Your inbox and a team inbox, with client replies ready to approve
Short answer
Aventide's Inbox is where the messages and inquiries waiting on you land. It has two tabs. My inbox is your own Gmail: Aventide brings in the last 30 days, then checks for new mail every five minutes, and nobody else on your team can read it. Team belongs to the business: the shared mailbox, like hello@, and the answers to your website forms, which every teammate sees. Open a message and Aventide can draft a short reply in your brand's voice, or you can write your own; either way you approve it before it sends. Each card says when the sender looks like one of your clients, and only you make someone a client. The Daily Brief tells you each morning how many messages are waiting.
How the Inbox works
What lands in the Inbox?
Two kinds of mail, in two tabs. My inbox holds your own Gmail, for your eyes only. Team holds what belongs to the business: the team mailbox and every answer to a form on your website, shown as a Website form card. In each tab, To reply lists mail that looks like it needs an answer, Waiting holds threads you've answered, Done holds what you've finished, and All mail shows everything. Unopened mail sits under New for you at the top of To reply, and a client with a proposal out or up for renewal is labeled Proposal or Renewal. Newsletters and no-reply senders are filed under All mail, so they never crowd To reply or the Daily Brief count; a client's mail is never filed there. A booking isn't Inbox mail: it stays in Calendar with its answers.
How does the team inbox work?
The team inbox is your business mailbox, connected once for everyone. The account owner connects it from the Team tab by signing in with the mailbox's own Google account, like hello@. Aventide refuses a personal account, yours or a teammate's, because the whole team would see that mail, and each business has one team mailbox. A reply from Team goes out from the business mailbox, never from the Gmail of the teammate who clicked, and the card shows who replied. Replies to website form answers go out from the same mailbox; until one is connected, Reply by email opens your own email app. Disconnecting removes threads not linked to a client and any unsent replies; threads linked to a client stay on that client.
How does Aventide draft a reply?
Open a message and click Draft a reply. Aventide writes two to five sentences in your business's voice and tone from your Brand Kit, uses what's saved about the client when the sender is one, and is told never to invent a price, a date or a promise. "I end up spend too much time fixing awkward wording I'd never, ever use," one Hacker News commenter wrote about AI email drafters in September 2023. So the draft opens in an editor: change it yourself, tell Aventide what to adjust, or pick Make it warmer, Shorter and firmer or More casual. Approve & send shows who it goes to and asks you to confirm. Write a reply starts an empty draft, with no AI.
Who is this message from?
Each card says whether the sender is one of your clients. When the address belongs to one client, the card reads Looks like Fernwood Bakery, with Link and Not Fernwood Bakery; when two clients share it, you pick one. Someone new shows nothing at rest: hover over the card and a Client button offers Make a client or Link to a client. Make a client adds them at the Lead stage, and if a client already has that address, Aventide links the message to that client instead of making a second one. After a link you can undo it, or add earlier messages from the same address in one click. Aventide never makes a client by itself, and Not Fernwood Bakery is remembered for that address.
How does the Daily Brief count what's waiting?
With one line for the inbox. In the app, the Daily Brief says how many messages are waiting, split into My inbox and Team, with an Open inbox button. On your phone, the brief that Sidekick sends to Telegram, WhatsApp or Slack carries the same line in each business's section. Your own mail counts only in your brief, so a teammate's number never includes your Gmail, and yours never includes theirs. Reply drafts don't become approval cards in the brief or in Sidekick's Approvals panel; the one inbox line covers them, so you read each draft in the Inbox, next to the message it answers.
How to set up your inbox and team inbox
Connect your Gmail
Open Inbox and click Connect Gmail, then sign in with Google. Aventide brings in the last 30 days of your inbox and checks for new mail every five minutes. It asks Google for two things, to read your mail and to send the replies you approve, so it can't delete or move anything in your Gmail.
Connect the business mailbox
On the Team tab, the account owner clicks Connect with Google and signs in with the mailbox's own account, like hello@. If Google's account chooser offers your personal account, pick the mailbox instead; Aventide refuses a personal one. The pill on the Team tab then shows the mailbox and when it last synced, with Reconnect and Disconnect in its menu.
Add a form to your website
In Forms, start a form from Project inquiry or from blank, open its Share tab and copy the link or the embed code for your site. Each answer arrives in Team as a Website form card, and the person who created the business gets an email saying someone answered.
Work through To reply
Open a message, click Draft a reply or Write a reply, edit it and click Approve & send. Mark done when you've finished, snooze a draft until Tomorrow or Next week, or pin a message to set it aside. On Waiting, Nudge drafts a short follow-up when someone has gone quiet. Prioritized puts clients with a proposal out or up for renewal first; Newest first keeps date order.
What the Inbox costs
The Inbox is on both plans, like every feature: Starter is $39 a month and Pro is $99 a month, each with unlimited businesses and unlimited team members. Bringing in and sorting your mail uses no AI and no credits. Doing things yourself never uses credits. Only the AI's work does: each reply Aventide drafts, each redraft and each Nudge uses 10 credits, and asking about your inbox in Think or through Sidekick is priced like any chat message. At 0 credits, Draft a reply pauses and Write a reply still works. Starter includes 40,000 credits a month and Pro 120,000. Prices and credit costs as of October 17, 2026.
Questions about the Inbox
Can my team read my Gmail?
No. Your own Gmail is visible only to you, inside the business where you connected it: not to a teammate and not to the account owner. That covers the messages, their summaries, your drafts and counts, and the line your mail adds to your Daily Brief. What the team shares is the Team tab: the business mailbox and the answers to your website forms. Each teammate connects their own Gmail if they want it in Aventide.
Does Aventide send email replies on its own?
No. A reply goes out only after you approve it: Approve & send in the Inbox, or your yes when Aventide asks in chat. Anything Aventide drafts for a client waits for your approval; automations you switch on run on their own. If two teammates approve the same reply at the same moment, only one goes out, and the other sees "This reply was already sent."
Does the Inbox work with Outlook?
Not yet. The Inbox connects Gmail accounts, including Google Workspace addresses on your own domain, for both your own inbox and the team mailbox. Outlook and Microsoft 365 can't be connected today. If your business mail lives there, you can still put a form on your website, work its answers on the Team tab and answer each one with Reply by email, which opens your own email app.
Can Aventide delete or change my email in Gmail?
No. Aventide asks Google for two things: to read your mail and to send the replies you approve. Marking a thread done, snoozing it or pinning it changes only Aventide's copy, never Gmail. Aventide clears its own copies of newsletters and no-reply mail after 90 days, and of finished threads after 180 days; your Gmail keeps everything.
Do bookings and inquiries show up in the Inbox?
Website inquiries do; bookings don't. An answer to a form on your website lands in Team as a Website form card, which you can answer and link to a client. A booking stays in Calendar with the answers given with it, and the Daily Brief shows each new booking as its own line. A paid booking from someone new also gets a card in Approvals asking whether to make them a client; say yes and the booking, its payment and its answers go onto the new client.
Can two people work the team inbox?
Yes. Everyone on the team sees Team, and each card shows who replied or closed it, such as Replied by Sam Lee. There's no assigning a thread to one person yet, so agree who takes what. If you need a help desk with assignments and due times, the Inbox isn't that today. Teammates come with a paid plan: Starter and Pro both include unlimited team members.
Can each business have its own inbox?
Yes. Every business you run has its own Inbox, its own team mailbox and its own forms, under one login. Connect your Gmail in each business where you want it, then switch businesses from one menu and the Inbox reloads for the business you picked. Starter and Pro include unlimited businesses; the free trial allows up to three.
Where else does Aventide's AI help with client email?
In Think, ask "What needs a reply?" or "Draft a friendly reply saying Tuesday works", and Aventide works through the same inbox, showing you the exact text before anything sends. On your phone, ask Sidekick the same in Telegram, WhatsApp or Slack: Aventide drafts the reply, and Sidekick asks for your yes before it goes. Sidekick also sends your Daily Brief there. Do makes finished documents, like the proposal a reply promises, rather than email.