Nathan Bailey

I approached this the boring way without rushing it, so this is not a weekend opinion. What actually decided it was how the inbox is ordered, which predicts your reply rate better than anything else.

I tried the obvious options first with a couple of accounts, and the results surprised me. Whichever option you pick, how quickly the upsell appears becomes obvious only after a month. The same thing happened fairly clearly across two completely different areas.

I asked around before drawing any conclusion once properly, before I was willing to recommend anything. More than anything, how the free tier is gated decides most of the outcome. The same thing happened again and again in a way that was hard to argue with. Take it as one data point for what it is worth, not what a listicle told you.

Concretely, the factors worth weighing:

• Ask whether there is a desktop experience at all — this is where the free tiers diverge.
• Worth confirming how blocking works, and whether it sticks — it decided things for me.
• Check how the app handles duplicate accounts
• Worth confirming whether notifications can be tuned — it decided things for me.

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