Head to head

inrelay vs Hiver

A help desk that lives inside Gmail against a dedicated app with approval-gated AI — compared straight, losses included.

The case for Hiver

Choose Hiver if the team genuinely wants to stay inside Gmail’s interface — Hiver turns the inbox agents already live in into a help desk with near-zero onboarding.

The case for inrelay

Choose inrelay for a purpose-built Mac and Windows app with AI drafting on every reply, human approval before anything sends, and one flat price instead of per-seat billing.

The inrelay vs Hiver decision is really a decision about where support should live. Hiver’s bet is that it should live where email already is; ours is that a team inbox deserves its own app. Below: the feature matrix with gaps on both sides, where each product honestly wins, and the pricing math at three and eight people. Every claim is dated; the rest of the family lives at /compare.

01 · The matrix

Feature by feature.

Every row verifiable. Gaps are printed as gaps — ours included.

Hiverinrelay
Platform
Dedicated desktop appruns inside Gmail / Outlook; Omni is web
Mobile app
Channels
Email
Live chat
WhatsAppin development
Instagram DM—in development
SMSvoice via Aircall onlyin development
TikTok Shop—in development
Support toolkit
Knowledge baseyes, with custom domains
CSAT surveys
Collision detection
SLA rulesin development
Analytics dashboardsincluded on Team
AI
AI drafting
Human approval before AI sendsdrafting is human-sent; AI Agents answer autonomouslyrequired by default; auto mode is per-workspace opt-in
Pricing shape
Modelper seat, 2-seat minimumflat plans; teammates are never priced

Hiver features and pricing as of August 2026. Hiver’s pricing page renders in-app; verify current numbers on hiverhq.com before deciding.

02 · Their wins

Where Hiver is stronger

A comparison that never loses a category is an ad. Hiver wins these, genuinely:

  • Zero learning curve for Gmail teams. Hiver installs into the inbox agents already use all day. Adoption is nearly instant — there is no new app to learn, and that matters for teams that have failed rollouts before.
  • Live channel breadth today. WhatsApp is a shipping channel in Hiver’s omnichannel inbox, and voice runs through its Aircall integration. Our social channels and SMS are still in development — if you need WhatsApp this quarter, Hiver has it and we do not.
  • SLAs shipped, dashboards mature. Business-hours SLA enforcement and custom dashboards are live in Hiver now. inrelay’s SLA rules are still in development — a team that manages by response-time targets today should weigh that heavily — and while inrelay’s analytics ship on the Team plan, Hiver’s dashboards are the more mature of the two.
  • Years of maturity. Hiver has a decade of edge cases behind it and consistently strong review scores. inrelay is the younger product; that trade is real.

One correction to a common shorthand: Hiver is not “Gmail-only.” It was born as a Chrome-extension layer on Google Workspace, but it now supports Outlook and offers a standalone workspace, Hiver Omni. The fair description is Gmail-native first, with the other surfaces added later.

03 · Our wins

Where inrelay is stronger

An inbox extension inherits its host’s ceiling. A dedicated app sets its own.

  • A real desktop app. inrelay ships a dedicated Mac and Windows app built for support work — not a layer inside someone else’s inbox. Reviewers of Gmail-extension help desks repeatedly report lag and glitches at high email volume; an app that owns its own surface doesn’t fight its host.
  • AI on every reply, gated by a human. The agent drafts in your voice on every conversation, and approval before send is the default — auto mode exists only as a per-workspace opt-in. Hiver’s equivalent splits between human-sent drafting and autonomous AI Agents.
  • Flat pricing where teammates are never priced. Hiver bills per seat with a 2-seat minimum, seats sold in blocks, and a 10-user cap on its Growth tier — the eleventh person forces an upgrade to Pro. inrelay is flat per plan: headcount never touches the bill.
  • No Gmail lock-in. Hiver’s value dissolves if the org ever leaves Google Workspace. inrelay connects to your address wherever it lives, and your data exports the day you want to go.
04 · The bill

Pricing side by side.

Per-seat math at three and at eight people, against one flat number.

Hiver GrowthHiver Proinrelay
Model$25/user/mo annual ($35 monthly)$55/user/mo annualflat per account
Seat rules2-seat min, caps at 10 users2-seat minteammates are never priced
3-person team$75/mo$165/mo$79 Team, flat — AI included
8-person team$200/mo$440/mo$79 Team, flat
AIbundled; advanced AI gated to upper tiersbundledincluded on every plan — a reply budget you set
Free tieryes (limits unpublished)—yes — the Solo plan, free forever, small AI reply budget

Hiver prices as of August 2026, annual billing, triangulated from third-party trackers — hiverhq.com renders pricing in-app, so confirm there. Which AI features land on which Hiver tier has shifted between sources; check the live page. inrelay plans: Free, $19 Solo, $79 Team, $149+ Studio — details at /pricing.

The shape matters more than the totals. Hiver’s bill also sits on top of what you already pay for Google Workspace, and it grows with every hire and every seat block. inrelay’s grows only when you choose a bigger plan.

05 · Moving

Migrating from Hiver

Leaving Hiver is gentler than leaving most help desks, with one sharp edge.

Your email survives automatically

Because Hiver is a layer on Gmail, the mail itself never left Google. Connect the same address to inrelay and your history stays where it always was.

Export the Hiver layer before you cancel

Assignments, notes, tags, analytics and the Hiver knowledge base are Hiver data — and on cancellation Hiver permanently deletes them for the whole team. Use Admin Panel → Settings → Export data first, then cancel.

Rebuild the knowledge base

KB articles don’t transfer automatically; plan an afternoon to move them into inrelay’s knowledge base, which supports custom domains.

Also weighing alternatives more broadly? The Hiver alternatives roundup reviews the full field, and the Help Scout and Zendesk head-to-heads cover the adjacent shortlists.

Start today

Keep Gmail. Leave the extension.

Connect your address in minutes, free — your mail stays yours either way.

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Questions, answered.

Is Hiver Gmail-only?
No. Hiver’s core product runs inside Gmail as an extension on Google Workspace, but it also supports Outlook and offers a standalone workspace called Hiver Omni. Its center of gravity is still the Gmail interface, which is exactly what its fans want.
Can we keep using Gmail if we switch to inrelay?
Yes. inrelay connects to your existing address — Gmail included — and the underlying mailbox stays yours. The team works from the inrelay desktop and mobile apps instead of a browser extension.
Does inrelay have SLAs and analytics like Hiver?
SLA rules, not yet — they’re in development, and Hiver ships SLA enforcement today; if your team runs on response-time targets right now, that is a genuine reason to pick Hiver. Analytics ship on inrelay’s Team plan, though Hiver’s custom dashboards are more mature.
What happens to our data if we cancel Hiver?
Hiver’s help docs state that on account deletion all Hiver data — users, shared inboxes, notes and tags metadata, and the knowledge base — is permanently deleted for all team members. Your emails survive in Gmail. Export the Hiver layer before cancelling.

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