ClickUp Email vs. Missive

For better or worse, email and business are kind of intertwined at this moment in time. Maybe in 10 years that won't be the case. But right now it's hard to escape email. And whether you are managing your work in ClickUp or Asana or teamwork or projects or whatever, the outside world is still predominantly going to be communicating with you via email and maybe some other things as well. So when we're trying to systemize our business, we can't ignore email as a key component of any business's tool stack. That's why a few weeks ago, or maybe even a few months ago, by the time you see this, my team and I here released a video talking about how Team ProcessDriven uses a tool called Missive in order to organize all of our external communications. It's our go to collaborative Inbox. In that video I talked about how the not sponsored video. I was just kind of obsessed with that software since we started using it and so on. Well, since that video, many of you guys have reached out about this question of Inbox delegation and organizing things. And many of you, like us here, use the tool called ClickUp. And you asked us, you know, why are you using Missive if ClickUp has email features built in? In fact, one of the people who reached out after those last two unsponsored videos and asked us to expand a little bit more was Missive themself. They wanted to hear why we use Missive instead of ClickUp and well, it seemed like a great idea for a video. You guys were already asking about it. So here we are. In this video I want to break down the key differences between Missive and ClickUp's built in email click app. We're going to be going through five key differences today, but as you're probably going to gather as we go through here, there are a lot more than five differences between these two platforms. I'm just trying to condense it for you here. So if you want to find out the full comparison between ClickUp Email and Missive, go down to the description. I just have a blog post that you can read on this topic that is quite in depth for anyone who likes the geeky details. But for those of you who don't like to read, join me as we go through our first difference between Missive and ClickUp Email, which is the power of templates. And this is actually a detail that I touched on in those first two videos as one of my favorite features. In Missive, you have these really powerful things called variables. You see them here on the screen with things like username, nickname. Basically you put this thing there and it swaps it out with the relevant data. Rather than hi first name, it says hi, Layla. What's really cool about how missive handles variables and then the implications for their templates is that when you create variables in missive, if you don't want to use the default ones, you can define what each variable means. You can set fallback values, which basically means, hey, if I don't know, just put this as the answer. And you can even ask the human sending the email to confirm certain details. So the variable is favorite color. The description for internal use is hey, write their favorite color here. And when we actually have this variable set up, we are always going to ask the human being sending the email using the template to actually confirm that that color is correct. From their knowledge, if we don't know the default value, the fallback value will be blue. Why this is cool is if we don't know, we've got a default option there. And we can use these variables in things like signatures and even manually sent emails. Now if we compare that to ClickUp, it is night and day. Yes, ClickUp has variables. You can use these variables over here anytime you set up an email in an automation period. Only in ClickUp email automations can you use variables, which is like what? And if you forget a variable. So for example, if we forgot to fill in the due date here, it would be blank, it would just show up blank. There's no way to have a fallback value. So here, if we don't have an assignee, it'll just say hey, space, space, space. That's not good. We can't have it say hey there, if there's no assignee because there is no fallback value. So to go back this thing, the default value, that's what I'm referring to. There does not exist such a thing in ClickUp's variables. So that's ClickUp Automations. But if we go into sending emails more manually in ClickUp, we do not have access to variables at all. So you see here I actually have written with yellow text, add the first name here manually. Because there is no way to automatically use variables when sending manual emails in ClickUp, which is kind of bonkers when you pair that with the fact that ClickUp's automations require you to have this custom field data filled out for every single task that you're emailing from. I just find it really time consuming to use. So first point of comparison between missive and ClickUp and admittedly one of the biggest factors for me personally in making this decision is templates and the relative power we see in Missive versus what we have here in ClickUp where we just don't have the usage of variables in manual emails or in signatures. We only have those variables sort of in Automations. Speaking of automations, the second reason that I prefer Missive to ClickUp email for this kind of use case and I recommend others check it out, is because Automations in Missive are next level. I mean we should expect this, right? Missive is built to to be a really amazing email client, among other things. ClickUp. As we've all seen over the past year, ClickUp has a core mission of making work more productive. But email's kind of a topping on their Sunday. It's not the core thing. So Missive has spent a lot more time developing really powerful email specific features such as Automations. So let's look at ClickUp here so you can see the difference I'm talking about here in ClickUp we again we send our emails through automations. We've got these kind of default ones that we can customize and our overall editor looks something like this when we're writing any sort of email that uses dynamic variables. The problem with this is that we can only use options that are available per ClickUp. And yes there are a lot of them, but they are predominantly task based which is again makes perfect sense given what ClickUp is good at. But I don't know about you, but a lot of my emails aren't necessarily task specific. They tend to cover broader things. They're hard sometimes to connect to one specific task. So situations like this I think ClickUp really shines when it comes to workflows where things are very rigid, very task centric, like maybe it tickets, help desks, maybe some onboarding stuff where there's a very set flow. That's where ClickUp email is comfortable. But for the rest of it, for the rest of email communication where things are a little bit more fluid, I have found this kind of structure really hard to implement beyond those rigid workflows. So let me show you the comparison here and go into missive land here. This is a quick screenshot of Missives rules feature which is their kind of automations emissive rules which is what this thing is is where automations happen. And I know it's kind of hard to see just at this overview, but these rules are just next level powerful. The first thing you'll probably notice is that we are able to have all or any conditions available so we can kind of adjust of all the things we're looking for, do they all need to be satisfied or just one? We can also use this tiny little thing here to group conditions and get really, really segmented and clear on when things happen. The options of what we can actually do with this I'll show you in a moment, but they're quite a bit more expansive and more, I don't know, conversation centric than what ClickUp has currently. Also, things like reception time being a trigger is amazing. I'm able to replace, you know, a generic autoresponder that you might build into Outlook with this kind of flow because I can pick specific times, days of the week and time zones for where I want to have things happen for where I when when I want to have things happen. So that's reception time as one condition. I can also have a condition of the type of message, whether it's an automated reply from another autoresponder. Not sure how they can tell that, but really cool. And I can send those templated emails I've created here automatically from certain email addresses and only so often. I mean these kinds of things are very email specific settings that you wouldn't necessarily need in automations that are built into a task tool. But here absolutely makes so much sense. So here's just a zoom out of some of the actions that are available here just for the second half. Obviously there's just a few here, but I tried to get a screenshot of all of them and even at 10% zoom I couldn't get a reasonable zoom out on this slide. So I wanted to show you this is kind of the quantity of options available, significantly more with more modularity than ClickUp, especially when you consider once again that we can group these, we can have all or any conditions and basically combine these in so many more ways than we can with ClickUp, which is a bit more restrictive. So when it comes to actually automatically doing things in your inbox, this is just great. I mean some examples of how we use this is the autoresponder example you see right here. We also use this for things like moving emails into certain inboxes. We also have one that says, hey, if an email is sitting for more than 24 hours, tag the manager in a comment. So we have some eyeballs on why is this email sitting since we have a one business day response goal. That's just kind of the start though. I feel like we probably have well over a dozen rules and automations happening inside Missive, and I just couldn't get close to replicating those. If I tried to bring this into ClickUp, by now you might be like, okay, okay, I get it. Missive is really good at email. ClickUp's great at tasks. Ah, that's enough. But I actually have three more things to tell you. Three more points of comparison. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg though, and I have that blog post in the description below if you want to just read through the rest of it. But the third factor I want to highlight here, just to make the case even more, is that Missive allows us to connect alias email addresses. Now, again, in those videos that I published in the past, I talked about what alias emails are. If you haven't seen that video, I'll put the link to that other one right here. But alias emails basically allow you to have nicknames or collective names of a more general nature, such as hello at or hi at or support@your domain.com and that email address is kind of like a general email that you can then have send emails to multiple people with ClickUp. In this moment of time, there is no way to use these kind of collective alias email addresses. With ClickUp, your only option is to create an actual email account with a username and a login for this general email address, which means more money for you, and then connect that to ClickUp. And that's not really ideal, especially when many small businesses have many alias email accounts that normally you wouldn't have to pay more for. And creating an additional account just for the purposes of emailing from ClickUp starts to get you closer and closer to the cost of having a dedicated tool. Personally, I know we primarily receive emails and send emails in many ways from alias email addresses. So when ClickUp released, the email click app and aliases were not included. You see, the feature request here kind of makes it hard to use. It might change in the future, but for now that is a real difference in both cost and ease of use. Now, in comparison, Missive is built for email, right? And I feel like they kind of understand that a lot of teams use many email addresses. So here's a quick screenshot of our missive settings and we have, I think 1, 2, 3, 4, 5677 different aliases just in this one screenshot for one email address. And unlike ClickUp, where I have to pay $2 per month for each additional email address if it is its own account, in addition to the cost of setting up that account here, it's free. So I have an account with Missive, I can add all these aliases. Even in their own support docs, they highlight that you can have any number of aliases for each email account. To me, that's extremely generous. And for our team, that has been invaluable to be able to set up all these different email accounts, sync them up with Missive in a minute or so and start receiving email. If you use alias email addresses of any kind, if you'd rather have your team receiving emails at supportrocessdriven Co instead of personal email addresses, this is one of those factors you definitely don't want to overlook. Now, the fourth point of comparison between Missive and the ClickUp email feature is email on mobile. You know, unfortunately for my spine and probably many of your spines, I am predominantly working at my desk. But when I am in the dentist's office like I was last week and sitting in the waiting room, being able to send a quick email on my phone is something I like to have the ability to do. The fact is, right now, among the other issues with ClickUp's mobile app, which, you know, hopefully it'll get there, right now it is not, but ClickUp's mobile app currently does not support email, period. So if you want to use ClickUp to send emails and you don't want it to always be automation driven, which I think most of us have to do some manual adjustments on our emails, you have no way of doing that on mobile. I mean, that's kind of a deal breaker for me, especially if we are using ClickUp for client communication and those kinds of emails. In comparison, Missive has a really nice mobile app. It's slick, it's smooth, it's simple. And not to be a broken record here, but since Missive is focused on just making email and that kind of communication realm more pleasant, it makes sense that they've been able to focus their energy and get really good on that area because I, you know, I'll admit I'm kind of like a Google person. I use Gmail for a long time. I love Gmail app. I think it's very intuitive to use, but I actually find myself preferring the Missive app. I don't even use the Gmail app on my phone anymore. And I think that says something about the quality of this app because there are a lot of apps out there that, yeah, you have them, but they're kind of a pain in the butt to use. I find this one pretty easy, particularly because it has like a thumb swiping experience in it, which Makes it really easy and fast to kind of filter through a bunch of different emails. 1. One joke we were actually making inside the team while we were prepping for this content was like, you know, the Missive app, the Swipe features, it's like finally a way to swipe right and be productive at the same time. I don't know if that joke will land for anybody, but some of you will get it. Anyway, let's move on to number five. Number five is kind of tied into this one and it's just the idea that ClickUp versus Missive Missive is just nicer to use. It's just pleasant to use for the email feature. I know there are good things ahead for ClickUp's email feature. I love where they're heading with it, but it's so far behind where other email clients are. And I tell you guys here on this channel, you know, don't get tools that are too big for you, don't get tools that don't work for you today. Pick your tech stack for what you need right now. And because of how far behind ClickUp's email feature is, how buggy it is, the issues with deliverability I have seen, many of you have probably seen as well, and just the overall polish that's not there with that feature, I just find it unpleasant. Maybe that's just me, but when it comes to Missive, I like how the tool feels. It's snappy. It reminds me in many ways of ClickUp's task side of things, where it kind of all is done in a very adjustable way, but it's got a lot more polish because again, again, again, I'm a broken record. They focused on email and it shows. So even though we are still big ClickUp fans here at ProcessDriven, we're not changing that overnight, of course. And we still would. I would definitely build in ClickUp automations for email in workflows where there was a very rigid, clear, defined reason to have emails going from ClickUp. Actually, I think we have an example for that in this video where we talk about using emails for our video editor. Still, for anyone looking for more general and comprehensive inbox management, a collaborative way to delegate your inbox and be more efficient in that inbox, I just gotta say, Missive takes the cake. And yes, I want to acknowledge the elephant in the room. This video here is sponsored by Missive. Thank you, Missive. But we've been saying this since long before we were sponsored by Missive. And if you haven't gathered by now on this channel. For better or worse, I don't really have much of a filter in terms of my take on things, so I hope you'll trust that this is truly our honest take on Missive and why we've continued to use it even as ClickUp has rolled out email. So last thing I want to say is that even though we presented this as an either or, it's really not. Doesn't have to be. We at ProcessDriven use ClickUp for all the things it's good at and then we add Missive into our tech stack for all the things it is incredibly good good at. To me it's like peanut butter and jelly. They're better together and we use the ClickUp integration not heavily, but we do use it inside our Missive account. I would say the team uses it more than I do and we also use a embedded sidebar that's a awesome built in option to Missive where we actually embed a public ClickUp doc with some SOPs and quick links and we put that inside our right sidebar of Missive. So those are two different ways. We kind of combine them and in order to make it clear for the team, where do you go for what? We have kind of a line in the sand of if it's client communication, it's emissive, if it's internal, it's in ClickUp and that strong line tends to really work. I don't think we've had too much confusion around it to date. Fingers crossed. And that's kind of how we make it all work. So there's my take. I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments below. And I also again want to encourage you to check out the description where we're going to have a link to Missive. It's free to play with, which is cool because in ClickUp even you really aren't able to use the email feature until you're on the paid plan. So if you want to play around with Missive, check out the free plan it is in the description below. That's what we used for a really long time. We didn't pay for it for a while and it did more than enough for us. We also have in the description below that link to an article where we've broken down all the differences between it. In addition to the five that we've talked about here. It's a long article. Know me, I can talk with that. Don't forget to like and subscribe. And until next time, remember to enjoy the process.