Frequently asked questions

You claim yourcollective@collective.email, confirm your own email with a 6-digit code, and share an invite link with your group. From then on, every email sent to that address lands in a shared inbox where any member can read it, claim it, discuss it internally, and answer it — the reply goes out as your collective's address, not a personal one.

No — that's the whole point. There is no shared password, ever. Each member signs in with their own personal email and a 6-digit code we send them. Nobody can lock the group out by leaving, and nobody has to remember who holds the credentials.

Yes — that's the Pro plan, and it's self-serve from the Your domain page. Two ways to receive: keep your current mailbox and simply add a forward (Gmail's confirmation email lands right in your shared inbox — one click), or point your domain's MX records at us for a full takeover. To send as your domain you add a few DNS records (DKIM + SPF) — being able to add them is the ownership proof — and the moment they verify, replies go out as hello@ourcollective.org. Until then, replies are sent from your @collective.email address with your domain in the display name. Pay for Pro like everything here: subscribe, redeem a code, spend credits, or apply by contributing.

Each member chooses: as they arrive, a daily digest, or a weekly digest. Instant notifications include one-click buttons to assign the conversation to yourself or a teammate, and a live status badge — so if you open the notification an hour late, you can see it's already being handled.

Yes. Just reply to the notification email — your answer goes to the original sender as yourcollective@collective.email, and the thread is assigned to you. If a teammate answered while you were typing, we stop your reply and tell you instead of double-answering the sender.

Four, from lightest to heaviest: readers follow along and get the digests; commenters discuss internally — notes, assigning, tags — but can't email the outside world; senders answer on behalf of the collective; admins also manage members and billing. Readers and commenters are free and unlimited; senders and admins are the paid seats.

The Collective plan is $10 a month — up to 10 senders, 1,000 replies a month, unlimited readers and commenters. Pro is $100 a month with your own domain and room to grow. There is no free plan — but there are two other ways to pay: apply for a trial by offering a contribution (onboarding another collective, writing a tutorial, spreading the word…), or earn credits by referring collectives that actually use it. One credit is one month of service.

Nothing dramatic, and nothing silent either. Your inbox goes read-only for 30 days — everything is still there, nothing is deleted. If you have credits, one is used automatically to cover another month. After the grace period the address stops receiving, and lapsed addresses are eventually released so nobody can squat a name forever.

Yes — incoming attachments are stored privately and shown in the thread (images inline), and you can attach files to your replies from the web inbox.

One click marks a conversation as spam — from the inbox or straight from the notification email. Spam doesn't count as “needs a reply” and stops nagging everyone.

Everything is hosted in the EU (Dublin), with nightly backups. And your conversations are yours, one click deep: any admin can download a full archive from the Billing page. The zip expands into a folder with a browsable offline inbox — open inbox.html and read your whole history, internal notes and attachments included, no server needed — plus the raw data as JSON for importing anywhere else. No lock-in games.

Yes — one personal email, one sign-in, and a chooser for every collective you belong to. Roles are per collective, so you can be an admin in one and a reader in another.