hey.com

HEY is an email and calendar service from 37signals that rethinks the inbox around a single premise: only the people you want email from should be able to reach you. That's a different starting point from Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail, which accept mail from anyone and then ask you to sort, search, and filter it. If you're deciding whether to move your primary address, the practical question is whether you want a service that screens senders up front rather than one that gives you more tools to manage an open floodgate.

The core idea: screen senders, don't sort messages

Most email services assume anyone can email you, and your job is to store, sort, search, and categorize what arrives. HEY inverts that. As Ezra Klein put it in a testimonial on HEY's site, "HEY assumes that only the people you want email from should be able to email you."

That single design choice drives most of what feels different:

• Screening happens before the inbox, not after. New senders are evaluated rather than dumped into a pile you clean later.
• The inbox is a curated space, not a firehose you triage.
• Privacy and time protection are treated as the default, not features you configure.

Mike Davidson framed it as: "If you designed email from scratch such that it vigorously protected your privacy and your time, this is what it would look like."

What HEY includes

HEY is both email and calendar. The site's headline is "We finally fixed your email + calendar!" and it explicitly notes "HEY has a calendar now!" So if you're comparing it to Gmail or Outlook, you're comparing a combined mail-and-calendar product, not mail alone.

The positioning is direct: "Gmail, Outlook, and Apple got complacent and took their eye off the ball. Then along came HEY." That's marketing language, but it tells you the intended audience — people who feel the big providers stopped meaningfully improving.

How it differs from Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail

The testimonials on HEY's page consistently describe it as a "rethinking" rather than an add-on. Adrian Holovaty called it "a complete rethinking of email, full of bold, brilliant ideas," and Kevin Rose described it as "a beautiful rethinking of everything wrong with email."

What to check before switching

• Trying it costs nothing to start. HEY offers a 30-day free trial with "no obligation, no CC required." That's the lowest-risk way to test whether the screening model fits how you work.
• Pricing is a separate page. The site links to a Pricing page, so check current plans and terms there rather than assuming a tier.
• Migration is a real consideration. Tens of thousands of people have switched from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, and other services, per the site — but moving a primary address is a decision about your contacts and workflows, not just the app.
• The model is opinionated. If you rely on receiving mail from unknown senders (forms, cold outreach, signups), confirm how HEY handles those cases before committing.

Who this is for

HEY suits people who are tired of managing an open inbox and want the service to make the "should this reach me?" decision earlier. It's less suited to anyone whose work depends on unfiltered inbound mail from strangers. The clearest way to decide is to use the 30-day trial and see whether screening-first feels like relief or restriction.

HEY's own homepage presents switching testimonials as its main social proof: tens of thousands of people have moved over from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, and other email and calendar services, and the quoted users consistently describe relief from spam, unread pile-up, and manual sorting. That's a useful signal if you're weighing a switch, but it's a curated set of quotes on the vendor's site — treat it as a starting point for your own trial, not as an independent verdict.

What the quoted switchers actually say

The testimonials on HEY's homepage cluster around a few concrete claims rather than generic praise:

• Spam and unwanted mail stop being your problem. Darya Rose says she's "no longer dealing with spam, long lists of 'unread' messages, or sorting out annoying but important docs."
• The inbox stops being a sorting chore. Ezra Klein frames the difference as an assumption change: Gmail and its competitors assume anyone should be able to email you and you should store, sort, search, and categorize it all; HEY assumes only people you want email from should reach you.
• It's a rebuild, not a reskin. Adrian Holovaty calls it "a complete rethinking of email, full of bold, brilliant ideas," and Kevin Rose describes it as "a beautiful rethinking of everything wrong with email."
• It holds up in heavy-email jobs. Chantal Ireland says email "gets flooded quickly" when diving into new teams, and calls HEY "a game changer for email and owning your time."
• Independence from big tech matters to some switchers. Andy Baio notes that because it's from the Basecamp team, he expects it won't "get swallowed up by BigTechCo a month after launch."

Where these reviews come from — and what that means

Every quote above appears on hey.com itself, attributed to named people (Ryan Hoover, Darya Rose, Ezra Klein, Mike Davidson, Kevin Rose, and others). HEY also links out to a longer page of "nice things people are saying." Two practical implications:

1. The sample is self-selected. People who switched, stayed, and liked it are the ones quoted. You won't find the complaints here.
2. The claims are directional, not measurable. "No longer dealing with spam" tells you the experience changed for that person; it doesn't tell you how HEY classifies mail, what happens to a legitimate sender you haven't screened, or how long the adjustment takes.

If those specifics matter to you, the homepage's own framing points to the answer: HEY screens incoming email so only people you want can reach you. That's the mechanism behind the "no spam, no unread pile" testimonials — worth understanding before you decide the praise applies to your situation.

How to test the switch claims on your own mail

The homepage offers a 30-day free trial with "no obligation, no CC required," which is the cheapest way to check whether the testimonials describe your inbox. A trial that actually tests the claims:

1. Start the free trial and connect or forward the account you're considering leaving.
2. Let a normal week of mail arrive. The testimonials are about volume and screening, so a quiet weekend won't tell you much.
3. Check the screening behavior. Watch what happens to first-time senders, newsletters, and receipts — the categories Darya Rose specifically mentions as previously annoying.
4. Compare against your current provider on the same week. Note how many messages you had to sort, search, or file in Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Outlook versus HEY.
5. Decide before day 30. The trial terms are stated on the site; pricing for continuing is on HEY's pricing page, so check the current cost there rather than assuming.

Who the switcher feedback is most relevant for

The quotes skew toward people with high email volume and low tolerance for inbox maintenance — team leads, writers, and developers who describe email as a time sink. If your main pain is spam and unread accumulation, the testimonials map directly onto your problem. If your main need is deep integration with an existing ecosystem, or you rely on features specific to Gmail, Outlook, or Apple Mail, the quotes won't tell you whether those survive the move — that's what the trial is for.

One caveat the page itself implies: these are experiences after switching, not comparisons run under controlled conditions. Use them to decide whether HEY is worth 30 days of your attention, then let your own inbox settle the question.

You can try HEY free for 30 days, and you don't need a credit card to start. If you want to see paid plan details before or during the trial, HEY's own Pricing page is the place to look. This fits anyone who wants to test the email-and-calendar experience before committing to a subscription.

Start the 30-day free trial

HEY's homepage states the trial terms directly: "Try HEY free for 30-days. No obligation, no CC required."

That means two things you can rely on when deciding:

• No credit card required to begin the trial.
• No obligation — the trial is framed as a no-strings way to evaluate the product.

What to do

1. Go to hey.com.
2. Look for the free-trial call to action on the homepage.
3. Start the trial without entering payment details.

What to expect

You get access to HEY's take on email and calendar during the trial window. The homepage also links to a "See how HEY works" option if you'd rather understand the product before signing up.

Where to find pricing

HEY links to its pricing page from the main site navigation:

• Pricing page: https://www.hey.com/pricing/

That page is where paid plan details live. The homepage itself does not list specific prices, so treat the Pricing page as the authoritative source for current plans and costs rather than relying on secondhand summaries.

Why people consider switching before paying

The trial exists so you can judge whether HEY's approach fits how you work. HEY's positioning is that it rethinks assumptions other providers kept:

• Gmail, Outlook, and Apple "got complacent," according to HEY — the homepage frames HEY as a fresh take on email plus calendar.
• Screening who can email you. As Ezra Klein puts it in a testimonial on the page: most competitors assume anyone should be able to email you and you should sort it out; HEY assumes only people you want email from should reach you.
• Privacy and time as design goals. One quoted user describes it as what email would look like if designed from scratch to protect privacy and time.

These are the kinds of things a 30-day trial lets you test against your own inbox and calendar habits.

A practical way to use the trial

Since the trial requires no card, you can treat it as a low-risk evaluation:

• Import or forward what you need so you're testing with real mail, not an empty inbox.
• Try the screening behavior — see how it feels to control who reaches you.
• Use the calendar alongside email, since HEY now includes one.
• Decide before day 30 whether to move to a paid plan via the Pricing page.

Quick reference

If your main question is "can I test this without paying or handing over card details," the answer is yes — start the 30-day trial, then check the Pricing page when you're ready to decide on a plan.

Yes. HEY includes a calendar, and it's built into the same product as the email service rather than sold or run as a separate app. The site's own headline frames the product as "email + calendar," and a dedicated section announces "HEY has a calendar now!" So if your goal is to manage incoming mail and your schedule in one place, HEY is designed for exactly that.

What the calendar is

HEY is made by 37signals, the company behind Basecamp. The homepage describes it as "a delightfully fresh take on email + calendar," and the calendar is presented as a first-class part of the product, not an add-on. The page also carries a user quote calling it "the HEY Calendar app," which suggests it's available as an app experience in its own right while still living inside the HEY account.

The framing matters: the pitch is that Gmail, Outlook, and Apple "got complacent," and HEY's answer is to rebuild both email and calendar together.

How it fits with email

The core idea behind HEY's email is a different default about who gets through to you. As one quoted reviewer (Ezra Klein) puts it, most providers assume anyone should be able to email you and then you sort it out; HEY assumes only people you want email from should reach you. The site's own line is "Screen emails like you..." — the screening concept is central.

Because the calendar sits in the same product, the practical benefit is one place for both: the messages that made it past screening and the events on your schedule. The site's stated goal is "We finally fixed your email + calendar!" — treating them as a single problem rather than two apps you glue together.

What you can verify before signing up

• Try it first. The site offers "Try HEY free for 30-days," described as "No obligation, no CC required." That's the lowest-risk way to check whether the calendar and email integration matches how you work.
• See how it works. There's a "See how HEY works" path on the homepage if you want a walkthrough before committing.
• Check current pricing. A pricing page exists at hey.com/pricing. The homepage itself doesn't state a price, so treat cost as something to confirm there rather than assume.

Who this suits

HEY is aimed at people who want to leave Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, or Apple Mail and consolidate. The site says "tens of thousands of people have already made the switch" from those services. If your main frustration is an inbox you can't control and a calendar living somewhere else, the combined email + calendar design is the reason to look at it. If you only want a calendar and have no interest in changing email, the value proposition is weaker, since the calendar is packaged with the email product.

One caveat worth noting: the praise quoted on the page comes from named users and reviewers, not independent testing, so treat it as marketing context rather than a neutral benchmark. The 30-day trial is the better basis for your own judgment.

HEY's core privacy mechanism is a screening layer: instead of letting anyone who has your address land in your inbox, HEY asks you to decide whether to accept a sender the first time they write to you. Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail assume anyone should be able to email you and then leave you to store, sort, search, and categorize the results; HEY inverts that assumption, as Ezra Klein's testimonial on the HEY homepage puts it: "HEY assumes that only the people you want email from should be able to email you." That single design choice is what the company means when it calls HEY a "privacy-respecting inbox" and what it means by protecting your time and attention.

The screening mechanism, step by step

1. A new sender writes to you. Their message does not go straight to your inbox.
2. HEY holds it for your decision. You see who the sender is and choose whether to let them in.
3. You accept or decline. Accepting moves that sender into your normal flow; declining keeps them out of your inbox.
4. You screen emails "like you" — the homepage's phrasing — meaning the filter is your judgment about the sender, not an algorithm guessing at content.

The practical result: spam, cold outreach, and one-off senders never occupy inbox space or demand a decision about each individual message. You make one decision per sender rather than one per email.

Why this is a privacy difference, not just a convenience feature

The distinction is architectural. In a conventional inbox, the default is open: your address is effectively a public endpoint, and filtering happens after delivery. In HEY, the default is closed: delivery to your attention requires your consent. That changes what your inbox reveals about you and what it demands from you.

The testimonials HEY publishes make the intended effect concrete. Darya Rose describes using it for several weeks and "no longer dealing with spam, long lists of 'unread' messages, or sorting out annoying but important docs." Mike Davidson frames it as email designed from scratch "such that it vigorously protected your privacy and your time." Chantal Ireland highlights the attention cost of a flooded inbox when joining new teams.

How HEY compares on this specific dimension

This table covers only the sender-control dimension. It is not a verdict on features like storage, integrations, or search, which the source material does not address.

What to check before deciding

• Do you receive a lot of first-time senders? If your work depends on inbound mail from people you have never met, screening adds a step for each of them. If your inbound is mostly known contacts and noise, screening removes work.
• Do you want a provider to make the spam call, or do you? HEY hands that judgment to you at the sender level.
• Are you willing to change the habit of scanning an inbox? The testimonials describe relief, but they also describe switching away from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, and other services — a migration, not a toggle.

HEY offers a 30-day free trial with no obligation and no credit card required, so the screening behavior can be tested against your actual mail before committing. Pricing details are published on HEY's pricing page; check there for current terms rather than assuming a cost structure.