Overview
SimpleLogin is an email alias service built for users who refuse to hand over their real address to every website, newsletter, or app that demands it. Founded independently and later acquired by Proton AG, the tool has since migrated its legal domicile to Switzerland as of January 2024, placing it under some of the world's strongest privacy legislation. The platform generates unique forwarding addresses that relay messages to your actual inbox while keeping the underlying mailbox hidden. You can reply directly through these aliases, and with a paid plan you can even initiate outbound messages from them. The entire stack, web app, browser extensions, and mobile clients, is fully open source, which is a rarity in this category.
The service integrates tightly with the broader Proton ecosystem. Proton Pass premium features are now bundled into SimpleLogin premium plans, and existing Proton subscribers may already have access included. For privacy-conscious crypto users, the ability to pay with Monero, Bitcoin, or Lightning without identity verification makes SimpleLogin a natural fit in a no-KYC toolkit.
Privacy & KYC
SimpleLogin operates at KYC Tier L1: fully anonymous and pseudonymous. No government ID, no phone verification, and no real-name policy is required to create or use an account. The service does require a valid email address to establish forwarding, but this can itself be a privacy-preserving mailbox such as Proton Mail or a self-hosted solution. IP logging status is not explicitly confirmed in public documentation, though the Switzerland domicile and Proton pedigree suggest conservative data handling.
- KYC tier: L1, Anonymous (no personal data collected)
- Tor access: Available, though no dedicated onion domain is advertised
- Jurisdiction: Switzerland (migrated January 2024)
- Email requirement: One alias-capable mailbox needed for forwarding
The platform's core threat model is compartmentalization rather than absolute anonymity. By generating a unique alias per service, users contain the damage of data breaches, reduce cross-site tracking, and can surgically disable addresses that attract spam or leak to marketers.
Supported assets & payments
SimpleLogin accepts an unusually broad range of payment methods for a privacy tool. Users can subscribe using Monero, Bitcoin, Lightning Network, conventional fiat, or even cash. The free tier is genuinely usable, offering up to 10 aliases with unlimited forwards and bandwidth. Premium unlocks unlimited aliases, custom domains, subdomains for on-the-fly creation, PGP encryption, multiple mailboxes, and the ability to send emails from aliases. As of late 2024, new premium subscribers pay $36 annually, while legacy users grandfathered from earlier pricing retain a $30/year rate.
The inclusion of Monero and Lightning is particularly notable for no-KYC users who want to avoid leaving a financial paper trail. Cash payments, while less common, further reinforce the service's commitment to pseudonymous access.
Security & custody
SimpleLogin functions as a forwarding intermediary, not an email host. Your actual messages reside in your chosen mailbox, whether Proton Mail, Gmail, or a self-hosted server, meaning custody of stored email remains with you. The service has completed an independent security audit by Securitum with no critical vulnerabilities identified, and maintains a public bug bounty program. Account security supports TOTP and WebAuthn (FIDO2) for two-factor authentication.
For users who demand encryption in transit, PGP support allows emails to be encrypted with your own public key before forwarding. This pairs especially well with Proton Mail but also works with Thunderbird, GPGTools, and other standard implementations. Because the codebase is fully open source, security researchers and paranoid users alike can inspect the logic rather than trusting a black box with their metadata.
Who it's for, verdict
SimpleLogin is a privacy essential for anyone practicing email compartmentalization, from journalists and activists to ordinary users exhausted by spam and data breaches. Crypto natives who already hold Monero or Bitcoin will appreciate the frictionless, no-KYC payment flow. The Proton integration adds convenience for existing subscribers, though purists may note that centralized ownership introduces a single point of policy failure.
The interface draws mixed sentiment, functional but slightly dated, with some users finding alias management clunkier than competitors. A dedicated desktop application is also absent, though browser extensions and mobile apps cover most workflows. For users blocked by services that reject alias domains, the custom domain and catch-all features offer workarounds. Overall, SimpleLogin earns its place as a foundational tool in the anonymous email category: open source, Swiss-resident, cryptocurrency-friendly, and genuinely usable without surrendering identity.
