What Front does best, and who should stay
A collaborative inbox where a team drafts, comments on and assigns replies together in real time. It connects your mailbox rather than asking you to forward it, and it has a desktop app for Mac and Windows. Above Starter, each plan adds:
- Professional, $65 per seat: Up to 50 seats, omnichannel, macros and 20 rules, 5 workspaces, SSO.
- Enterprise, $105: Unlimited rules and custom roles, with Copilot, Smart QA and Smart CSAT included. Annual billing only.
A team that drafts together across several channels, or has grown past 10 people, is who those plans are for, and for that team Front is doing its job. Every rung and the AI add-ons are on Front pricing.
Where Front’s pricing pinches
Starter caps the team at 10 seats and one channel type, and leaves out macros, advanced analytics, extra workspaces and SSO.
The step up is steep. Professional is $65 a seat against Starter’s $25, 2.6 times as much, so a team of 3 goes from $900 a year to $2,340. The seat cap forces the move whether you want the features or not: 10 people on Starter pay $3,000 a year, and a team of 11 cannot buy Starter at all, so it pays $8,580 on Professional.
Why older articles quote other plans. Front replaced its Starter $19, Growth $59 and Scale $99 line-up with Starter, Professional and Enterprise in 2026.
The alternatives, ranked for small teams
Per seat, per month, on yearly billing.
| Tool | From | Your mailbox | Mac app | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front (what you have) | $25 Starter | Connects your mailbox, syncs it to their cloud | Electron | Several people draft together across channels. |
| 1. Missive | $14 Starter | Connects your mailbox over IMAP, syncs to their cloud | Electron | You want Front’s shape for less. |
| 2. Hiver | $25 Growth | Works inside Gmail | Web only | Your team lives in Gmail. |
| 3. Help Scout | $25 Standard | Forwards your address into their inbox | Web only | You want a shared inbox built for support. |
| 4. Zoho Desk | $7 Express | Forwards your address into their inbox | Web only | You want tickets at the lowest price. |
| 5. Zendesk | $19 Support Team | Forwards your address into their inbox | Web only | You need chat, messaging and phone (Suite Team and up). |
| 6. Moorline | $9 a month | Reads it over IMAP, replies from your address | Native | You are one person on a Mac. |
What a year costs
| Plan, per year | 1 person | 3 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| Missive Starter | $168 | $504 | Not offered |
| Zoho Desk Standard | $168 | $504 | $1,680 |
| Missive Productive | $288 | $864 | $2,880 |
| Front Starter | $300 | $900 | $3,000 |
| Hiver Growth | Not offered | $900 | $3,000 |
| Help Scout Standard | $300 | $900 | $3,000 |
| Zendesk Suite Team | $660 | $1,980 | $6,600 |
| Front Professional | $780 | $2,340 | $7,800 |
For 3 people, Missive Productive is $864 a year against $900 for Front Starter and $2,340 for Front Professional. “Not offered” means the plan’s seat limits rule that team size out.
Seats only, on yearly billing. Moorline is not in the table because it has no seats to multiply: one person, $9 a month, $108 over a year.
Each alternative, and who should pick it
1. Missive: the closest like-for-like
Best at: A shared inbox and team chat in one app, built around drafting replies collaboratively. Like Front, it connects your existing mailbox rather than asking you to forward it, and it ships an Electron desktop app for Mac and Windows. Productive, at $24, covers up to 50 users with rules, integrations, API access and basic analytics, and Business, at $36, has no user limit and adds SAML single sign-on.
The catch: Starter caps you at 5 users and leaves out rules, integrations and API access, which is most of what people upgrade for. AI is billed separately. AI runs on Missive credits (the model provider’s price plus 25%) or on your own API key. Productive and Business start with $5 of credits. If the channel you need beyond email is on Front Professional’s list, check that Missive covers it before you move.
Pick it if your team uses Front for shared email and drafting together, and the price is the problem. The two ladders are set side by side in Missive vs Front.
2. Hiver: for teams that live in Gmail
Best at: Meeting a Gmail team where it already works. Growth, at $25 a user, puts a shared inbox inside Gmail or Hiver’s own web app, with AI agents, a copilot and rules included. Pro, at $55, adds SLAs, CSAT, a customer portal and an API.
The catch: Growth has no customer portal, no SLAs, no CSAT and no API access. Every plan has a minimum of 2 users, and there is no desktop app. Web only: a Chrome extension for Gmail, or the Hiver web app. Hiver replaced its earlier plan line-up with Growth, Pro and Elite, and the free plan left its pricing page in September 2026.
Pick it if your team runs on Google Workspace and would rather work in Gmail than open another inbox.
3. Help Scout: a shared inbox built for support
Best at: A shared inbox for support teams who want their replies to look like ordinary email rather than tickets. Standard covers up to 25 users, and a free plan with no end date covers the smallest teams. Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools.
The catch: Your support address is forwarded into Help Scout’s inbox rather than connected, and it is web only. Standard has no AI drafts or summaries, basic workflows only, no round robin and no Salesforce, Jira or HubSpot integration. AI is billed by result. AI Answers: $0.75 per resolution, with a monthly spending cap available.
Pick it if Front is really your support desk rather than your team’s whole mail, and you would like it to read like email. The plan-by-plan view is in Help Scout vs Front.
4. Zoho Desk: if what you want is tickets
Best at: A conventional ticketing help desk, priced well below its rivals and bundled into an unusually wide suite of business software. Standard, at $14, includes live chat and a knowledge base with no user limit, and the free plan has no end date. Free for up to 3 users on one email channel.
The catch: It is a ticketing help desk, not a collaborative inbox, and it wants your address forwarded into its inbox. It is web only. Express caps you at 5 users and a single workflow rule, and leaves out the knowledge base, live chat and extra channels that the Standard plan at $14 adds. Multi-department routing starts at Professional, $23.
Pick it if the team has outgrown a shared inbox and wants tickets, at the lowest seat price on this page.
5. Zendesk: if Professional was for the channels
Best at: A full customer-service platform: ticketing, routing, SLAs, reporting, voice, and a workforce to run it. Suite Team, at $55 per agent against Front Professional’s $65, lists messaging and live chat, AI agents, telephony and omnichannel routing.
The catch: It is a ticketing platform, so drafting together the Front way is not what it is built around. Your address is forwarded into its inbox, it is web only, and there is no free plan. Support Team has no messaging or live chat, no AI agents, no telephony, no SLAs and a single ticket form. AI is metered past an allowance. AI resolutions past the included ones: $1.50 each committed, $2.00 pay as you go.
Pick it if the reason you looked at Professional was more channels, and you are ready to work in tickets.
6. Moorline: only if the team is one person
Best at: One person answering their own customers on a Mac, in a native app rather than Electron. It reads the mailbox you already have (Gmail or Google Workspace, iCloud, Fastmail, Zoho Mail or another IMAP host), replies from your own address, and keeps each customer on a list until the work is handled and they have been told. Snippets and optional read-only Stripe context come with it, at $9 a month flat with no per-resolution charge.
The catch: It is for one person and nothing else: no seats, no shared inbox, no assignment and no chat widget. It does not connect to Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com mail, it needs macOS 15 or later, and there is no free plan or trial, only a 30-day refund.
Pick it if you have been paying for a Front seat with no one to share it with. The tradeoff is set out in the Front alternative for one person.
Questions people ask
What is the best alternative to Front?
For most small teams, Missive. It is also a collaborative inbox that connects your own mailbox and ships an Electron desktop app, and Productive at $24 per user covers up to 50 users with rules and integrations, against $25 for Front Starter. Hiver suits a team that works inside Gmail, and Help Scout a support team that wants a shared inbox built for support.
Is Missive cheaper than Front?
Yes, at each rung on yearly billing. Missive Starter is $14 against Front Starter at $25, and Missive Productive $24 against Front Professional at $65. For a team of 3 that is $864 a year against $2,340. Front Professional adds omnichannel, macros and SSO; Missive puts single sign-on on Business at $36.
Is there a free alternative to Front?
Front's own offer is a trial: 14 days with Professional features, no card needed. No free plan. Help Scout and Zoho Desk both have free plans with no end date, though both ask you to forward your address into their inbox rather than connecting your mailbox the way Front does. Help Scout: Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools. Zoho Desk: Free for up to 3 users on one email channel.
How many users can Front Starter have?
Up to 10, working in one channel type, without macros, advanced analytics, extra workspaces or SSO. A team that grows past 10 moves to Professional at $65 per seat on yearly billing, for up to 50.
Does Front have a desktop app for Mac?
Yes, an Electron app for Mac and Windows, which is the web interface in a window. Missive's desktop app is Electron as well. Help Scout, Zendesk, Zoho Desk and Hiver are web only. Moorline is a native Mac app, but for one person only.
Prices read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 27 September 2026, including Front’s.