Point vs Spark

Spark and Point are both full email clients. They divide the work differently. Spark files your mail by what kind of thing it is. Then Spark asks you to name the people who matter, and to vet each stranger who writes. Point works out what needs you today, and says what each thread wants before you open it.

• Spark’s own feature page, checked August 18, 2026, describes Smart Inbox as sorting new mail “into personal, newsletter and notification categories for easy processing, placing emails from real people at the top of your inbox”.
• You decide which real person comes first. Priority is a mark you apply to senders and threads. Gatekeeper screens the first message from anyone new, so you accept or block them.
• That’s a control-first design, and a defensible one. Its limit is that a list of people who matter holds the people you already knew mattered.
• Point ranks every message on how important and how urgent it is as it lands. That includes mail from senders you’ve only just heard of. How far Point goes without you is a level you set for each kind of action.

What does Spark actually sort?

Spark’s sorting is a filing rule you could explain to somebody, and that’s a genuine virtue. Its Smart Inbox page, checked August 18, 2026, says mail is sorted “into personal, newsletter and notification categories”, with mail from real people put at the top. Alongside that sit grouping by sender, pinning a message where you want it, and a home screen that gathers the day.

That rule answers one question. What kind of thing arrived? Is this a human being, a mailing list, or a machine telling you something happened? For most inboxes that single distinction removes a great deal of noise. It removes it in a way you can predict and check. Every move is one you can see coming, and you can confirm it by eye.

For many people that’s enough. Spark has been refining it for years, across more devices than anything else in this comparison. A firm whose inbox is mostly newsletters and system notifications, with real client mail scattered through it, feels the difference on the first morning.

Point’s sorting answers a harder question. Not what kind of thing is this, but does it need you today. Those two come apart more often than they sound. A notification from your practice management system says a client’s filing was rejected. That’s a machine talking, and it’s the most important thing in your inbox. A note from a real person confirms they got your last email. That’s a human being, and you can leave it where it sits.

Who decides what matters, you or the software?

Spark’s answer is you, deliberately. That deserves a fair hearing before the objection.

Priority is a mark you apply. Its help pages, checked August 18, 2026, describe marking important senders or threads as priority, so that new messages from them appear at the top of the inbox. Gatekeeper works the same way at the door. The first time somebody emails you, Spark screens the sender and gives you the option to accept them or block any future contact. A setting decides whether that screening happens before the inbox or inside it. What sits at the top is what you put there.

Say you know exactly who your twenty most important clients are, and you’ll spend an afternoon saying so. Then Spark is precise, transparent, and does what it says. It does the same thing every day, which is worth more than it sounds when software stands between you and your clients. Naming the people who matter is a real technique, and Point supports it too. That’s the subject of VIP mail that never gets buried.

The objection is about the rest of the mail. A list of important people is built from the past. The message that costs a small practice money often comes from somebody who was never on it:

• a referral from a client’s attorney
• the bank, about a problem on an account you’re hearing about for the first time
• a new finance manager at a firm you’ve invoiced for years
• a regulator

Under a nomination system, all four arrive as strangers. Under Gatekeeper’s screening they arrive as a decision about somebody you’ve only just heard of, at the moment you have least time to make it. Why the important message slips past, even when the sorting is working, is the subject of why important mail slips past.

There’s a second cost, and the owner of a seven-person firm feels it most. Somebody has to build a nomination list and then keep it. It goes stale quietly. The day it’s most out of date is the day after your practice took on four new clients. Point weighs every message as it arrives, on what it’s asking for and when. Mail from somebody new is judged on the same terms as mail from somebody you named. You can still name people, and the naming makes a difference. Point sorts your morning either way.

When does the AI actually run?

Both products have AI that can write, summarize, translate and search. On a feature list they look alike. The difference is when it runs, and that difference is most of the experience.

Spark’s AI runs when you ask. There’s an assistant to ask, a writing helper for a message you’re composing, and summaries and answers when you go and request them. Spark sells it as an allowance. Its pricing page, checked August 18, 2026, gives the free tier a limited preview, and gives the paid tiers a monthly quota of AI work. That’s a coherent arrangement. Use it twice a week and it costs you very little, and it does exactly what you asked.

Point’s has already run by the time you arrive. Ranking happens as mail lands. The summary sits on the thread before you open it. The ask inside a message is already a task with a date on it. Point has run the back and forth on a request to meet, and a real event sits on the calendar. All of it was waiting.

Both are defensible answers. The usual framing pits a client that makes you faster against an assistant that does the work, and an AI email client versus an AI email assistant unpicks that properly. The honest version of the question is about mornings. Do you want a capable helper waiting to be asked? Or do you want the sorting, the summarizing and the chasing already done when you sit down? Plenty of owners forget the helper is there. The second arrangement is the one that still works on the morning you forget.

The other half of it is what the software may do on its own. In Point that’s a setting you make once. Filing, replying, scheduling and the rest each carry their own level, from suggest-only through review to fully handled. They all start on review, where Point prepares the work and waits for your approval. You promote the ones you’re ready to hand over, one kind of action at a time, and you can lower them again. Behind that sits an activity log. It holds every action in order, each explained in a sentence, with undo one click away.

What happens to your mail, and who else sees it?

Spark’s privacy policy is more forthcoming than most. A firm holding client financial data should read it at source, rather than take a competitor’s word for it. Everything below is quoted from that policy, checked August 18, 2026.

It says the data is “mainly processed on your device”. It says data “may also be processed in Spark systems if necessary for a feature to function”. The policy names the cases where content is held on its servers, such as an email queued to send later and one shared by link. On the AI side it names the outside services its models may run on: Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, OpenAI, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Vertex AI. And it states the thing everybody wants stated: “We do not use your data to train any AI model. AI providers may only retain your inputs for up to thirty (30) days as part of their abuse and misuse monitoring.”

Credit where it’s due. Naming the providers and the retention window is more than many vendors will commit to in writing. A practice can take that policy to a partner meeting and get a decision out of it. That’s what a good disclosure is for.

Point’s own answers belong under the same scrutiny. The questions worth putting to any vendor, Point included, are set out in the confidentiality checks for an AI email client. Two lines are particular to Point. Mail from a sender Point treats as a stranger is held back before anything processes it. An instruction buried inside that message reaches the AI only once you release it, and releasing it is your call. The second line runs between the businesses you operate. Your practice and the thing you run beside it stay separate, and a reply leaves under the right one on its own.

Where Spark is stronger

Spark reaches further than anything else on these pages. The first two items are that reach.

It runs everywhere. Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and Apple Watch, per its own site, checked August 18, 2026. That’s more ground than anything else on these comparison pages covers.

It connects to anything. IMAP, iCloud, Exchange, Outlook, Yahoo and Google. Point connects to Gmail and to Microsoft 365, so a firm hosted somewhere else is still waiting for its turn.

There’s a free way in. Spark’s free tier carries the smart inbox, unlimited accounts and a calendar. That’s a real email client, at no cost. Point has no free tier and publishes no price during the private beta.

Predictability. You can state its sorting rule in a sentence and check it by eye. What gets promoted is what you promoted. For a partner who wants to know exactly why a message sits where it does, that’s a feature.

Maturity. Years of shipping, a large user base, and team collaboration built out with shared drafts, comments and delegation. Its privacy policy commits to specifics. Point is in private beta, and that gap is real. Count it honestly.

Which one suits a small professional firm?

Ask how much of the deciding you want to keep.

Say you know who matters, and you’ll happily say so. You want software that does exactly and only what you told it. Spark is built on that principle and executes it well. Finding out is free, and Spark stands alone in that on these pages.

Maybe keeping that list current is the thing that slips while you run a practice. Maybe the message that hurt you last quarter came from somebody who was never on any list. Then a nomination system is being asked for a job it was designed to leave to you. That’s the ground Point is built for.

Choose Spark if your mail lives outside Google and Microsoft. Choose Spark if your team is spread across every kind of device, or if a free client is what the budget allows. Choose Spark if you’d rather nominate the people who matter than have software judge each message for you.

Choose Point if you want mail weighed on what it asks of you, rather than filed by what kind of thing it is. Choose Point if you want the summary, the task and the arranged meeting already waiting. Choose Point if what the software may do on its own should be a level per kind of action, rather than a quota per month. Choose Point if you run more than one business and want each kept clear of the other’s view.

Wondering whether a whole client is the right category at all? What an AI email client is settles the definition. The money across the category is worked through in what one costs, and a first week is described in switching to an AI email client.

Everything in Spark’s column below was read off its own site on August 18, 2026.

Common questions

Is Point a Spark alternative?

Yes. They’re both full email clients, and they replace the app you read and send from. What separates them is who does the judging. Spark files by category, then follows the priorities you set. Point weighs each message on what it’s asking of you and when, including mail from people you’ve only just started dealing with. If the deciding is the part you want to keep, Spark is the better fit.

Does Spark decide what is important, or do I?

Both, in different places. Its Smart Inbox page, checked August 18, 2026, says Spark sorts mail into personal, newsletter and notification categories, and puts mail from real people at the top. That part is automatic. Which of those real people comes first is yours to set. Priority is a mark you apply to senders and threads, and Gatekeeper screens anybody new so you can accept or block them.

Does Spark have a free plan?

Yes, and a genuine one. Its pricing page, checked August 18, 2026, offers a free tier with the smart inbox, unlimited email accounts, smart notifications and a calendar. AI is where the paid tiers begin. Free users get a limited preview, and the paid plans carry a monthly allowance of AI work. Point publishes no price and has no free tier during the private beta.

Is Spark safe for confidential client mail?

Its policy is unusually specific, which is the right starting point. Checked August 18, 2026, it says data is mainly processed on your device. It names the outside AI services that may process the rest. It states that your data is not used to train any AI model. And it says providers may retain inputs for up to thirty days for abuse monitoring. Whether that’s acceptable for your practice is a decision for your partners, and the questions to ask any vendor are in the confidentiality checks.

Which suits an accounting or consulting firm better?

Point, in most cases, and the reason is about who has time. A practice where somebody maintains the list of important senders and vets each new one gets a precise, predictable result from Spark. In a practice where that afternoon keeps getting away from you, and the message that matters keeps arriving from somebody new, software that weighs the whole inbox on its own serves you better. Spark’s platform reach is the honest counterweight. A firm hosted outside Google and Microsoft should weigh it heavily.

Can Point reply to something without me seeing it first?

At the top of the dial, yes, and having a dial is the point. Out of the box every kind of action sits on review, where Point prepares the reply and waits for your approval. Each kind of action carries its own level, from suggest-only through review to fully handled. You raise the ones you’re ready to hand over, and lower them again whenever you like. Point runs the scheduling back and forth on its own. The activity log holds every action in order, with undo a click away. Undo covers what Point did. A message that has reached somebody else’s server has gone.

The short version

• Spark’s sorting answers what kind of thing a message is. Its own page, checked August 18, 2026, describes personal, newsletter and notification categories, with real people put at the top.
• Which real person comes first is yours to declare. Priority is a mark you apply, and Gatekeeper screens each new sender for you to accept or block.
• That’s precise and predictable, and it rests on a list built from the past. The message that costs a practice money often comes from somebody who was never on it.
• Spark’s AI runs when you ask, and it’s metered as a monthly allowance. Point’s has already run before you sit down. How far Point goes without you is a level you set for each kind of action.
• Spark runs on more devices and connects to more mailboxes than anything else here, and its free tier is a real email client. If your mail lives outside Google and Microsoft, that settles it.

What kind of thing a message is, and what it’s worth to you, are two different questions. The inventory for the second is the benefits page. Accountants, law practices and everyone else get their own version of the answer.