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Knock vs Cloaked, honestly

Cloaked compartmentalizes your identity: one alias per service, a kill switch when one leaks. Knock prices first contact: anyone may know your address, reaching you takes a refundable hold, like a hotel deposit. One defends before the leak, the other keeps defending after it.

Last updated August 2026

9 min read

Two different layers: rotation and pricing

Cloaked is genuinely good at what it does. Rotation is the right answer to the question "how do I stop giving my real address to every form on the internet?" Every service gets its own alias, and when one starts leaking you delete it and move on.

Knock answers a different question: "my address is already out there, so how do I make reaching me cost something?" Instead of hiding the address, Knock puts a refundable hold in front of it. Legitimate senders get their money back and never pay again. Bulk senders either skip you or pay you.

Feature by feature

Knock and Cloaked compared feature by feature
Capability	Knock	Cloaked
Stops unknown-sender cold email	YesEconomic gate on first contact.	NoAn alias delivers everything sent to it.
Survives your address leaking or being resold	YesStrangers still meet the gate.	PartialKill the alias, change nothing else.
Tells you who leaked you	ComingPer-service sub-addresses are on our roadmap.	YesOne alias per service makes the source obvious.
Phone number protection	NoEmail only today.	YesMasked numbers are part of the product.
You earn from unwanted mail	YesClaimed deposits, about 90 percent to you.	NoUnwanted mail is blocked, not billed.
Real senders pay nothing	YesRelease refunds in full, allowlisted forever.	YesAliases are free to write to.
Works inside your existing inbox	YesForwards to Gmail, Workspace, iCloud.	YesAliases forward to your real mailbox.
AI agents can pay to reach you	Yesx402 and a public agent API.	NoNot part of its model.
Pricing	NoteFree during beta, the deposit model funds itself.	NotePaid subscription.

When Cloaked is the right tool

You sign up for a lot of services and want strict hygiene, a fresh identity per account rather than one address reused everywhere.
You need phone masking as well as email, which Knock does not offer today.
You want to map who resells your data. Per-service aliases make the leaker obvious the moment the first unwanted message arrives.

When Knock is the right tool

Your address is already public, on a website, in a filing, in a dataset somebody sold. Rotation cannot un-publish it.
Strangers and AI agents initiate contact with you, and you want a path that is open but priced rather than closed.
You want silence by default with a paid way through, and you would rather be paid than merely spared when the message turns out to be junk.

Or use both

The layers compose. Rotate aliases for the forms you fill in, and publish a Knock address for the world that already has your details.

Questions people ask

Is Knock an alias service?

No. Knock gives you one public address and prices first contact through it. Alias tools give you many disposable addresses and hide the real one. The two solve different halves of the problem, and they work fine side by side.

What happens if my Knock address leaks?

Nothing much. The address is meant to be public. A stranger who finds it still has to post a refundable hold before the message reaches you, so a leaked list is worth very little to the people who buy those lists.

Does a real person pay?

Almost never. The hold is refundable, like a hotel deposit. Release it and the money goes back in full, and that sender knocks free forever after. You only keep a deposit when you judge the message unsolicited, and roughly 90 percent of a claimed deposit goes to you.

Try the priced door

Get your Knock address See how it works

Cloaked is a trademark of its owner. Comparison reflects public information as of August 2026; corrections welcome at legal@knock.email.