Questions

It depends on the distance between your two cities: about an hour within a city, a few hours across a country, and up to a day and a few hours to the other side of the world. No letter takes more than two days. Some arrive a little early or late, and you’ll see “arriving tomorrow”, never a countdown.

Yes. Writing, replying and receiving letters are free, and there are no ads. Writing to someone new takes a stamp; you start with five and collect more as you go.

Adults, 18 and over. Age is checked at sign-up and with Google Play’s age signals. Hasty isn’t available in the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil or Indonesia yet, where the law asks for stronger age checks than we have today.

No. Hasty is for making friends online, not dating: friendship by letter. Romance isn’t one of the options.

No. Hasty has no read receipts and no typing indicators. When your letter arrives, you see that it was delivered, never whether it has been read, so nobody is ever left on read. Write back when you’re ready.

It happens, as with real post: people get busy. Hasty doesn’t show when someone was last online, and nobody is told off for taking their time. You can keep writing to others, or send a lost letter to anyone.

That’s the idea. There’s no feed to scroll, no likes or follower counts, no ads, and no pressure to answer straight away. Letters take time, so there’s nothing to keep up with.

No. People see the city you write from, picked from a list, and the name you choose. A pen name is fine.

A letter written to anyone. It goes into a pile, and every so often one finds its way to each person. If you don’t answer within five days it goes back to the pile, with its stamp, for someone else to find.

A like-for-like swap: put in a stamp or a postcard, and one of the same kind comes back from another collector. You don’t see which until it arrives. Up to five swaps a week.

While Hasty is new, some penpals are house penpals: profiles run by Hasty, whose letters are written automatically. They carry a “House penpal” tag, and they only come up when there isn’t a real person who fits what you’re looking for.

Hasty is adults-only, checks every letter before delivery, holds letters that look like scams or cross the line, and stops anyone who’s flagged from writing. You only share your city, and photos stay hidden until you choose to see them.

Yes, up to three per letter. The person receiving it decides whether to see them.

Hasty is coming to Android first, on Google Play. There’s no iPhone version yet.

In the app, Profile → Account → Delete my account. Or on the web at heyhasty.com/delete-account.

Artifx SRL, a small company in Romania. Write to us at hello@heyhasty.com.