You're drowning in 200-300 emails daily. Every hour you spend managing your inbox steals time from strategic work and high-impact decisions.
Superhuman Mail and Hey take completely different approaches to this problem. Superhuman Mail accelerates your productivity through AI-native automation and speed optimization. Hey focuses on consent-based filtering to reduce volume.
For leaders buried in email, Superhuman Mail offers the comprehensive solution you need to turn inbox overwhelm into strategic advantage.
Quick comparison: Superhuman Mail vs Hey
Here's what you need to know upfront:
Superhuman Mail strengths:
- Saves 4 hours per person every week
- Processes emails 2.35x faster
- Works with your existing Gmail or Outlook account
- AI-native features draft responses in your voice
- 1:1 expert onboarding gets you productive fast
- Built for team collaboration
Superhuman Mail considerations:
- Pricing at $25/user/month or $396/year
Hey strengths:
- Lower annual cost at $99
- Reduces email volume through filtering
Hey considerations:
- You'll need to migrate your entire email address
- No AI capabilities
- Limited integrations with other tools
- Rigid organizational system you can't customize
- Minimal team collaboration features
- Self-service onboarding takes longer
How Superhuman Mail and Hey works
How Superhuman Mail works
Superhuman Mail is the most productive email app ever made. You'll keep your existing Gmail or Outlook account—no migration needed, no new email address to distribute.
The platform saves teams 4 hours per person every single week through speed optimization and AI-native features.
You can access Superhuman Mail anywhere with perfect sync:
- iOS and Android mobile apps with full features
- Web browser access with lightning-fast performance
- Desktop apps for Mac and Windows
- Keyboard-first interface for maximum speed
Every action completes in under 100 milliseconds. This speed transforms email from a daily burden into a competitive advantage. You'll process twice as many emails in the same amount of time.
How Hey works
Hey costs $99 per year and replaces your current email completely. You'll get either an @hey.com address or custom domain hosting.
The platform centers on the Screener, a filtering system that requires sender approval before messages reach your inbox.
Here's the catch: you'll need to migrate your entire email identity and notify all contacts of your new address. If you've built your professional reputation on your current email, that's a significant barrier.
Hey organizes approved emails into three destinations: the Inbox for important messages, the Feed for newsletters, and the Paper Trail for receipts. This organization helps some people, but it forces you to adapt to Hey's rigid system rather than customizing the experience to fit your workflow.
Superhuman Mail vs Hey: Key features comparison
Superhuman Mail's AI-native features
Split Inbox automatically categorizes messages by sender, priority, or custom rules. You can batch process similar messages and stay focused on what matters most.
Superhuman AI learns from your communication patterns to draft responses in your authentic voice. It analyzes messages you've sent to specific recipients before and matches your tone. You'll cut composition time from minutes to seconds.
Instant Reply generates contextual response options automatically. Customers report 37% greater time savings when using AI features.
Read Statuses show exactly when and on what device your email was read. Your team can follow up with accuracy and confidence.
Shared Conversations let multiple team members collaborate on responses without forwarding messages or creating separate threads.
Hey's features
Hey includes basic features like bulk processing for unread emails, message snoozing, and file organization. However, these lack the AI-native automation and speed optimizations that make Superhuman Mail the clear choice for high-performing leaders.
Hey explicitly rejects AI automation through what they call a "HI not AI" philosophy. This limits Hey's ability to deliver meaningful productivity gains in email processing, composition, and information retrieval.
Speed and performance
Superhuman Mail responds 12 hours faster
Superhuman Mail operates under the 100ms rule. This speed optimization translates into measurable productivity gains:
- Teams respond 12 hours faster to important emails
- You'll handle 2.35 times more emails within the critical 12-to-48-hour window
- Organizations collectively save over 15 million hours annually
The distinction matters. Superhuman Mail optimizes for maximum throughput when you're processing necessary emails. You'll maintain responsiveness while reclaiming strategic thinking time.
Hey's volume reduction approach
Hey attempts efficiency through volume reduction rather than processing acceleration. While the Screener can reduce incoming emails, it doesn't address your fundamental challenge: efficiently processing the necessary communication that requires your attention.
Team collaboration
Built for distributed teams
Remote work has intensified email challenges. You're likely seeing 20-30% increases in daily volume as your organization relies more heavily on asynchronous communication.
Superhuman Mail addresses this through features built for distributed teams.
Shared Conversations and Team Comments enable multiple team members to collaborate on responses without forwarding messages. Team Read Statuses provide transparency about message engagement, preventing duplicate responses and ensuring coordinated communication.
Auto Drafts prove particularly valuable when you're coordinating across time zones. The feature automatically generates meeting proposals with availability and booking links, eliminating the back-and-forth typically required for multi-timezone planning.
Hey's limited collaboration
Hey's approach centers on its organizational system with separate destinations for different message types. While this helps manage certain communications, it lacks the collaborative features and AI-native assistance that make Superhuman Mail the preferred choice for distributed teams managing complex workflows.
Onboarding and learning curve
Superhuman Mail's expert setup
Superhuman Mail provides 1:1 onboarding through 30-minute specialist-led sessions. Specialists customize setup to your individual workflow while teaching keyboard shortcuts, Split Inbox configuration, and AI feature utilization.
You'll emerge from onboarding with full competence across core features and typically reach automated skill execution within two weeks.
This premium approach delivers exceptional ROI. If you're earning $200,000 annually and save 4 hours weekly through better email management, the annual time value exceeds $20,000.
Hey's self-service approach
Hey implements a self-directed onboarding approach that requires you to discover features gradually. For busy leaders, this extended learning curve delays productivity benefits and requires significant time investment upfront.
Pricing and value
Cost breakdown
Superhuman Mail:
- Starter: $25/month (billed annually) = $300/year
- Business: $33/month (billed annually) = $396/year
Hey:
- Individual: $99/year
- Hey for Domains: $10/month first user, $12/month additional users
Return on investment
While Hey appears less expensive initially, the value calculation strongly favors Superhuman Mail.
If you earn $100/hour and save 4 hours weekly through Superhuman Mail's email management, the annual time value ($20,800) dramatically exceeds the subscription cost difference. For organizations with multiple leaders, collective time savings multiply this return.
Feature comparison: Superhuman Mail vs Hey
Superhuman Mail is best for high-volume email users, teams requiring collaboration, leaders prioritizing speed, AI-native assistance, and measurable productivity gains.
Hey is a good option for users seeking email volume reduction who are willing to migrate email infrastructure and adapt to a new workflow system.
Transform email into your competitive advantage
Superhuman Mail delivers measurable time savings of 4 hours per person weekly through AI-native features that accelerate communication and seamless integration with your existing email infrastructure.
You'll transform email from a daily burden into a strategic advantage.
The platform's speed optimizations, collaboration capabilities, and intelligent automation help you process emails twice as fast while ensuring nothing important falls through the cracks. For teams managing high-volume communication, Superhuman Mail creates organizational alignment, enhances responsiveness, and reclaims strategic thinking time from inbox management.
Hey offers an alternative approach focused on volume reduction, but its required email migration, limited integrations, and absence of AI-native capabilities create significant limitations. Organizations seeking immediate productivity gains without infrastructure disruption will find Superhuman Mail delivers superior value despite its premium positioning.
Fly through your inbox twice as fast and save 4 hours every single week.
Get started with Superhuman Mail
