Compared on the things that actually decide it: seat rules, where the helpdesk lives, and what happens to the bill as the team grows.
Teams look for Hiver alternatives mainly because of the seat ladder: per-seat pricing with a two-seat minimum, seats sold in blocks, and a 10-user cap on the Growth plan — all stacked on top of Google Workspace fees. The best Hiver alternative depends on whether support should stay inside Gmail or move to a standalone app.
Fair is fair: Hiver is still the fastest way to give a Gmail team a real shared inbox — G2 has it at 4.6 across more than a thousand reviews, and the people who stay always cite the same thing: nobody had to learn a new tool. This page is for the teams the seat math, the in-Gmail ceilings, or a missing channel finally pushed out — with eleven real options, reviewed on the same card, ours included.
One accuracy note before the list. Hiver gets shorthanded as “Gmail-only”, and that’s no longer true: it was born as a Chrome-extension layer on Google Workspace, but it now supports Outlook and offers a standalone workspace called Hiver Omni. The honest description is Gmail-native and extension-first — which is exactly the trade this whole page turns on.
Hiver pricing and features as of August 2026. Hiver renders pricing in-app, and the plan numbers on this page are triangulated from third-party trackers — verify against the live page before budgeting.
Eleven tools, one row each. Detail cards below.
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Pricing shape | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| inrelay | small teams, human-approved AI | free / $19 | flat per plan | own desktop app |
| Front | shared inbox at scale | per seat | per seat | own app |
| Help Scout | calm email-first support | free / $25/user | per seat | own web app |
| Freshdesk | free tier to start | free plan | per agent | own web app |
| Zendesk | process-heavy scale | $19/agent | per agent + per AI resolution | own web app |
| Gmelius | automation inside Gmail | per user | per user | your Gmail inbox |
| Drag | kanban boards in Gmail | per user | per user | your Gmail inbox |
| Missive | chat + inbox in one | per user | per user | own app |
| Keeping | simplest Gmail helpdesk | per user | per user | your Gmail inbox |
| HelpSpot | classic unfussy helpdesk | per agent | per agent | web / self-hosted |
| Zoho TeamInbox | Zoho-suite households | per user, low | per user | own web app |
Prices as of August 2026, monthly billing unless noted. Full sourcing in the per-tool sections.
Two real strengths, one honest con, the price shape. inrelay gets no extra column inches.
For small teams leaving the inbox behind: every channel in one queue, AI drafting every reply, a human approving every send.
Free · Solo $19 · Team $79 · Studio $149+ — flat
02 · Best shared inbox at scale
The polished standalone shared inbox teams graduate to when the extension era ends.
Per-seat pricing
03 · Best for calm email support
The gentlest learning curve among standalone help desks, with a first-class knowledge base.
Free plan; from $25/user
04 · Best free starting point
A capable classic helpdesk whose free tier genuinely works for a small queue.
Free plan; paid per agent
05 · Best for process at scale
The category’s heavyweight: routing, SLAs and reporting depth nothing here matches.
From $19/agent; AI $1.50–2.00/resolution
06 · Closest like-for-like
The nearest Hiver analogue: shared inboxes, automation and boards, still inside Gmail.
Per-user pricing
07 · Best boards-in-Gmail
Turns Gmail into kanban boards — shared inboxes managed visually, at a budget-friendly price.
Per-user pricing
08 · Best chat + inbox in one
Team chat and shared inbox in one standalone app — conversations about email happen next to the email.
Per-user pricing
09 · Simplest step up from Gmail
The smallest possible helpdesk: assignments, statuses and metrics added to Gmail, nothing more.
Per-user pricing
10 · Best classic helpdesk
A long-running, unfussy email helpdesk — with a self-hosted option for teams that want the data at home.
Per-agent pricing
11 · Best inside the Zoho suite
A shared inbox priced low, and the obvious pick if the business already runs on Zoho.
Per-user, among the lowest priced
The same team at three sizes — because Hiver bills seats, headcount is the comparison that matters.
| Team size | Hiver Growth ($25–35/user) | Hiver Pro ($55–65/user) | inrelay flat |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 people | $75–105/mo | $165–195/mo | $79 Team, flat |
| 8 people | $200–280/mo | $440–520/mo | $79 Team, flat |
| 15 people | — capped at 10 users | $825–975/mo | $79 Team, still flat |
As of August 2026. Ranges are annual vs monthly billing; Hiver’s two-seat minimum and block-of-five seat steps can round small teams up, and every Hiver seat sits on top of a paid Google Workspace seat. Hiver renders pricing in-app — verify there. inrelay column per pricing; Team is one flat price for the whole team — teammates are never priced.
Admin Panel → Settings → Export data, self-serve. This matters more than with most tools: on account deletion Hiver permanently deletes users, shared inboxes, notes, tags and your Hiver Knowledge Base — for the whole team. Export first, cancel second.
The upside of Gmail-native: your emails never left Gmail, so message history survives the switch automatically. Google’s own export covers the mail; what you lose is the layer on top — assignments, notes, tags and analytics.
Tags and assignment habits are workflow, and they won’t import as workflow anywhere. Treat the move as a prune: most teams find half their tags existed to work around the inbox, and start cleaner on a dedicated email channel.
Weighing us specifically? The inrelay vs Hiver head-to-head has the full matrix — including where Hiver wins.
One flat Team price of $79/mo, teammates never priced, AI drafts a human approves — free to try with your own inbox.
Give your customers faster answers and your team their evenings back.
Desktop and mobile. Free for solo.