Front alternatives in 2026: 8 tools for shared email and customer support

Your Front bill grows with every seat and every AI conversation. Professional is $65 a seat on annual billing, Copilot adds $20 a seat and Autopilot is billed per conversation on top.

Below are 8 Front alternatives for teams of 5 to 30, split by the job Front does: help desk or team email. Deskwoot is ours and fits only the help desk half, so it comes first, downsides included.

Front alternatives: the short answer

If Front is your help desk:

• Deskwoot (ours) for AI included at a few dollars per agent, if a shorter integration list is fine
• Zendesk or Freshdesk if you need SLA policies, light agents or day passes and room to add paid modules later
• Zoho Desk for low seat prices with WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger
• Trengo for teams of 10 or more who live on WhatsApp

If Front is your team email app:

• Missive for the closest feel at a lower seat price, from $14 per user a month
• Hiver if your team should stay inside Gmail
• Help Scout if most of that email is customer support and you want a free plan to start

Stay on Front if your people run their own email, calendar and client threads in it, or if you are on Enterprise and use its QA and CSAT tools every week.

Monthly bill: 15 agents on annual billing, with AI as the cost section below works it out. Prices come from each vendor's own pricing page, in the vendor's currency, checked on October 28, 2026.

First question: what do you use Front for?

Front covers both jobs, so teams drift into using it both ways. Its pricing page lists individual inboxes, a calendar and meeting scheduling next to ticketing, a knowledge base and reports on CSAT and SLAs.

Look at your last month and see which pattern fits.

As a support help desk

Front holds your support address and maybe chat, SMS or WhatsApp. Agents work a queue, and you report on response times and CSAT.

You have looked at Autopilot or another AI agent for the repeat questions. Most people who write in are customers you have never met.

A replacement needs routing, statuses, SLA timers, a help center, an AI agent and messaging channels. Personal inboxes don't matter here.

As a team email app

People outside support open Front every day: sales, account managers, operations. Teammates bring their own mailbox into it.

Most threads are with clients or partners you know by name. Internal comments matter more than a queue, nobody tracks first response time, and almost everything is email.

A replacement needs a fast email client with shared inboxes, assignment, comments and shared drafts. Ticket statuses, SLA timers and AI agents matter much less.

If you do both

Split the decision: move the support part and leave team email where it is, or the other way around. Two tools can still cost less than one Front bill.

Why teams look elsewhere

Seat price and seat limits

Front's pricing page, checked October 28, 2026, lists 3 plans per seat a month on annual billing:

• Starter: $25 for up to 10 seats ($35 monthly)
• Professional: $65 for up to 50 seats ($85 monthly)
• Enterprise: $105 with no cap listed, sold annually only

There is no free plan, only a 14 day trial without a card.

Two rules push small teams up a plan sooner than they expect:

• Starter takes one channel type (email, chat or SMS), so adding WhatsApp or a second channel type means Professional.
• Front's FAQ says plans apply to the whole organization, so you cannot keep 3 people on Professional and the rest on Starter.

For 10 agents, that move takes the seat bill from $250 to $650 a month.

AI sold as extras

Front sells its AI in two parts:

• Copilot: $20 per seat a month on Starter and Professional; Enterprise includes it.
• Autopilot, Front's AI agent: a paid extra on every plan, from $0.05 per conversation. For the actual rate, the page sends you to sales.

Compose, Translate and Summarize are each capped at 200 uses per teammate per day.

How each tool counts AI

Every vendor counts AI differently, and the unit moves your bill more than the headline price does:

Per resolution feels fairer, and while your AI is weak it is. Once the AI closes a lot, the higher unit price takes over: 300 resolutions a month cost $225 on Help Scout's AI Answers.

Per conversation is cheaper per unit but charges for every attempt.

Channel fees such as WhatsApp

Front's native WhatsApp channel is a paid extra on Professional and Enterprise, billed as Meta's WhatsApp costs plus a 20% admin fee. Those plans also list WhatsApp through Twilio or Number AI.

Meta's pricing page gives each business phone number 1,000 free service messages a month and charges per message after that, with rates set by country.

Templates you send first, such as order updates or reminders, are charged too, and Front's 20% applies on top. So the fee hurts most when you send notifications over WhatsApp or answer well past 1,000 messages a month per number.

What the other pricing pages say about WhatsApp fees:

• Trengo states the same 1,000 free messages and passes on Meta's charge after that.
• Zendesk says additional fees apply without naming an amount.
• Help Scout, Missive and Zoho Desk show no WhatsApp fee.

If Front is your help desk

Deskwoot (we make it), with downsides

Deskwoot is ours. It is a help desk for customer conversations: each email becomes a conversation that one agent owns, with private notes, threading and merging.

Pick something else if Front runs your team's own email, or if you need Instagram or Messenger today, SLAs on a mid plan or a deep app marketplace.

All 11 channels share one inbox. WhatsApp and SMS run on your own Meta and Twilio accounts, at their cost.

Fynn answers on all except phone calls, handing over with a short note on the issue, order, mood and next step.

For 15 agents, the cost table below puts the bill at $181 a month on Business. Our public pricing page lists these seat prices per agent a month on annual billing, with no agent cap:

• Startup: $3.20
• Business: $6.40
• Enterprise: $9.60

Copilot and Fynn, the AI agent, come with every paid plan, and Copilot has no seat fee. Paid plans include AI conversations each month, and each one beyond that costs extra:

• Startup: 50 included, then $0.07 each
• Business: 100, then $0.05 each
• Enterprise: 300, then $0.03 each

A conversation counts once a month as soon as Fynn or Copilot helps with it, solved or not. A transcribed voice message counts too.

The downsides, plainly:

• There is no Front importer. From Front you bring contacts by CSV, and a conversations CSV makes one conversation with only its first message per row.
• Gmail connects over IMAP with an app password, from Startup (setup guide).
• SLA policies and the REST API are Enterprise only.
• Facebook Messenger, Instagram and TikTok DMs are not live.
• The integration list has 19 entries, so check yours is on it.

Our pages on Zendesk and Freshdesk compare those two with Deskwoot in more depth.

The next step is one test with your own mail: start the 7 day trial (Enterprise, no card, up to 30 seats including yours) and forward a copy of your support address while Front keeps running. The last section has the steps.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a classic ticketing help desk. Its pricing page, checked October 28, 2026, lists per agent a month on annual billing:

• Growth: $19 ($23 monthly)
• Pro: $55 ($66)
• Enterprise: $89 ($107)

The trial gives you Enterprise for 14 days. Day passes cost $2, $7 or $12 depending on the plan, handy when finance or warehouse people answer a few tickets a week.

Every plan includes Freddy AI Agent with 500 free sessions, once per account; after that, sessions cost $49 per 100. Freddy Copilot ($29 per agent a month) and multiple SLA policies come only on Pro and Enterprise.

The limits: the Freshdesk plan page covers email ticketing and does not list WhatsApp. Freshworks sells a separate product, Freshdesk Omni, which we did not price here.

Pick Freshdesk if your support is email first and you want structured tickets with room to grow into Pro.

Zendesk

Zendesk splits its plans in two. Its pricing page, checked October 28, 2026, lists per agent a month on annual billing:

• Support Team: $19 ($25 monthly), email and ticketing only
• Suite Team: $55 ($69), adding messaging, live chat and telephony
• Suite Professional: $115 ($149), the first plan that lists SLA policies, along with up to 100 light agents

The trial gives you Suite Professional for 14 days.

AI agents are billed per automated resolution on every plan. Team plans include 5 per agent a month and Suite Professional includes 10; after that each one costs $1.50 on a committed volume or $2.00 pay as you go.

Copilot costs $50 per agent a month on Suite Professional and up. WhatsApp sits in the Suite plans, and Zendesk says additional fees apply without naming them.

Pick Zendesk if you need SLA policies and light agents, and want paid modules such as QA and workforce management from the same vendor.

For 15 agents, Suite Professional with Copilot is $2,475 a month in seats alone, so it fits teams where those features carry real weight.

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk starts at a lower seat price than Zendesk or Freshdesk. Its pricing page defaults to your local currency; checked October 28, 2026, in US dollars per user a month on annual billing, it lists:

• Express: $7 ($9 monthly)
• Standard: $14 ($20)
• Professional: $23 ($35)
• Enterprise: $40 ($50)

A free plan covers 3 users with email ticketing, and the trial runs 15 days without a card.

Express includes AI agents on Zoho's model with up to 30M free tokens a month, or your own OpenAI key.

Standard adds a live chat widget, instant messaging (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, WeChat and LINE), an answer bot, a knowledge base and CSAT ratings. Zia AI, round robin assignment, telephony and webhooks start at Professional.

The limits: features are spread across 5 editions, so check which one holds each thing you rely on before you trust the $14.

Pick Zoho Desk if you want Instagram and Messenger in the inbox at a low seat price, or you already run other Zoho apps.

Trengo

Trengo prices in euros and by package. Its pricing page, checked October 28, 2026, lists a month on annual billing:

• Boost: €299 (€349 monthly) for 10 users and 6,000 conversations a year
• Pro: €499 (€599) for 20 users and 18,000 conversations a year

Extras on yearly billing:

• users: €25 on Boost, €40 on Pro
• conversations: €15 per 100
• each conversation with the AI agent: €0.25 more

A conversation is any reply to a customer inside a 7 day window.

WhatsApp is its strong suit: it runs on the official WhatsApp Business API, with email, Instagram, Facebook, live chat and voice (a paid extra) in the same inbox.

The limits: a team of 5 pays for 10 users, and 500 conversations a month is a small allowance at that price. Pick Trengo if WhatsApp is your main channel and your team is near 10 or 20 people.

If Front is your team email app

Missive

Missive is the closest thing to Front as an email client: shared and personal inboxes in one list, comments inside threads, shared drafts, tasks and assignment.

Missive's pricing page, checked October 28, 2026, lists per user a month billed yearly:

• Starter: $14 ($18 monthly) for up to 5 users
• Productive: $24 ($30) for up to 50 users, adding rules, integrations, analytics and API access
• Business: $36 ($45) with no user cap and SAML SSO

The trial runs 30 days without a card.

AI drafts, summaries and translation run on Anthropic, OpenAI or Gemini models, paid with Missive credits or your own API key. The pricing page shows no price for the credits.

Missive's own comparison page with Front is unusually honest about what Front does better: a knowledge base, deeper analytics, SLA dashboards and Smart QA and CSAT.

Pick Missive if Front is mostly how your team does email together. Skip it if you need SLAs and a help center. Starter stops at 5 users and has no rules, so most support teams land on Productive.

Hiver

Hiver sells two products at the same prices. Hiver in Gmail runs inside Gmail. Hiver Omni is a standalone app for Gmail, Outlook and other providers that adds live chat, Slack, voice, WhatsApp and social channels.

Hiver's pricing page, checked October 28, 2026, lists per user a month on annual billing:

• Growth: $25 ($35 monthly), with AI agents and AI Copilot
• Pro: $55 ($65), adding SLAs, CSAT surveys and API access
• Elite: $85 ($95), adding AI QA and skill based routing

Seats start at 2, go up to 5, and then come in steps of 5, so a team of 12 pays for 15. The trial gives you Elite for 7 days without a card.

Pick Hiver if Gmail is where your team works and you want shared inboxes without moving anyone. The AI is bundled into the seat, which is easy to budget, but the pricing page does not say how much AI use a seat covers.

Help Scout

Help Scout sits between the two halves: a help desk that still feels like email to the customer.

Help Scout's pricing page, checked October 28, 2026, lists per user a month on annual billing:

• Free: 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts a month
• Standard: $25 for up to 25 users, with live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and one basic SLA policy
• Plus: $45 for up to 50 users, adding unlimited AI drafts, round robin routing and 2 advanced SLA policies

Standard and Plus come with a 15 day trial and no card.

AI Answers, the AI agent, costs $0.75 per resolution. Help Scout charges once per conversation, charges nothing when the customer escalates or keeps asking, lets you cap monthly spend, and gives new accounts 3 months of AI Answers free.

Pick Help Scout if your support is mostly email and you want customers to feel they wrote to a person. Watch the AI bill: at 900 resolutions a month it adds $675.

What 5, 15 and 30 seats cost, AI included

The numbers are for one month on annual billing, in each vendor's currency:

• Each agent handles 200 conversations, so 1,000, 3,000 and 6,000 a month.
• An AI agent answers first in 60% of them (600, 1,800 and 3,600).
• It closes half of those without a person (300, 900 and 1,800).

Each row names the plan we picked: the cheapest one that fits the team size and has the basics this team needs, such as rules, chat or messaging.

AI drafting for agents is left out except in the second Front row, because some tools include it and others sell it per seat. WhatsApp message fees are left out too, since Meta bills them by country.

A few things the table hides:

• Front's Autopilot rate is a floor, since the real one comes from sales.
• On pay as you go, Zendesk adds $137.50, $412.50 and $825 to its row.
• The three rows marked "seats only" look cheap because their pricing pages give no price for AI use beyond what the seat includes. Ask each vendor what 600 conversations answered by AI a month would cost before you compare.

On Deskwoot, Startup would cost $54.50 for 5 agents, but that sits exactly at its cap of 1,000 conversations a month.

Copilot use counts too. If agents also draft with Copilot on every conversation Fynn does not answer, Business comes to $77 for 5 agents, $241 for 15 and $487 for 30.

At 15 agents that is still at least $1,124 a month below Front Professional with Autopilot and Copilot.

Moving off Front

Analytics exports vs the full account export

Front has two kinds of export, and only one of them moves conversations.

The analytics export is self serve on Professional and above: CSV files of conversations, messages or events from a report, as Front's help center describes it.

The messages export carries only a sample of each message body, cut at 200 characters, and exports drop off the list after 30 days. It is good for response times, tag counts and volumes, and useless for moving history.

How the full account export works

The full account export goes through Front Support, according to Front's help article on account data exports. A company admin writes in with the line "Account data export request for {Customer name}", and Front acknowledges within 72 hours.

You get CSV files in folders by inbox (EML on request), about 700 MB each. The export includes:

• conversations, messages, discussions and comments from shared inboxes
• attachments in EML format
• data from blocked and deleted users

It leaves out individual inboxes, contacts, message templates and tags.

The order that works

1. Request the full account export as soon as you decide.
2. Export contacts yourself: in Contacts, pick a tab, click Export, choose shared, private, or shared plus the ones Front created automatically, then Generate export, as Front's help article on exporting contacts describes.
3. Pull the analytics CSVs you want for reporting history before you cancel.
4. If Front reads a Gmail or Microsoft 365 mailbox, that mail also sits in the mailbox. What lives only in Front (comments, and mail from forwarding channels) comes from the account export.
5. Run the new tool next to Front on part of your traffic for a week or two. Front's FAQ says seats can be added or removed within a plan; check your contract for when a removal lowers the bill.

Our guide on switching help desk software covers the steps that are the same for every tool.

Rules, tags and templates you rebuild

No export carries your setup over. Front's account export skips templates and tags, and rules are not in its list at all.

For small teams the list is short: Starter allows up to 10 rules, Professional 20 plus macros.

1. Write down each rule as trigger, condition and action, with the name of whoever asked for it. Drop any rule nobody can explain.
2. Use the Tags field in the messages export to count which tags appeared in the last 90 days. Rebuild those and leave the rest.
3. Copy each template into a document with its name and shortcut, and fix the outdated ones on the way.
4. Note signatures, business hours, views, teammate permissions and every integration that posts into Front.

When staying on Front is right

• Your team runs its own work email in Front. Individual inboxes, calendar and meeting scheduling are part of the product, and moving support out splits people across two apps.
• Colleagues outside support join threads through guest accounts, which Front offers without a license. Missive lists guest access too; among the help desks you would look at light agents (Zendesk Suite Professional, Help Scout Plus) or day passes (Freshdesk).
• You are on Enterprise and use Smart QA and Smart CSAT every week. Front includes them there; elsewhere QA costs extra (Hiver puts AI QA on Elite at $85, and Zendesk sells QA separately).
• The savings are small. If the cost table saves you less than a few hundred a month and your renewal is a year away, rebuilding rules and retraining agents may not pay off yet.

One step before your renewal

If Front is your team email app, Deskwoot is not that tool. Run a test like the one below on a Missive or Hiver trial instead.

If Front is your help desk, start a Deskwoot trial 2 or 3 weeks before the renewal date: 7 days of Enterprise for up to 30 seats including yours, no card.

1. Add an email inbox in Settings > Inboxes.
2. Have your mail provider forward a copy of your support address to the address Deskwoot creates, while Front keeps running.
3. Keep answering in Front and keep Fynn off that inbox, so nobody gets two replies.
4. In Deskwoot, assign the same mail and add notes, then ask your team which inbox they prefer.

If it does not fit, remove the forward and nothing in Front has changed. After the trial you pick a plan on the pricing page or stay on the free Hacker plan with 1 agent.