Let’s start at zero. Superhuman is an email client built for speed—keyboard-centric, notification-minimal, obsession-level fast. It tries to make Gmail feel like a high-performance cockpit: think of using Figma or Warp Terminal, but for email. HeyGen, on the other hand, is almost the opposite kind of tool. It’s visual and expressive, designed to generate AI avatars that speak your script for marketing, onboarding, or pitch videos. You type in words, it creates a human-looking (and sometimes human-sounding) avatar saying them.
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Both aim to reduce friction, but in wildly different contexts: Superhuman attacks inbox overload, while HeyGen compresses the hassle of setting up video shoots. They don’t overlap functionally, but they live in the same quadrant: tools that reshape how you communicate, especially in async, remote settings.
I used Superhuman for about a month before hitting frustration walls with calendar syncing. Meanwhile, HeyGen saved me a full production day by letting me test multilingual promotional videos without hiring voice talent or managing subtitles manually. You quickly get a feel for which tool earns its keep in which situation once you start layering them into workflows.
Tool
Core Function
Biggest Value-Add
Weakest Area
Superhuman
Speed-based Gmail front-end
Zero-latency triage & keyboard power
Limited integrations, no IMAP support
HeyGen
AI-generated avatar videos
Multilingual demo videos in minutes
Awkward gestures or robotic delivery
The bottom line is: Superhuman optimizes how fast you handle communication, while HeyGen changes how you produce it from scratch.
Feature Differences: Keyboard vs. Avatar-Oriented Interfaces
Let’s stop treating these like apples and oranges and instead talk use contexts. Superhuman starts with your existing Gmail inbox. You install a Chrome extension, plug into your Gmail account, and within minutes, it overlays a completely new UI on top of the familiar inbox. The onboarding even puts you through a personalized demo session where someone walks you through their proprietary shortcut system—”Cmd-K” is your omnibar, “E” archives, and even drafts can be toggled in and out with a single keystroke.
I timed it: going through 100 emails in Superhuman took me less than 15 minutes. Gmail would’ve taken me 40, minimum. One minor gripe? Their mostly-mouse-free design means scheduling things (via Google Calendar) feels bolted on. You can pop up a calendar peek, but editing time slots or adding multiple guests feels clumsy unless you switch tabs entirely.
HeyGen doesn’t load an inbox. Instead, it loads a human avatar canvas. You type your script in a text block, select a language, choose a theme (neutral, confident, relaxed), then pick an avatar—either a standard AI persona or your own face if you’ve recorded a head template. Video rendering isn’t instant (mine took about 5-10 minutes), but when it pops out, it’s eerily realistic until you start looking at mouth sync closely. If you mute it though? Almost passes for a human speaker in a webinar.
Comparative Task
Superhuman
HeyGen
Send follow-up email in under 30 seconds
Easily done via templates or shortcuts
Not applicable
Create buzzworthy product announcement
Needs manual writing and manual layout
Use AI avatar + script to generate in minutes
Handle unread message overload
Streamlined triage with “split inboxes” & shortcuts
Not applicable
To conclude, Superhuman rules tactical communication flow; HeyGen automates polished digital presence.
Use Case Scenarios: Cold Emails, Team Videos, Onboarding
Now here’s where comparing them shines. I set up a realistic scenario: I needed to onboard three new freelancers and pitch a software tool to a client abroad. With Superhuman, I banged out onboarding-instruction emails using preloaded templates, adding a Calendly booking link with one shortcut. I didn’t have to leave the inbox at all.
But that client overseas? I knew they’d respond better to a spoken pitch. I dropped my five-paragraph proposal into HeyGen, translated it to French, and used a neutral French-speaking avatar. The system let me add slides next to the speaker, so it emulated a webinar. Did it convert? Yes—but I also got feedback that “the presenter looked strange” from one team member. So I swapped the AI for a recorded video of myself and had HeyGen lipsync my original English audio with auto-subtitles layered in. That worked better.
Another team created a Friday recap video in HeyGen every week. To see if it held up, I tried ditching Loom for one week in favor of HeyGen. The upside was polish—avatars always wore the correct shirt, had perfect lighting, and never coughed mid-sentence. The downside? They couldn’t react. There’s no “wait, let me show you that real quick.” It’s script or nothing. You miss that messy human touch that makes async spontaneous.
To sum up: Use Superhuman to get things done faster solo. Use HeyGen to show things at scale professionally.
What Breaks: Known Limitations and Glitches
Superhuman stumbles when users aren’t exclusively using Gmail or Outlook. The platform currently won’t work with basic IMAP or self-hosted email systems. During testing, syncing with a second account often led to bugs—emails marked as unread kept reappearing. Their calendar overlay also occasionally froze, forcing a full browser refresh.
Another surprising limitation: you can’t easily forward multiple emails as a package unless you use a shared label and batch-export it. Tools like Outlook make this trivial. Superhuman requires a multi-step workaround involving “send as PDF” extensions or Zapier automations. It’s not built for batch actions across threads.
HeyGen, meanwhile, runs into uncanny valley issues. Occasionally the avatars blink too much or deliver emotional phrases with deadpan expressions. For example, I tried scripting, “We’re incredibly proud of this launch”—but the avatar said it like she was summarizing a bus schedule. Emotional nuance is still hit-or-miss.
The biggest technical flag: video renders sometimes randomly fail without a clear error message. Twice last month, our team waited 30 minutes for queued videos that never arrived. Their support team fixed it, but that’s a showstopper if you need a pitch ready by EOD.
Ultimately, both tools need context-aware improvements: Superhuman in handling shared inboxes, HeyGen in expression realism and video queue stability.
Pricing Models and Cost Triggers
I won’t list exact pricing because it can change frequently, but here’s what matters: Nearly every Superhuman user pays monthly. There’s no free tier. You’re expected to be a power user who’ll get value in time saved. If you only send a handful of emails a week, this isn’t your tool. Onboarding takes time, and the ROI shows up in minutes saved over hundreds of sends.
HeyGen has a freemium model: you get some free credits by default and can generate short-length videos. When you start creating HD-quality avatar recordings, especially multilingual or longer-form ones, expect to pay per minute. The more complex the avatar (custom-trained vs. default) and the higher the resolution, the faster your credits burn.
One thing to note: Superhuman’s value is time compression. HeyGen’s is content generation. So their pricing logic reflects that—Superhuman cares how fast you move, HeyGen prices based on output weight. Neither punishes you for experimenting, but both start to cost when scaled beyond individual/freelancer usage.
As a final point, Superhuman scales based on user count; HeyGen scales based on video minutes.
Who Should Use These and When
Superhuman isn’t for teams unless everyone’s obsessed with daily inbox zero. It shines for founders, VCs, journalists—anyone who plows through 100 emails before noon. That said, if your company lives in Slack and rarely touches email except confirmations, skip it entirely. Gmail alone is fine.
HeyGen excels in explosive marketing or internal training contexts. I’ve seen sales teams create entire outbound campaigns with personalized avatar videos. Recruiters love it for pre-interview explanations. Product teams onboard new hires faster with walkthroughs of wireframes narrated in their native language. Anywhere video would normally involve a green screen is somewhere HeyGen can squeeze hours into minutes.
But it’s not Snapchat. HeyGen doesn’t do real-time, doesn’t emote naturally (yet), and only does one thing: stage a polished listener-directed message. Teams expecting an interactive video experience will feel stifled or disappointed.
Overall, startups strapped for time but aiming for polish can use both: Superhuman for internal hustle, HeyGen for external sizzle.
