Use case
Household services
One shared inbox for utilities, deliveries, and home services — so the bills don't depend on whichever inbox they happened to land in.
Best for
Households where utilities and home admin currently sit in one person's personal inbox.
The workflow
How it runs end to end
- 01 Create a household alias (e.g. household@yourdomain)
- 02 Subscribe utilities, councils, and deliveries to that alias
- 03 Route to both partners — and any flatmates who share the bills
- 04 Use a virtual number for tradespeople so personal mobiles stay private
- 05 Hand the inbox cleanly to a new partner or housemate when life changes
Where household admin currently lives
In most homes, the gas bill, the council tax, the boiler’s annual service reminder, and the parcel delivery notifications all live in one person’s personal inbox — usually whoever signed up first. The other person finds out when something needs paying or has gone wrong.
It’s a fragile arrangement. Holidays, illness, separations, and house-shares all expose the same flaw: the information was never collective, just routed to one person who sometimes shared it.
A household-shaped inbox
A shared household alias — household@thesmiths.example or 45-acacia-avenue@yourdomain — given to every utility, every council letter, every recurring service. Everyone with a stake in the household sees what’s arrived, who’s paid, and what’s outstanding.
For one-off home services — the boiler engineer, the plumber, the cleaner — a virtual phone number tied to the household lets you give out a working number without anyone giving up their personal mobile. When the engineer’s job is done, the number stops being relevant; if a different engineer comes next year, they get the same number.
When households change
The hidden value of routing through aliases shows up when life changes:
- A flatmate moves out. You remove them from the routing in seconds; their access stops; they don’t keep getting copies of your gas bill.
- A new partner moves in. They’re added to the routing without you having to “give them the password” to anything.
- You move house. The alias and number come with you. You don’t have to change your contact details with twenty-five providers.
How most households set up
Start with a single household alias for everything that arrives in the post or the inbox. Add a virtual number for tradespeople and home services. Give both to your council, your utilities, your insurance, and the local trades you trust. Adjust the routing whenever the people in the house change.