Everyone can reach you. That is the problem.
Email was built so a stranger and your closest friend arrive in the same place, at the same volume. For most people that’s a nuisance. For you it’s a tax, paid in attention and collected by anyone who learned your address. Donna makes them pay it back — to you.
Unknown senders pay you to reach you.
Not a spam filter — a firewall. A sender Donna doesn’t recognise is held, and waits. You decide what happens next: let them through, or ask the priority fee you set before their message reaches you — paid to you, for your time. Serious people pay it without blinking. Either way the decision is yours, not theirs.
- Known senders
- Free, instant, untouched. Anyone you've answered is already through.
- Unknown senders
- Held quietly until you decide: let them in, approve them for good, or ask for the priority fee you set. Never mixed with real mail.
- Where the fee goes
- To you. Donna takes a small cut to run the gate and process the payment; the balance settles into your account.
- The fee is final
- Paying delivers the message — that is all it buys. It is not a deposit against a reply, and you are never obliged to answer.
Coming soon…
All inboxes in a glance.
Switch on the Brief and, whenever you ask for it, Donna folds every inbox you’ve connected — not just one — into a single read: the few things that actually need you, and the rest grouped so you can catch up in a sweep. You read it once and you’re current across all of them — no scrolling, no triage, no inbox to face down.
- The few that need a reply
- Donna pulls out the handful of messages that actually want you — each with a one-line reason and a link straight to the source. Tick one off and it strikes through, without touching the mail.
- Everything else, in one sweep
- The rest, gathered by topic so you can catch up in a glance and get on with your day.
Good morning.
3 things need you · 2 topics to catch up on.
Needs you
Countersign the Lisbon deed
TodayViewMarguerite's notary needs the signed south-elevation approval before Friday to keep the closing on schedule.
from Marguerite Lascelles — The Lisbon house — final drawings
Confirm Thursday, 8pm
This weekViewTheo is holding the usual table and bringing the Margaux; a yes is all that's left.
from Theo — Dinner Thursday?
Look over the Q2 statement
FYIViewfrom Coutts & Co. — Quarterly statement is ready
Catch up
Sotheby's — Modern & Contemporary
You were outbid on Lot 44; the sale closed above estimate. The department followed up about two further lots in the evening sale.
3 messages ›The Lisbon house
Marguerite's architect and notary traded messages finalizing the south elevation ahead of Friday's closing.
2 messages ›
Fair to them, too.
A held sender isn’t turned away. They see a quiet page with your terms up front, before they pay anything. If it matters to them, the fee is insignificant. If it doesn’t, they were never worth the interruption.
Payment is processed by Stripe. Donna is the merchant of record — the sender’s payment passes through Donna, which takes a small fee and sends you the balance. Nothing beyond that fee is kept. Paying delivers the message. It’s not a deposit against a reply, and you’re never obliged to answer. The gate reads who is sending, never what they wrote.
The gate never reads your mail. By design.
Most email companies promise not to look. Donna’s firewall never has to — it decides on who is sending, never what they wrote. The features that do read your mail, like your Brief, are off until you turn them on, and read only what you asked them to.
At the gate, Donna reads the envelope, not the letter.
Every decision about who reaches you is made on who is sending — the body of your mail plays no part in it, and screening never scans or processes it on our servers.
Your words pass through, they don't stay.
Mail is fetched when you open it and handed straight back. What Donna keeps to draw your inbox is the envelope — who wrote, the subject line, when it arrived. The letters themselves stay where they already live: in your own mailbox, or, for a custom domain, with the provider that receives your mail, which holds it a few weeks. The one piece Donna stores itself is a message still stopped at the gate: encrypted, and shredded the moment it's let through or expires.
Nothing reads your mail until you ask it to.
Donna's Brief (coming soon) stays off until you switch it on. When you do, the mail it covers is read just long enough to build the summary — on our servers, then at a trusted AI provider — and dropped the moment it's done. Donna keeps no copy; the provider may hold the text up to thirty days under its own terms before deleting it.
Two ways to keep it quiet.
Choose the room you read in. The Study is warm and literate. The Atelier is exact and Swiss. Each in light or dark. Flip either card to see it. Same inbox, dressed to your eye.
Newsreader for the names you know. A deep, unhurried green.
Instrument Sans alone. Bronze, held in warm graphite.
Let your inbox go quiet.
Leave your address. This site is currently in Beta, but there is already excitement to try it out. We’re rolling out Donna to new users slowly while we optimize and enhance the design. Remember, you don’t pay anything … you only receive money for your time*
*You receive the full Priority Fee, less processing costs and Donna’s small percentage