AutomateFrom R12 000 + R1 500/mo
Inbox sorting
Your shared inbox read, sorted, summarised and routed to the right person — automatically.
What it is
In plain English
Inbox sorting is software that reads every email arriving in a shared inbox — your info@ or sales@ — works out what it is, summarises it, and sends it to the right person or folder. A maintenance request goes to the maintenance team. A new sales lead goes to sales, flagged as urgent. A supplier invoice goes to accounts. Newsletters and noise get filed out of the way.
It's the difference between a chaotic shared inbox that everyone half-watches and no one owns, and a tidy stream where each message lands with the right person, already summarised, so they can act fast. Nothing important gets buried, and nobody wastes their morning triaging mail by hand.
When you need it
Is this you?
You need this when a shared inbox has become a dumping ground — important messages get buried under noise, and slow replies are costing you leads or goodwill.
- A shared inbox (info@ / sales@) is watched by everyone and truly owned by no one.
- Real leads sit unanswered because they're buried under newsletters and automated mail.
- Replies are slow because someone has to read and sort everything before anyone acts.
- Important emails get missed entirely, and you only find out when a customer chases.
How we build it
What actually happens
- 1
Study your mail
We look at a sample of what actually lands in the inbox and agree the categories that matter to you — leads, support, invoices, suppliers, noise.
- 2
Agree the routing map
For each category we set the rule: who it goes to, what label or folder it gets, and whether anything should be flagged urgent.
- 3
Build the sorter
We build the classifier — simple rules where the patterns are obvious, AI where messages need real understanding — and a short summary so the recipient gets the gist at a glance.
- 4
Connect it to your mail
It plugs into Gmail or Microsoft 365 and works quietly in the background — labelling, forwarding or routing into your CRM or helpdesk as agreed.
- 5
Tune with a human check
For the first while we keep a light review so you can confirm it's sorting things the way you would, then let it run on its own.
Example
How it plays out in practice
A property management company in Cape Town runs everything through one info@ address. Maintenance requests, rental enquiries, supplier invoices and body-corporate queries all pour into the same inbox — and a hot rental lead can sit for two days behind a pile of statements and newsletters.
- 1
An email arrives
A prospective tenant emails: “Is the 2-bed in Claremont still available? Can I view this weekend?” It lands in the same flood as everything else.
- 2
It's understood and labelled
The sorter reads it, recognises a rental enquiry (not a maintenance issue or an invoice), and tags it “New lead · Claremont.”
- 3
It's summarised
A one-line summary is attached: “Wants to view the 2-bed in Claremont this weekend.” The agent gets the point without opening a thread of back-and-forth.
- 4
It's routed to the right person
It goes straight to the leasing agent’s queue, flagged time-sensitive, while a supplier invoice in the same batch is quietly routed to accounts instead.
- 5
The lead is answered in minutes
The agent sees a clean, summarised lead at the top of their list and books the viewing the same morning — instead of finding it on Monday, two days cold.
Rental enquiries get answered in minutes instead of days, and invoices, maintenance and noise stop burying the messages that make money. The shared inbox finally has an owner — software that never gets too busy to sort.
What we'd need from you
To get started
- Access to a sample of the inbox, or a clear list of the categories you get.
- The routing map — who handles what, and what counts as urgent.
- Your mail platform — Gmail / Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
- Any CRM or helpdesk you'd want leads or tickets pushed into.
- Examples of the messages you most don't want missed.
Timeline
How long it takes
Most inbox-sorting builds go live in 2–3 weeks once we've seen a representative sample of your mail.
What can affect that:
- More categories and finer routing rules add a little setup and testing time.
- Pushing into a CRM or helpdesk takes longer than simply labelling and forwarding.
- A noisier, more varied inbox needs a longer tuning period to get the sorting right.
What affects the price
Why it costs what it costs
Every build is scoped to your situation. These are the things that move the number — so there are no surprises on the call.
- Volume of mail
- A few dozen emails a day is light. Hundreds, across several mailboxes, is more to process and monitor.
- Number of categories
- Sorting into three clear buckets is simple. Fine-grained routing across many teams and rules is a bigger build.
- Rules or AI
- Obvious patterns (a supplier's address, a keyword) are handled with cheap rules. Messages that need real understanding use AI, which carries a small per-message cost.
- Where it routes to
- Labelling and forwarding inside your mail is straightforward. Creating leads in a CRM or tickets in a helpdesk is more to wire up.
- Languages
- One language is standard. Mail arriving in more than one language adds classification and testing work.
Ready to build something that works?
Tell us what you need. We'll tell you honestly if and how we can help.