Shared Inbox Software Guides
11 independent guides to shared inbox tools — Front, Missive, Hiver, Gorgias, and ecommerce-specific support tools. No sponsored rankings.
Quick picks by situation
Front
Multi-channel inbox (email, SMS, social), CRM records, and workflow automation. Best when you need more than shared email.
See full guide →Missive
Real-time team collaboration on messages, affordable, works across email providers.
See full guide →Hiver
Shared inbox inside Gmail — zero migration, same interface your team already knows.
See full guide →Gorgias
Shopify order data, returns, and tracking visible inside every support conversation.
See full guide →Best Shared Inbox Software in 2026
Front starts at $19/seat. Help Scout at $20/seat. Freshdesk has a free tier up to 10 agents. We tested 8 tools on collision detection and assignment automation.
Read guide →Best Gorgias Alternatives in 2026
Gorgias is excellent for Shopify-native stores, but it gets expensive at scale and lacks depth for B2B or multi-channel businesses.
Read guide →Best Ecommerce Help Desk Software in 2026
Ecommerce support has unique requirements: order lookup, refunds, return labels, and Shopify/WooCommerce integration. Here are the tools built for it.
Read guide →Best Front Alternatives 2026: Lower-Cost Inbox
Front starts at $29/seat/month. Best alternatives: Help Scout ($50/mo flat), Missive ($18/seat), Freshdesk (free). Which fits your team size and budget?
Read guide →Best Missive Alternatives in 2026
Missive blends personal and team email in one interface, but it is not for everyone. Here are the best alternatives depending on your team size and workflow.
Read guide →Best Hiver Alternatives in 2026
Hiver works brilliantly inside Gmail but requires Google Workspace and has a feature ceiling. Here are the best alternatives for teams that need more.
Read guide →Shared Inbox vs Help Desk: Which Is Right for You?
Shared inbox and help desk software solve different problems. This guide explains the key differences and which to choose based on team size
Read guide →Front Pricing 2026: Starter, Growth, Scale, Premier
Front Starter is $19/seat/mo (2-seat minimum). Growth $59, Scale $99, Premier $229. Expensive for what you get versus Help Scout.
Read guide →Front Review 2026: Shared Inbox for Teams That Live in Email
Front turns shared email into a collaborative workspace with assignments, internal comments, and CRM context. Strong for account teams, weaker for support.
Read guide →Hiver Review 2026: Shared Inbox Inside Gmail
Hiver adds shared inbox and ticketing to Gmail for Google Workspace teams. Zero learning curve. Weak reporting and knowledge base. Costs more than Help Scout.
Read guide →Missive Review 2026: What 500+ Users Actually Say
An independent look at Missive's pricing, features, and real user complaints, and how it compares to Front and Help Scout, based on 500+ verified reviews.
Read guide →How we evaluate shared inbox software
Shared inbox tools range from basic email collaboration to full multi-channel platforms with CRM features. We evaluate each tool for its stated use case — a simple shared inbox tool is not penalised for lacking CRM features if that is not what it was built for.
Our criteria: direct trials of the collaboration and routing flows, pricing verified from vendor sites, and review analysis from G2 and Capterra. For ecommerce tools, we test whether order data is natively available inside each conversation or requires an external lookup.
Shared inbox vs help desk: when to upgrade
A shared inbox — tools like Front, Missive, or Hiver — gives your team a single place to handle incoming email without forwarding chains or BCC hacks. That solves the "who's responding to this?" problem and it does so for a price most small teams can justify: Missive starts at $14/user/month, Hiver's Lite plan is $15/user/month, and Front's Starter plan runs $19/user/month. For a team of 3–10 people handling email support, a shared inbox is usually the right answer.
The tipping point toward a help desk happens when you need things a shared inbox was not designed for: SLA tracking with automatic escalation, a customer-facing self-service portal, ticket merging and splitting across channels, or detailed agent performance reporting. Freshdesk starts at $15/agent/month (free for up to 10 agents) and Zendesk at $19/agent/month — both include the workflow automation that shared inboxes deliberately keep simple. The question to ask is whether you are spending more time routing and chasing conversations than actually resolving them; if yes, a help desk's automation pays for itself quickly.
There is also a hybrid path. Hiver sits inside Gmail and offers escalation to "tickets" alongside its shared inbox features — you can start on the Lite plan and add SLA and analytics on the Pro plan at $39/user/month. This means you don't have to migrate off Gmail to get basic help desk features. For teams under 15 people who don't want to change their email client, Hiver is the cleanest upgrade path between shared inbox and help desk.
Best shared inbox for Gmail teams
Hiver is the most natural fit for Gmail teams because it adds shared inbox features directly inside the Gmail interface — no new tab, no migration, no training. Agents see assigned conversations, leave internal notes, and check inbox status without leaving Gmail. The Lite plan ($15/user/month) covers the basics for most small teams. The Pro plan ($39/user/month) adds SLA management, analytics dashboards, and multi-channel support (chat and voice). For a team that is heavily invested in Google Workspace, Hiver avoids the switching cost of moving to a separate tool.
Missive also works well with Gmail but operates as a standalone app rather than a Gmail extension. This means a slightly steeper learning curve, but it gives you more flexibility: you can manage multiple email addresses, WhatsApp, and SMS from a single inbox. Pricing starts at $14/user/month for the Starter plan. Teams that need to handle more than just email will find Missive's multi-channel approach worth the extra step of leaving Gmail.
Front's Gmail integration is solid but Front is better understood as a platform than a shared inbox overlay. It connects to email, SMS, social, and live chat and includes CRM-style contact records. The Starter plan at $19/user/month covers shared email well, but the features that differentiate Front from simpler tools — workflow automation, analytics, CSAT surveys — are on the Growth plan at $59/user/month. If your team is Gmail-first but expects to grow into multi-channel support, Front scales better than Hiver without requiring a full platform migration later.