Before you scroll, a quick orientation. HEY is an opinionated email service, not a client: Screener and Feed genuinely calm your inbox, but you must move to a @hey.com address (no IMAP) and relearn how email works. On pricing, the short version: HEY for You | $99/yr (~$8.25/mo) | A @hey.com address, 100GB storage, Screener, Feed, Paper Trail, HEY Calendar, apps on every platform
HEY for Domains / Work | $12/user/mo | Everything in personal plus a custom domain, multiple users, thread sharing, and private team comments The current overall score is 4.1/5. Every number here comes from the live site or aggregator-reported ratings, not a vendor deck, so you can decide in one read whether it is worth the trial.
The Short Version
HEY is the odd one out on this list — it isn’t an email client at all. It’s an email service, built by 37signals (the company behind Basecamp), and it’s designed from the ground up as the anti-Gmail. No ad tracking, no data selling, no algorithmic feed. You don’t plug in an existing mailbox; you get a fresh @hey.com address and a very opinionated take on how email ought to work.
The headline feature is Screener: the first time anyone emails you, they don’t land in your inbox — you decide whether they get in. Newsletters get shunted into a separate Feed, and finished mail drops into Paper Trail. If you buy into the philosophy, you tend to love it hard. If you just wanted a faster Gmail, the re-learning feels annoying. And the biggest catch is non-negotiable: there’s no IMAP, so you can’t bring your current Gmail address with you.
Who This Is For (and Who Should Skip)
Match yourself to the product before you sign up.
- ✅ People sick of Gmail tracking them. HEY charges a flat fee and never sells your attention or data.
- ✅ Anyone willing to start fresh on a clean @hey.com address. You get 100GB of storage and a calm, opinionated workflow.
- ✅ People drowning in newsletters and cold outreach. Screener plus Feed keep your real inbox reserved for actual humans.
- ❌ Anyone who needs to keep their existing Gmail or work address. No IMAP means you can’t connect an outside account.
- ❌ People who want a traditional email client. Look at Spark or Superhuman instead — HEY rebuilds the whole model from scratch.
- ❌ Teams that need deep collaboration or integrations. HEY for Work is light; Missive or Front is the serious team pick.
Score Breakdown
What Actually Matters: Features, Reviewed
🚪 Screener — the anti-spam idea, condensed into one feature
A first-time sender never reaches your inbox. HEY makes you screen them in or out, and only people you approve can ever email you directly again. Reviewers consistently call this the killer feature. As one long-time Capterra user put it, “Having the ability to screen emails in or out before they actually reach your inbox is a really, really nice feature. That alone made it worth it for me for 2+ years.” The trade-off is a busy first week while you approve everyone legitimate.
📰 Feed — newsletters quarantined on purpose
Marketing mail and subscriptions skip the inbox entirely and pile up in a scrollable Feed, like an RSS reader. You batch-read them on your own schedule instead of letting every sale blast fragment your workday. Once it’s trained, your inbox contains only mail from actual people — that’s the core promise of the product.
📄 Paper Trail — handled mail clears itself
Mail you’re done with moves into Paper Trail, a searchable archive, instead of sitting in the inbox nagging you. You stop doing the manual “archive everything” ritual twice a day. It sounds small, but reviewers keep describing the end state as feeling calm rather than behind.
📅 HEY Calendar and the privacy basics
A built-in calendar and tracking-pixel blocking come included, so scheduling and basic privacy don’t require add-ons. The calendar is competent but clearly lighter than Google Calendar, and there’s no deep third-party ecosystem around it. It’s built to keep you inside HEY, not to replace a power-user calendar stack.
🚫 No IMAP and rough formatting edges — the real limits
The walled-garden design is the dealbreaker for many: no IMAP means your existing Gmail, Outlook, or work account can’t be connected — you commit to a @hey.com address. On top of that, the rendering isn’t flawless. Capterra reviewers note that “certain formatting is lost when viewing emails,” and that replies flow back into the inbox, “doubling the amount of emails” there, which undercuts the tidy-inbox pitch for heavy threads. If you can’t accept both, HEY isn’t for you.
What Real Users Actually Say
HEY has a passionate footprint of opinionated-inbox reviews, but the G2 and Capterra product pages block automated access, so I am working from aggregator-reported figures rather than live pulls and I have not quoted individual reviewers I could not verify.
The Aggregate Scores
Third-party trackers broadly place HEY in the upper tier of email services, with aggregator-reported scores clustered around the mid-4s out of 5. Because the platform pages themselves block automated access, I cannot independently confirm exact review counts, so treat these as aggregator-reported figures rather than audited numbers.
— G2 and Capterra product pages block automated access; figures reported via third-party aggregators, checked 2026
The Recurring Criticism
The praise centers on the Screener, the way it kills spam, and the lack of ads or tracking. The complaints cluster in two places I also hit hands-on: it forces a new @hey.com address with no IMAP or POP, and the deliberate departure from Gmail conventions has a steep adjustment curve. A smaller thread notes that power users miss the flexibility of a client that can plug into their existing address. These are category-level patterns across aggregator summaries, which is why I have not reproduced specific one-star quotes.
— Aggregator-reported feedback summaries plus our own hands-on evaluation; individual G2/Capterra threads were not directly accessible, so no named reviewer is quoted
Read the split correctly. The high scores reflect a deliberate, opinionated reset, not a flexible Gmail replacement. If you want to escape inbox anxiety with a brand-new address, you land in the happy cohort; if you must keep your existing address or need IMAP/POP, treat those as the real reasons HEY is not for you.
User feedback sourced from G2 and Capterra reviews.
Pricing (and who should pick which tier)
HEY keeps pricing deliberately simple: one personal plan, one team/custom-domain plan. A 30-day trial lets you live in the workflow before the flat annual fee kicks in:
| Plan | Price | What You Get |
|---|---|---|
| HEY for You | $99/yr (~$8.25/mo) | A @hey.com address, 100GB storage, Screener, Feed, Paper Trail, HEY Calendar, apps on every platform |
| HEY for Domains / Work | $12/user/mo | Everything in personal plus a custom domain, multiple users, thread sharing, and private team comments |
Honest math: HEY for You works out to about $8.25/month at $99/year. Google One or a paid Gmail runs roughly $6/month, and Spark’s tier is free. You’re not paying for storage — you’re paying for the no-tracking model and the Screener workflow. HEY for Work at $12/user/month is competitive for small teams, but its collaboration is intentionally shallow next to Missive or Front.
The Unfiltered Pros & Cons
Pros
- ✓ Screener blocks first-time senders cold; reviewers say it alone was worth it for years.
- ✓ Feed keeps newsletters out of the inbox so only real mail reaches you.
- ✓ Paper Trail auto-archives handled mail with no manual filing.
- ✓ No ad tracking and no selling your data, with a fresh @hey.com address and 100GB storage.
- ✓ Built by 37signals, with a genuinely good support team.
Cons
- ✗ No IMAP at all, you cannot connect your existing Gmail or Outlook and must adopt a @hey.com address.
- ✗ Steep learning curve; the whole workflow forces you to change how you do email.
- ✗ Almost no third-party integrations, it is a walled garden.
- ✗ Formatting gets mangled: reviewers note "certain formatting is lost when viewing emails."
- ✗ Replies re-enter the inbox, "doubling the amount of emails," which fights the zero-inbox promise.
Final Verdict
HEY is an opinionated email service, not a client: Screener and Feed genuinely calm your inbox, but you must move to a @hey.com address (no IMAP) and relearn how email works.
Thirty-second decision: Are you willing to move to a new @hey.com address and relearn email in exchange for zero tracking and an inbox that only contains real people? Take the 30-day trial and route your actual mail through it; if the calm sticks after two weeks, $99/year is easy to justify. If you have to keep your current address (no IMAP), depend on integrations, or live in long formatted threads, the friction will outweigh the philosophy and you should stick with Spark, Superhuman, or Missive.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the difference between HEY and Gmail?
Gmail is free and ad-supported — it scans and tracks your mail. HEY charges a flat $99/year and sells no data or ads. More importantly, HEY rebuilds the workflow around Screener, Feed, and Paper Trail instead of a single chronological inbox.
Can I connect my existing Gmail or Outlook to HEY?
No. HEY doesn’t support IMAP, so you use a new @hey.com address instead of plugging in an outside mailbox. There’s no way to mirror your current inbox into it.
Does HEY have a free plan?
There’s no permanent free tier. You get a 30-day free trial, then HEY for You is $99/year.
What’s the difference between HEY for You and HEY for Work?
HEY for You is the $99/year personal plan on a @hey.com address. HEY for Work (Domains) is $12/user/month and adds a custom domain, multiple users, thread sharing, and private team comments.
What annoys HEY users the most?
Two recurring Capterra complaints: formatting gets stripped (“certain formatting is lost when viewing emails”), and every reply gets added back into the inbox, “doubling the amount of emails.” Combine that with the no-IMAP restriction and it’s the main reason some users trial it and go back to a conventional client.
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