HEY email alternative
HEY is a whole new email service from 37signals. To get the Screener, the Imbox, the Feed, and the Paper Trail you move to an @hey.com address and live inside HEY's own apps. Premail gives you the same 'only the important stuff reaches me' outcome on the Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud address you already have, using an AI model you choose that runs on your own computer.
Free for personal inboxes. No account required.
Why people switch to Premail
HEY is an email service, not a layer on top of one. Getting its workflow means a new @hey.com address, telling everyone about it, and giving up IMAP, POP, and SMTP entirely, since HEY accounts do not accept them by design. Premail attaches to the Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud account you already use and leaves your address, your client, and your archive exactly where they are.
The Screener is manual by design: every first-time sender waits for you to press Yes or No, and after that they are simply in. Premail judges each message on its own content against rules you write in plain English, so a sender you approved once can still have their cold pitch filed away while their real mail lands in the inbox.
HEY is $99 per year for a personal account, $179 a year for a family of five, and $12 per user per month on a custom domain. Premail is free for up to two personal inboxes, and Pro is one flat price (monthly, annual, or a one-time Lifetime license) rather than a per-seat subscription you keep paying to keep your email working.
Side by side
| Feature | Premail Your existing inbox · AI classification | HEY New email service · $99/year |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing for personal inboxes | Free | $99/year |
| Keep your existing email addressHEY personal accounts are @hey.com. You can forward mail in and send as your Gmail address, but the account you read and organize in is HEY. | ||
| Works with your current email clientHEY accounts do not accept IMAP, POP, or SMTP connections; you use HEY apps. Premail acts on the mailbox, so Apple Mail, Outlook, or the Gmail app all show the result. | ||
| AI classification of message contentHEY sorts by sender decisions and its own heuristics for receipts and newsletters. Premail sends each message to an LLM you choose. | ||
| Bring-your-own AI key (Anthropic, OpenAI) | ||
| Fully offline classification (Ollama) | ||
| Plain-English custom rulesHEY gives you the Imbox, the Feed, and the Paper Trail. Premail lets you write your own categories and send them to any folder. | Fixed buckets | |
| First-time sender screeningHEY's Screener asks you about every new sender. Premail uses your synced contacts as an allowlist and classifies the rest without interrupting you. | Automatic | Manual |
| Bulk unsubscribeHEY can screen a sender out entirely; Premail finds subscriptions across the inbox and sends real unsubscribe requests in bulk. | Block sender | |
| Clean up an existing inbox backlogPremail Inbox Cleaner applies your rules to mail that is already sitting in the inbox. | ||
| Tracking-pixel blockingHEY strips spy pixels as part of the service. Premail classifies and files mail; it does not proxy images. | ||
| Native mobile appsHEY has iOS and Android apps. Premail is desktop-only (Mac, Windows, Linux). | ||
| Filtering continues while your computer is offHEY runs server-side around the clock. Premail acts from your desktop and catches up when it wakes. | Catches up on wake | |
| Calendar included | ||
| Open audit log of every action | ||
| No account, no signup required | ||
| One-time Lifetime license available |
Premail is not the only option, and pretending otherwise would not help you decide. These are the alternatives people actually weigh up against HEY, with prices read from each vendor's own pricing page.
| App | Price | Runs on | How it makes money |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premail | Free for up to 2 personal inboxes, then $9/mo, $79/yr, or $99 once | Your own computer | Paid licences |
| Spark Mail | Free | Cloud client | Free tier, then subscriptions |
| Superhuman | $30/mo, or $25/mo billed annually | Cloud client | Subscriptions |
| Shortwave | $30 per seat/mo | Cloud client | Subscriptions |
| SaneBox | $9.49/mo, or $5.42/mo billed annually | Cloud | Subscriptions |
Best for: Filtering mail before you read it, without a service holding your mailbox
Runs as a desktop app alongside the email client you already use, applying rules you write in plain English. Nothing passes through a Premail server, and one price covers every inbox you connect. It only works while your computer is on, so overnight triage on a phone is a genuine reason to pick something else here.
Best for: A capable client with AI attached, at the lowest price
Spark is a full email client with AI layered on, and it keeps a genuine free tier rather than a trial.
Best for: People who live in email and want it to feel fast
Superhuman prices per member per month, with the AI features split across tiers rather than bundled into one.
Best for: Searching and reasoning across a large mail history
Shortwave tiers on AI capacity: how much AI usage, how far back AI search reaches, and how many AI-powered filters you get. Figures below are its Business plans.
Best for: Triage that keeps running while your computer is off
Every SaneBox tier caps how many email accounts it covers, so a second inbox means a higher tier rather than a second connection.
Pick HEY if
You are genuinely willing to change email addresses, you want one opinionated product that is the client, the server, the calendar, and the spam defense all at once, and you like deciding personally about every new sender. HEY is a complete, well-built service and $99 a year buys a lot of thought about how email should work.
Pick Premail if
You want the outcome HEY sells without the migration: the same address, the same client, the same archive, with an AI model you control deciding what actually deserves your attention. It is free for personal inboxes, it runs on your own computer, and with Ollama no message ever leaves your machine.
FAQ
Can I use HEY with my existing Gmail address?
Only partly. You can forward Gmail into HEY and set HEY up to send as your Gmail address, but the account you actually read, screen, and organize in is your @hey.com account, and HEY does not accept IMAP, POP, or SMTP connections. Premail takes the other approach: it connects to your Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud account directly and files mail there, so nothing about your address or your client changes.
How is Premail different from HEY?
HEY is an email service you move to. Premail is a desktop companion for the email account you already have. HEY organizes mail with the Screener and three fixed places (the Imbox, the Feed, the Paper Trail); Premail sends each message to an AI model you choose and applies rules you wrote in plain English, on your own computer.
Is Premail cheaper than HEY?
For personal mail, yes. HEY is $99 per year for one personal account, $179 per year for a family of five, and $12 per user per month on a custom domain. Premail is free for up to two personal inboxes, and Pro is one flat price for work inboxes, unlimited custom rules, and Reputation Shield, including a one-time Lifetime option.
Does Premail have anything like the Screener?
It has the same effect without the interruptions. Premail syncs your contacts and treats known senders as an allowlist, then classifies everyone else by what they actually wrote rather than asking you to approve each new address. You can still block or allow individual senders by hand when you want to.
What does HEY do better than Premail?
Quite a lot, honestly. HEY has polished iOS and Android apps, runs server-side so it works whether or not your computer is on, blocks tracking pixels, and includes a calendar. Premail is desktop-only, does not proxy images, and needs your machine awake to act on new mail in real time.
Do I have to give an AI company my email to use Premail?
No. You choose the model. With Ollama, classification runs entirely on your own computer and no message text leaves it. If you bring an Anthropic or OpenAI key instead, the message goes only to the provider you picked; Premail has no servers of its own in the path either way.
Can Premail clean up the inbox I already have?
Yes. Inbox Cleaner runs your rules against the mail already sitting in your inbox, and the Subscriptions tab groups senders so you can unsubscribe in bulk. Moving to HEY leaves your old inbox behind rather than fixing it.
Also considering
Free for personal inboxes. No Premail account, no servers touching your email. Works alongside the email client you already use on Mac, Windows, and Linux.