Definition
An email cover charge (also called pay-to-email or pay-to-deliver) is a price you set for strangers who want to email you. On sift.mx, trusted and whitelisted senders skip the fee; everyone else pays your cover or the message never reaches your real inbox.
A door fee for your inbox
Public email addresses are free to hit. That is why cold outreach, bots, and spray campaigns treat your attention as unlimited. A cover charge puts a price on first contact without forcing you offline.
You still receive mail from people you know. The fee is for unknowns who have not earned a free lane yet. Think of it as a cover at the door: serious guests pay; the sidewalk crowd usually will not.
People also call this pay-to-email or pay-to-deliver. Same idea: delivery to a human inbox is not a free public good for strangers.
Who this is for
Founders and executives who need a public contact line but cannot afford an open personal inbox. Creators whose bios attract brand spam. Anyone whose address is scraped into LLM agent lists.
It is a weaker fit if you must accept every inbound lead for free (some sales motions) or if you never publish a contact address at all. In those cases you may only need filters—or nothing.
Cover charge vs spam filter
Filters try to guess which free messages to hide after they arrive. A cover changes the economics before the message lands: low-intent senders usually will not pay; serious ones can.
You can still keep provider filters on the destination inbox. The cover is the outer gate; filters remain cleanup for whatever you choose to accept.
How pay-to-deliver works on sift.mx
Someone emails your sift handle. If they are allowlisted, mail forwards privately to your verified inbox. If they are blocked, it is sifted out. If they are unknown, sift.mx authenticates the message, holds it in encrypted quarantine, and issues a delivery challenge.
Paying unlocks that attempt—not lifetime access unless you allowlist them afterward. Cover payments go to you; the platform fee is taken on withdrawal, not on delivery.
- 1 credit = $0.10
- Senders never see your real inbox address
- Email is private forwarding (not end-to-end encrypted email)
- Member chat under the same handle can use its own cover rules
How to charge people to email you
1. Claim a free sift handle (name@sift.mx) and verify a private destination inbox you control.
2. Allowlist investors, teammates, customers, and domains that should stay free.
3. Set a cover in credits for everyone else. Start small; raise it if volume is still noisy.
4. Replace your personal email in public places with the sift handle—site, bio, deck, LinkedIn.
Serious strangers can pay; bots and spray outreach usually bounce off the cover. Replies continue through sift proxies so you do not leak the destination address.
Choosing a cover amount
Price the interrupt, not a consulting engagement. A cover that equals a coffee or a small tip is enough to filter automation without scaring every human. If you are drowning, raise it. If almost nobody pays and you still want signal from cold intros, lower it—or widen the whitelist for categories you care about (for example, .edu).
What it is not
It is not a newsletter subscription, not a promise that every paid message is good, and not a full hosted mailbox replacement. It is a filter on intent: senders who will not pay a small cover rarely deserved free access in the first place.
FAQ
Do trusted contacts pay the cover?
No. Whitelist people and domains you already know. The cover applies to unknown senders.
Is this the same as a spam filter?
No. Filters classify free mail after arrival. A cover charge prices access before delivery.
Can I change the price later?
Yes. You choose the cover and can adjust it as your volume or role changes.
Is email end-to-end encrypted?
No. sift email is private forwarding with authenticated intake and encrypted quarantine. Member chat is end-to-end encrypted.