HEY hey.com

Can AI replace HEY?

You can build an email client, but replacing HEY means running a trustworthy email service: deliverability, spam filtering, abuse handling, storage, mobile apps, and reputation.

Verdict: Nah · Keep paying, or use a free alternativeBuild time: not realistically solo
Nah

01What it costs

$8.25/moPersonal address, annual effective per month
$99per year at that price

Checked Aug 12, 2026 · source: hey.com.

PlanMonthlyBilled yearlyWhat you get
HEY for You—$8.25/mo1 person; 1 @hey.com address; 100 GB storage.
HEY for Families—$14.92/moUp to 5 people total (account holder + 4 additional people), each with a separate @hey.com address and account.
HEY for Domains$12—Custom-domain email with central billing; first user is $10/month and each additional user is $12/month.

Hidden costs: Ultra-short @hey.com addresses cost extra each year: $999/year for 2 characters and $349/year for 3 characters; 4+ characters are included with the normal personal plan.

02Could AI build it for you?

The core job: Build a personal mail client on top of IMAP/SMTP or a hosted mailbox; do not try to replace the global email service layer casually.

What a working version needs:

  • existing email provider or mailbox
  • IMAP/SMTP APIs
  • spam filtering if hosting
  • domain/DNS if custom email

Valuable no: the UI is cloneable, but email infrastructure is not an afternoon project.

03What you'd give up

  • email deliverability
  • spam/abuse systems
  • storage reliability
  • mobile apps
  • identity/reputation
  • support

They pay because email is infrastructure; deliverability and trust are the product.

05The build prompt

Paste this into an AI coding tool (such as Claude, ChatGPT, Lovable or Replit) to build your own version. Read the verdict first: this one is hard to get right.

prompt.txt
Build me an email client with HEY's screening and bundling ideas, running on
top of a mailbox I already pay for (Fastmail, Gmail, anything with IMAP).
Requirements:

- A local web app: Node + Express + better-sqlite3, binds to localhost;
  imapflow for reading, nodemailer for sending, creds in .env.
- The screener: mail from first-time senders lands in a screening view where I
  approve or block; decisions persist in SQLite and apply to all future mail.
- Bundles: approved senders get a category; newsletters render in a batched
  feed view, receipts in a paper-trail list; only approved humans hit the
  inbox.
- Reply-later: mark a thread and it sits in a persistent to-answer stack until
  cleared.
- Write decisions back as IMAP folders and labels so my phone's mail app
  roughly mirrors the sorting.
- Strip remote images in the reading pane by default.
- No accounts of its own, no telemetry; mail stays at my provider.
- Out of scope: running an SMTP server, custom domains, and mobile apps. Do not
  replace the mail service itself; deliverability and spam reputation are the
  product and cannot be rebuilt solo.
- README: per-provider app-password setup, and a warning that Gmail OAuth is a
  project of its own, use an app password or Fastmail to keep this a weekend.

06Open-source starting points

  • Mail-in-a-Box: Open-source personal mail server stack; useful prior art but deliverability remains the mo
Sponsor slot · openFeatured alternative to HEY. A labeled card for one relevant tool.
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App prices, verdicts, alternatives and build prompts are adapted from Can I Vibecode It? (MIT License, © 2026 Rob Hallam). Each price shows the date it was checked and its source. Prices change; confirm on the vendor's site before you decide.