HEY

Email and calendar built around focus, screening and intentional communication.

Overview

HEY is 37signals' email service, launched in 2020 as an opinionated answer to the inbox: instead of filters you bolt on, screening is the first thing that happens to a new sender, and instead of one pile, mail is sorted into the Imbox (mail from people), the Feed (newsletters) and the Paper Trail (receipts, confirmations). It comes with its own calendar, clients for every platform, and a privacy stance that blocks tracking pixels by default.

How I use it

HEY is my external email — the address on this site, the thread a new client starts, the invoice a vendor sends. The first time someone writes, I screen them in or out once, and that decision holds. Newsletters land in the Feed where I read them like a feed, receipts in the Paper Trail where I never read them until I need one, and the Imbox holds only mail from people I have said yes to. The effect is that my inbox stays small and intentional. I batch replies with Reply Later, set aside anything I need to act on, and add the occasional private note to a thread so the context travels with it. It is a different tool from Basecamp on purpose: HEY is direct, external email; Basecamp is structured project communication. Email that turns into a project moves there, and stops being email.

Key features

The Screener — approve or block each new sender once Imbox, Feed and Paper Trail — three places for three kinds of mail Reply Later and Set Aside — a lightweight triage workflow without folders Spy-pixel blocking and sender tracking warnings Merged threads, private notes and sticky comments inside threads HEY Calendar, HEY World (publish from email), apps for web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android HEY for Domains — the same model on your own domain with shared threads and team comments

Best for

People who get a lot of first-contact mail and want a deliberate boundary around who reaches them. It rewards anyone willing to learn its vocabulary. It is a poor fit if you need deep rules, heavy labelling, or integrations with a CRM and support desk that expect Gmail or Outlook underneath.

Where it fits in my stack

HEY → Basecamp when a conversation becomes a project; Notion when an email contains something worth keeping as a document. Communication tools are deliberately few in my stack : one inbox, one project space, one knowledge base.

Pros

Screening removes most inbox noise permanently, not per message Feed and Paper Trail mean newsletters and receipts never interrupt Strong privacy defaults without configuration Fast native apps everywhere and a calendar included

Limitations

Opinionated: no custom folders, limited rules, and its own vocabulary to learn Integrations with third-party tools are sparse compared with Gmail or Outlook Import and export exist, but moving years of mail in and out takes effort No free tier beyond the 30-day trial

Pricing

As listed on hey.com/pricing: HEY for You is $99 per year for a @hey.com address with 100 GB, HEY Calendar and HEY World, after a 30-day free trial; HEY for Domains is $12 per user per month (the first user $10) for email on your own domain; HEY for Families is $179 per year for up to five people. Short premium addresses cost more. Check the official pricing page for current numbers.

Verdict

I keep HEY because it changed the shape of my email rather than the speed of it: fewer senders reach me, and the ones who do land in a place I actually read. For someone whose day is building and client work, that is worth more than any inbox feature. My full HEY review covers the switch in more detail.