So, I recently made the decision to cancel my subscription for Hey.com, and I thought I’d share my reasons with y’all. It’s not something I did on a whim; I gave it a lot of thought. When I first signed up for Hey, I was pretty excited. The idea of an email service that could ‘transform email’ sounded amazing. But, after using it for more than 2 years, I’ve realized it’s not quite what was promised.
One of the main features that drew me to Hey was the screener. The concept is great in theory: you get to decide which emails land in your inbox and which don’t. But in practice, it didn’t work out as smoothly as I’d hoped. I thought that over time, the screener would learn and automatically sort emails into the right sections like the Imbox or Paper Trail – at least that felt like the natural next step for the product’s evolution. But nope, it never really got to that point. Instead, I found myself manually moving each email, which honestly just added more to my plate. I realized that simply setting up a filter in any other email service was more efficient and gave me better results than Hey’s screening feature.
Then there’s the overall user interface of Hey. It felt a bit clunky and not very intuitive, especially when I compared it to modern email solutions like Proton. Navigating through Hey just didn’t feel as smooth or user-friendly. I kept waiting for the Hey team to roll out some innovative, thoughtful features to really make the experience stand out. But, it seems like they’ve shifted their focus to ‘revolutionizing’ calendars now.
And that brings me to another point. Calendars are something I’ve never really had an issue with. I mean, sure, they’re not perfect, but they work pretty well as they are. So, when I saw Hey moving towards calendars, it felt like they were trying to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist. Calendars work fine as they are, but you know what could’ve used some love? Their overall UI, the mobile app, and the screener.
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room – the pricing. Hey charges $100 per year for their service. For me, this was a significant factor in my decision to cancel. Honestly, I couldn’t justify spending that amount on an email service that didn’t significantly improve my email management or offer exceptional features. In a world where many email services are free or offer more features at a lower cost, Hey’s pricing felt steep, especially considering my experiences and the lack of substantial innovation since its launch. Credits where they’re due though – the customer support team was absolutely awesome, and quickly offered a pro-rated refund on my remaining subscription so at least we’re not parting on bad terms as such 🙂
All in all, while I had high hopes for Hey, it just hasn’t lived up to my expectations. The lack of significant improvements or innovations since its release was a bit of a letdown. I wanted an email service that would make my life easier, not one that required more manual effort. Maybe I’ll revisit it in the future if they make some major updates, but for now, I’m moving on to something that better fits my needs.
Thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences with email services. Have you found ‘the one’ that works for you, or are you still on the lookout like me?
Catch you in the next post!