# Clawpost vs Inbound (slim)

> Inbound scores 60.4 (C) to Clawpost's 36.8 (F) for agent inboxes. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clawpost-vs-inbound.md (~4,500 tokens) · this version ~2,880 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clawpost-vs-inbound.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clawpost-vs-inbound
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Inbound scores 60.4 (C) on agent readiness against Clawpost's 36.8 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Clawpost leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent inboxes.

- Clawpost: F 36.8, rank #1361 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clawpost.min.md
- Inbound: C 60.4, rank #648 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inbound.min.md
- Clawpost, good for A developer who wants an agent inbox on their own domain and Cloudflare account with a default approval gate. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 60 against 15. Also No incidents deducted, where Inbound loses 3 points for them.
- Inbound, good for A team that wants agent addresses on its own domain at a low fixed price, with IMAP and SMTP beside the API and an MCP mode that confines an agent to one mailbox. Ahead on Reliability, 73 against 8; Schema & documentation, 76 against 54; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 53; Security & auth, 65 against 42; Maintenance & community, 63 against 2; Transparency & trust, 57 against 32. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.

| Category | Clawpost | Inbound |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 8 | 73 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 54 | 76 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 53 | 78 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 42 | 65 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 15 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 2 | 63 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 32 | 57 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Clawpost | Inbound |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Frank Harris | Exon Enterprise LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://inbound.new/api/e2` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| Licence | MIT | MIT for the platform repository. The TypeScript SDK, `inboundctl` and the MCP server are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 21 | 78 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-04-01 | 2026-10-31 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2025-12-03 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2025-01-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 359 stars, 1.7k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.3/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Inbound +65: Clawpost 8 (Graded with the lines for self-hosted software, since each deployer runs their own Worker. No published package; it deploys from the repository with a Deploy to Cloudflare button, Bun and Wrangler, and states the Cloudflare products it needs (8 of 20). No CI workflow or test suite in the repository (0). Open issues couldn't be read, because GitHub's API refused our requests for its rate limit, so the line scores absent (0, unchecked). No tags, releases or changelog; package.json says 0.1.0 (0). Pre-1.0 (0). Total 8.); Inbound 73 (Graded on the hosted lines. status.inbound.new runs on incident.io with uptime history, but its two components are Website and App, with none for the API, webhooks, SMTP or IMAP (15 of 20). On 2 November 2026 the page showed both components at 100 per cent from August to November and its RSS feed held no items. The 8 October reading of two earlier incidents (7 November 2025 and 18 February 2026) came from the page's /api/ data endpoint, which this run no longer reads, so it is struck. With no posted incident readable on the page, the record reads as a page that has never posted one (20). 100 requests a second per account is published, with SMTP and IMAP connection and size limits (15). 429s carry `retry-after` and `ratelimit-*` headers, the product page documents `Idempotency-Key` on sends and replies, and SMTP deduplicates identical bytes. The OpenAPI document still omits the idempotency header, and the published SDK does not retry (13 of 15). No SLA, and the terms disclaim any uptime guarantee (0). No beta label on the `/api/e2` surface (10). 15+20+15+13+0+10 = 73.)
- Maintenance & community, Inbound +61: Clawpost 2 (The last commit was on 1 April 2026, 219 days before this check (0). No releases or commits in the 90 days from 8 August (0). Issue and pull request activity couldn't be read through GitHub's API that day (0, unchecked). Not in the official MCP registry and no published package (0). Dependencies such as `agents` ^0.0.74 and the MCP SDK ^1.12.1 date from early 2026, and there's no CI (2 of 10). Total 2.); Inbound 63 (The service is built from a public repository with commits to the main branch on 31 October 2026 (30). No changelog or tagged releases. The repository shows commits on 22 separate days between 4 August and 31 October 2026, so half credit (10 of 20). Three open issues on GitHub, the oldest a request for webhook signatures opened on 1 November 2025. We could not read the replies, and support is by email (10 of 25). The published TypeScript SDK is 0.20.0 from 10 January 2026, before the mailbox endpoints; 0.21.0 is in the repository without a release tag. Not checked in the MCP registry (5 of 15). CI runs unit, end-to-end and gateway tests, and the MCP server pins its SDK version (8 of 10). 30+10+10+5+8 = 63.)
- Payments & pricing, Clawpost +45: Clawpost 60 (Free self-hosted software with nothing to buy from the author, which the rubric scores 20 + 20 + 20. Running it needs the deployer's own Cloudflare Workers Paid plan at $5 a month, which isn't Clawpost's charge. No payment protocol (0 of 40). Total 60.); Inbound 15 (No x402, MPP or L402 in the docs, the OpenAPI document or the pricing page (0 of 40). Four plans are public with their email and domain allowances, plus unit add-ons of $3.50 a month per domain and $16 a month per extra 50,000 received and 50,000 sent (15 of 20). No free plan or trial on the pricing page. The free plan was retired on 3 December 2025 (0 of 20). A person signs up in a browser, and `inboundctl login` also needs a browser approval (0 of 20).)
- Agent ergonomics, Inbound +25: Clawpost 53 (21 tools, the 11 to 30 band (15 of 25). List and search tools take limit, offset and filters by direction, sender, label and archive state (20). Error shapes aren't documented; the code returns JSON errors (8 of 20). No idempotency key for sends and no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations; drafts give a review step (3 of 20). Archived mail is excluded by default and the CLI has a `--json` mode, but there's no SDK beyond the CLI (7 of 15). Total 53.); Inbound 78 (List endpoints take `limit` up to 100 with no field selection. The MCP server lists 78 tools with an account credential (up from 50 on 8 October), cut by `?toolsets=`, and 8 core tools plus opt-in self-service ones with a mailbox password (20 of 25). Offset pagination on most lists, cursor pagination on threads, and filters for status, time range, domain, address, unread and search (20). Errors are documented by status with free-text messages and optional `message` and `details`, and the SMTP page maps reply codes to actions (13 of 20). `Idempotency-Key` on sends and replies per the product page and the repository's end-to-end tests, and every MCP tool carries readOnly, destructive and idempotent hints. The header is missing from the API reference (17 of 20). A send needs only `from`, `to` and `subject`. One official SDK, TypeScript. 0.20.0 (10 January 2026) is the last published version we know of; a regenerated 0.21.0 covering all 83 operations sits in the repository since 31 October, with no release tag (8 of 15). 20+20+13+17+8 = 78.)
- Transparency & trust, Inbound +25: Clawpost 32 (The README and SKILL.md say MIT, but no LICENSE file is committed (20 of 30). Self-hosted; the README says mail is stored in the deployer's D1 database with attachments in R2 and sent through Cloudflare Email Service or Resend. No retention or deletion guidance (15 of 30). No deprecation policy (0). No telemetry in the source read; the only outbound calls are to the configured mail provider, Cloudflare's API and the deployer's own webhooks (15 of 20). Total 50.); Inbound 57 (The platform repository is public under MIT, and the SDK, CLI and MCP server declare Apache-2.0. The MCP repository has no licence file (28 of 30). The privacy policy is dated 1 January 2025, still describes an email receiving service, and says email data is typically kept for 30 days, which agrees with the terms. No DPA, no statement on model training and no retention detail by plan (12 of 30). No deprecation policy. The terms allow the service to be changed or discontinued without notice, with 30 days' notice for price and terms changes (3 of 20). The policy names AWS and payment processors. No subprocessor list or data location was found (4 of 20).)
- Security & auth, Inbound +23: Clawpost 42 (One shared secret for REST and MCP, compared in constant time, with no scopes, expiry or per-client keys (10 of 30). Sender approval, drafts, and an optional allowlist of domains for routing changes limit what an agent can see and change; the key can still send to anyone (14 of 20). Mail from unapproved senders is hidden from all query tools by default, and `list_pending` returns metadata without bodies, documented as a prompt-injection guard (15). No log of API or tool calls beyond the stored messages (3 of 15). No security policy, advisories or disclosure route for this personal project (0). Total 42.); Inbound 65 (Mailbox passwords are scoped to 1 to 100 addresses or domains, rotate by API and can be disabled. Account API keys cover the whole account and can be revoked by API. OAuth on the MCP server uses PKCE and dynamic client registration with one scope, `inbound:account`, which the docs say grants full access. No secret travels in a URL (26 of 30). A mailbox can be read-only over IMAP and limited to one sending address. Since 22 October 2026 a read-only password can no longer send, and since 29 October a credential can be limited by protocol, allowed IP addresses, storage quota and a daily send limit. The MCP server's instructions ask the model to confirm before deleting or sending, and `inboundctl` has dry runs (17 of 20). The agents page tells builders to treat bodies and files as untrusted and Guard rules filter incoming mail, but the MCP tool descriptions carry no such warning (9 of 15). Since 29 October every mailbox credential has an activity log (sign-ins, refused sign-ins, IMAP sessions, command errors and send failures, kept 30 days) readable by API, MCP and dashboard, beside the dashboard delivery log and `lastUsedAt`. Account-key actions have no audit log (10 of 15). `security.txt` still returns 404, no disclosure policy or bug bounty was found, and SOC 2 and ISO 27001 were described as on the roadmap in December 2025. Webhooks are verified with a static token, not a signature (3 of 20). 26+17+9+10+3 = 65.)