features. You're probably paying for them anyway.
Skip everything else.
Danny Kowalski ran his own HVAC business for 9 years. He tests tools with the same question he asks about any piece of equipment: does it work, and is it worth what they're charging?