SaneBox pricing, plan by plan, and how to pay less
SaneBox pricing for Snack, Lunch and Dinner, monthly, yearly and every two years, plus the free trial, the 25% discount, refunds and how to cancel.
By Emmett Miller
SaneBox has three plans. Snack is $9.49 a month, $65 a year or $109 for two years. Lunch is $15.99 a month, $109 a year or $179 for two years. Dinner is $42.99 a month, $319 a year or $529 for two years. There's no free plan, only a 7-day free trial with no credit card (SaneBox).
Prices as of November 2026, from SaneBox's pricing page and help center. The pricing page needs JavaScript, and it has a toggle for monthly, yearly and two-year billing.
What each SaneBox plan costs and includes
| Plan | Accounts | Monthly | Yearly | Every 2 years | Adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snack | 1 | $9.49 | $65 ($5.42 a month) | $109 ($4.54 a month) | SaneLater and SaneBlackHole |
| Lunch | 2 | $15.99 | $109 ($9.08 a month) | $179 ($7.46 a month) | SaneNews, SaneNoReplies, SaneNotSpam, DIY Folders |
| Dinner | 4 | $42.99 | $319 ($26.58 a month) | $529 ($22.04 a month) | SaneCC and SaneSnooze, "all SaneBox features" |
The account counts and the "all SaneBox features" line come from SaneBox's plans help page, which calls Snack "Perfect for individuals with one email account" and Lunch "Ideal for most users with two email accounts." For more than four accounts, it says to contact support.
The billing period changes the price more than the plan does. Snack paid monthly for two years comes to $227.76. Paid up front for two years, it's $109, a 52% saving by SaneBox's count.
Does SaneBox have a free plan?
No. SaneBox has a free trial and no free tier. Its help page on why SaneBox is not free says "Maintaining personalized algorithms requires significant resources."
How long is the trial? The home page says "a 7-day free trial for each plan" and "No credit card required," and the pricing page and plans help page say 7 days too. The "why SaneBox is not free" page still says "two weeks." Plan on 7 days.
Free months by referral. SaneBox's referral page says subscribers "Earn a free month of SaneBox for each friend," and people still on the trial get $5 in store credit for each friend who starts one. It calls this a limited-time offer.
Is there a SaneBox discount for students or nonprofits?
Yes, for organizations. SaneBox's home page says "educational, non-profit, and government agencies can get a 25% discount on any plan." Its business help page says to "contact support during your trial to apply it," so ask before the trial ends. We found no student discount for individuals on SaneBox's own pages.
Teams can use a SaneBox for Business account, which the same page describes as having "Unlimited users." It doesn't list a price.
How do I cancel SaneBox?
Sign in to SaneBox and open Settings for the email account. Find Account changes, click View, and choose to cancel (SaneBox). SaneBox may offer some fixes first; you can skip them. Then it asks one question that matters:
- Keep folders. @SaneLater, @SaneNews, @SaneBlackHole and the rest stay in your mailbox, with their mail in them.
- Remove folders. SaneBox moves that mail back to your Inbox and deletes the folders. The empty folders may show up in Trash for a while. SaneBox says this doesn't mean your mail was deleted.
SaneBox sends an email when the cancellation is done. Because the Sane folders live in your own mailbox, nothing you read in Apple Mail, Gmail or Outlook breaks when you leave.
Can I get a refund from SaneBox?
Yes, within 30 days, if you ask. SaneBox offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, but cancelling "does not automatically issue a refund," and the unused part of a plan isn't refunded on its own (SaneBox). Open a support request and ask. This matters most on the two-year plan, where the up-front charge is largest.
Why does SaneBox cost what it does?
SaneBox runs on its servers all day, on every message that reaches your mailbox. It reads the headers, decides which folder each message goes to, and asks your mail server to move it. Its privacy page says "We only access the envelope and header data associated with your emails," that your mail "is never held on SaneBox servers," and that it doesn't sell your data. That ongoing work, rather than a one-time cleanup, is why it's a subscription.
The price also covers every app you use. The folders show up in any mail app on any device, and SaneBox "works with every major email service such as Gmail, Microsoft 365, Apple iCloud, Yahoo! Mail and Fastmail."
Is SaneBox worth it?
It's worth it if you read mail in more than one app, on more than one device, and want the same sorting everywhere without changing apps. By default it reads headers only, not the body of your mail.
It's harder to justify in three cases:
- You only need SaneLater. Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail each sort mail into tabs or categories for free.
- You only use one mail app. Much of the price pays for sorting that follows you into every app. If you read mail in one place, that app's own tools may be enough.
- You'd rather no outside service held access to your mailbox. SaneBox keeps a login to your account so it can work on it from its servers.
Our SaneBox alternatives page shows what replaces each SaneBox folder.
What costs less than SaneBox? Alrighty and the free tools
Alrighty is a mail app for iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts, on Mac, Windows and Linux. Its price is a 14-day trial with no card, then a Free plan or Pro. It isn't a service on top of your mail app; you switch to it.
What it does for the jobs SaneBox does:
- Sorting. Sorting into groups is part of Pro and the trial, not the Free plan. It sends each email's sender, subject and the start of its body to Alrighty's server, which asks an AI model where it goes.
- Filters. Describe a kind of mail, such as cold sales, or set rules. New Inbox mail that fits moves to Archive before the list shows it. Mail from people you wrote to is never moved.
- Stop mail instead of a black hole. One click unsubscribes you every way the message offers, archives the sender's mail, and moves their new mail out as it arrives. Clean up lists the senders you probably don't want, so you can stop them all at once.
- No login held by a service. Your passwords and tokens stay on your computer, encrypted. No Alrighty server holds them.
What it can't do: there's no iPhone or web app, so the sorting doesn't follow you to your phone the way SaneBox folders do. It takes iCloud, Gmail and Outlook only, not Yahoo or Fastmail. It's new, with no long track record. See Alrighty vs SaneBox or the features page.
The free tools you already have:
- Gmail sorts into Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums (Google).
- Outlook's Focused Inbox splits mail into Focused and Other (Microsoft).
- Apple Mail sorts into Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions (Apple).
None of them learns from a folder you drag mail into, as SaneBox does, and each works only in its own app. For the steps to block a sender in each, see how to block a sender.
Questions
How much does SaneBox cost per year?
Snack is $65 a year, Lunch $109 and Dinner $319. Paying for two years at once lowers the monthly cost further: $109, $179 or $529 for the two years.
Does SaneBox need a credit card for the trial?
No. SaneBox's home page says the 7-day trial needs no credit card. You choose a plan and pay only if you want to keep it.
What happens to my emails if I stop paying for SaneBox?
They stay in your mailbox. When you cancel, you choose to keep the Sane folders with their mail, or have SaneBox move that mail back to your Inbox and remove the folders.
Does SaneBox work with iCloud and Outlook?
Yes. SaneBox says it works with Gmail, Microsoft 365, Apple iCloud, Yahoo Mail and Fastmail, and with "any IMAP, Microsoft Exchange or ActiveSync server" (SaneBox). Each account you connect counts toward your plan's limit of one, two or four.