Firstly, we’re big fans of Front. They’ve built a great customer support platform to manage email, live chat, SMS, etc. All in one place.
But is it the right tool for you?
If you want to switch (or explore options), here are 7 best Front alternatives:
- Superhuman
- Collaborative Inbox (by Google)
- Freshdesk
- Help Scout
- Missive
- Zendesk
- Hiver
Some alternatives are free. Others are paid. But each Front alternative is best for a specific type of business (and use case).
Let’s dive right in:
What is Front App used for?
Front (or Front App) is a customer communication platform that helps companies streamline communication and deliver exceptional customer service.
That was a mouthful.
At its core, Front is a shared inbox. This gives your teammates visibility into customer accounts. So they can collaborate to resolve support tickets:
The best part: Front is an all-in-one communication tool. You can serve customers across multiple platforms like email, SMS, live chat, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, etc.
All from a single shared inbox. Here’s how it works:
In other words: Front brings your team, emails, and apps together.
Key features of Front:
- Built-in collaboration and collision detection.
- Insightful analytics on your team and customers.
- Support for 100+ integrations and a robust API.
- Omnichannel (SMS, Telegram, Instagram, etc).
- Powerful no-code and automation workflows.
With Front, you won’t need to forward email threads to teammates constantly. By sharing one generic email address (like help@), your team can access every email (by default).
Notice how many times I used the word “team” so far?
Because Front is a multi-player email client. By nature, it’s geared towards team collaboration.
Recommended For:
- Support, success, or sales teams at large companies.
- Anyone looking for a ticket-free helpdesk software.
But like any tool on this list, Front has its limitations.
What is the Alternative to Front App?
Front may be one of the most popular customer support platforms.
But it’s far from perfect.
For starters, Front isn’t a full-fledged customer support tool. It’s a ticket-free way to handle support emails. If your support volume is high or your team relies on complex workflows, you’ll outgrow Front quickly.
Front is also buggy. Emails often disappear from the inbox, archive, or sent. Or repeatedly fail to sync with Gmail correctly.
Some of its most common flaws include:
- Lack of Transparency: There have been many accounts of unexpected changes to price from Front. By up to 40% sometimes! These surprise price hikes will sting, especially if you’re on an annual contract (you can’t cancel or get a refund).
- Overwhelming UX: Front has a disorganized and complicated user interface. It isn’t intuitive, which adds to the steep learning curve. Your team will have to undergo extensive training before they can get started with Front – which will slow them down.
- Subpar Support: Many customers think Front support is among the “worst” and “least” helpful. For SMBs, Front offers no setup assistance or live help. Unless you’re an enterprise client, don’t expect excellent customer support from Front.
For SMBs, Front is costly and limited. Take a look at their pricing page. It’ll quickly become evident Front is mainly focused on catering to mid-market and enterprise companies.
The “Growth” plan starts at $59/seat/mo. You need to buy 5-seats minimum:
That’s $3540/year at the lowest tier. Each additional seat is $59/month. If you’re scaling your support team, Front becomes expensive very quickly.
Their plans are monthly, but the devil is in the details. Front bills you annually. You have to pay for an entire year upfront.
It gets worse:
Picked the wrong plan by accident? You won’t get a refund.
They offer an affordable “Starter” plan starting at $19/seat (up to ten seats) for $228/year. But it’s severely limited. You only get access to shared team inboxes.
Which means:
- No access to analytics (whatsoever).
- Limited rules and workflow automation.
- Limited security and team management.
Plus, no 247/7 customer support or onboarding assistance.
Bottom line: With expensive per-seat pricing and yearly contracts, Front is best suited for large companies.
Here are seven alternatives to Front:
7 Best Front Alternatives (Free & Paid)
1. Superhuman
Superhuman is the fastest email experience ever made.
Built for people and teams who get high volumes of email. Superhuman is blazingly fast, delightful, and stress-free. Fly through your inbox twice as fast, eliminate distractions, and (finally) end email anxiety.
We all spend hours on email each week. Superhuman has a clean, minimal, and user-friendly interface. Hitting Inbox Zero is fun and easy.
Here’s how it works:
Superhuman users save 3 hours each week. They also reply to emails ~2x FAST.
If you use and love Gmail or Outlook, Superhuman will feel familiar. But faster. This means instant setup and (almost) zero learning curve.
Front apps (iOS and Android) are slow, buggy, and poorly optimized. So you’ll frequently experience long loading times.
The mobile apps are also missing key features:
Unlike Front, Superhuman offers a fast, frictionless email experience. It also delivers a consistent experience across every platform.
The best part? Instant load times.
As a matter of fact:
Every action you take is faster than 100ms. So everything is FAST! ⚡
With 100+ features, you’ll get through your inbox twice as fast.
Here are a few of them:
1. Split Inbox
The harsh reality: We all get too much email!
The urgent buries the important. We don't respond to our team or VIPs. We miss notifications from tools like Google Docs, Hubspot, or Salesforce.
As a result, we lose opportunities. Or worse: we let our team down.
No more! With Split Inbox, you can focus on what matters:
With Split Inbox, you can:
- Quickly get to the emails that matter most.
- Experience fewer context switches and stay in flow longer.
- Achieve Inbox Zero in specific splits.
Split Inbox is a game-changer if you get a high volume of emails. It’s challenging to hit inbox zero in one go for such inboxes.
You can split emails from:
- Your team
- Your VIPs
- Tools like Google Docs, Asana, Intercom, etc.
Even if your inbox is overflowing, you'll respond faster to the people who need you!
Optional Reading: How to Split Inbox in Superhuman
2. Snippets (& Variables)
Superhuman is fast. But we all hit the same limit: the time it takes to type.
With Snippets, you can automate typing and push past this limit. Think of snippets like email templates, but more powerful!
Use snippets to automate phrases, paragraphs, or entire emails. You can include attachments. You can even CC (or BCC) teammates!
To create a Snippet, hit Cmd+K > "Create Snippet":
With variables, you can fully customize emails instantly!
Try {first_name}, {last_name}, or {full_name}. Or create your own. We'll prompt you if you forget to fill them: 🙋
Snippets can help sales or support teams close deals or help customers faster.
3. Blazing Fast Search
Search on Front is painfully slow and inaccurate. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.
Superhuman search is instant, accurate, and works offline:
Say goodbye to manually scrolling through a huge pile of emails! 👋🏻
On Superhuman, searches take just 30 milliseconds! Not 3+ minutes.
We’ve made search faster and more accurate with:
- Attachment search: Download files without opening emails.
- Sidebar help: Be precise without remembering syntax.
- Search offline: Find anything and everything. Without internet!
The kicker: Superhuman shows all your recent search queries. Even those from your desktop! So you don’t need to search for the same things again.
Hit “ / ” on desktop or pull down on mobile to search.
Loading an email takes just ~16ms. That’s faster than any action you take on Front.
In fact: Superhuman is faster than any native email app available today.
But that’s not all! With Superhuman, you can:
- Undo Send: Misspelt names. Tragic typos. Now a thing of the past.
- Work Offline: Search, reply, archive, and more — without internet!
- Auto-BCC: BCC sent emails to HubSpot or Salesforce instantly.
- Send later: Schedule emails to go out at the right time (in any time zone!)
- Reminders: Can’t deal with an email now? Tap, remind me. Can't deal with an email on your phone? Hit remind me “on desktop”:
You’ll never drop the ball again.
Superhuman is a single-player email client. But it offers powerful team workflows. Sales, customer support, and exec teams love using Superhuman.
In fact:
Superhuman can save your entire team one month. Each year.
Teams that use Superhuman:
- Reply 2x faster than before
- Save 3+ hours per week
- Respond to 3x more emails
Fun fact: Superhuman helps Brex respond to customers 3x faster. 🤯
Superhuman also offers powerful sales tools.
For starters, you get rich social insights from Linkedin, Twitter, etc, at your fingertips! Learn about potential leads, possible candidates, or your customers. Instantly.
So you can write the perfect sales email:
And follow up at the right time with read statuses:
The @Superhuman team is on 🔥
— Vivek Sodera (@vsodera) June 28, 2023
📖 Salesforce integration (leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities) in the sidebar
👀 Feed of recent opens https://t.co/GuQwduqnLD
With Superhuman Enterprise, you’ll get concierge onboarding, a dedicated account team, and SOC-2 compliance. Plus, 24/7 VIP technical support from our Delight Team. Whenever you need it.
Recommended For:
Founders, busy C-level execs, and high-performing teams who want to boost their email productivity.
If you get 150+ emails daily and don’t like sharing an inbox, we made Superhuman just for you.
Pricing:
- Individuals: $25/month (billed yearly)
- Teams: $25/month/user for five users (billed yearly)
- For larger teams, talk to sales for discounted pricing. 😉
No upfront annual commitments. Pay monthly or annually. Cancel anytime!
The best part: With Superhuman, there are no surprise price hikes. You pay one price. Period. It’s called “grandfathering.” 😉
Optional Reading: How Superhuman Helps Brex Respond 3x Faster.
2. Collaborative Inbox (by Google Workspace)
Google Collaborative Inbox is a good start if you want a free shared inbox tool.
It’s not as powerful as other tools on this list. But Collaborative Inbox is free, lightweight, and gets the job done.
Caveat: You must be on an active Google Workspace plan to use Collaborative Inbox.
Collaborative Inbox offers no reporting capabilities, limited collaboration, and zero scalability. Plus, it doesn’t provide any workflow or automation features.
If you’re a small team looking to explore shared inboxes, Collaborative Inbox is an excellent first step. But you’ll need to look for a better solution eventually.
Top Collaborative Inbox Features:
- Free for Google Workspace users
- The setup is speedy (~5 minutes).
- Assign conversations to team members.
Recommended For:
SMBs on a Google Workspace plan looking for a free tool to manage customer queries or streamline email communications.
Pricing:
Collaborative Inbox is free. But you must be on a Google Workspace plan.
Here’s the pricing for Google Workspace:
It’s worth noting that support for Google Workspace is nonexistent. If customer service matters to you, look elsewhere.
The Google ecosystem (as a whole) is excellent. But Gmail is slow, clunky, and outdated.
Optional Reading: 7 Best Gmail Alternatives (Free & Paid)
3. Freshdesk
If you’re looking for a Front alternative with help desk functionality, your search might end with Freshdesk.
Like Front, Freshdesk is a feature-rich customer support tool that allows you to manage multi-channel support requests in one place. It offers powerful ticketing functionality, intelligent email routing, and automated assignments.
But Freshdesk goes even further. It also offers a knowledge base, a self-serve portal, and a freemium plan.
Most importantly, Freshdesk is more affordable.
A nifty feature exclusive to Freshdesk is the ability to split one ticket (called parent ticket) into multiple more minor tickets (child tickets). This allows multiple agents to work on individual tickets for quicker resolution.
Top Freshdesk Features:
- Automated ticket assignment, management, and routing.
- Powerful collaboration with team inbox and huddles.
- Robust knowledge base and self-service portal.
- Convert ticket replies to knowledge base articles.
- Omnichannel support: email, phone, social media, etc.
Recommended For:
Companies looking for full-fledged customer support software with help desk and knowledge base features.
Pricing:
Freshdesk starts at $15/agent/month. Go for the $79/month plan to access the Freddy AI bot.
You can pay monthly or annually. Yearly plans come with a 20% discount.
Freshdesk also offers a free plan with limited features (up to 10 agents):
Sidenote: While Freshdesk offers many features, it’s seen by many as slow, buggy, and highly complicated.
Lucky for you, Freshdesk offers a 21-day free trial on every plan. Give it a try!
4. Help Scout
Helpscout is (perhaps) the most user-friendly helpdesk software on this list.
With its ease of use, you won’t need much help or time to get started.
Like most tools, Helpscout is an all-in-one customer support solution. It offers a shared inbox, live chat, help center, and proactive messages. All available natively.
Helpscout integrates with 90+ tools. Plus, it offers a knowledge base (with Docs) and live chat on every plan.
What makes Helpscout better than Front? It’s flexible, scalable pricing. Also, no contracts.
Top Helpscout Features:
- Easy to use and intuitive
- 75+ keyboard shortcuts
- Integrates with 90+ apps
- Real-time collision detection
- Inbox, chat, and knowledge base come standard.
Recommended For:
Helpscout is the best Front alternative for growing companies and SaaS startups.
Pricing:
Helpscout offers a free 15-day free trial. Plans start at $20/user/month:
Helpscout also offers non-profit and startup-friendly pricing.
5. Missive
Looking for a Front alternative with task management features? Missive is your best bet.
Missive is an all-in-one tool. It’s a shared inbox, live chat, and project management tool. You can manage customer support requests and collaborate on internal projects.
It’s not a full-fledged customer support tool. But Missive offers excellent team collaboration, basic automation, and support for ~20 integrations.
With Missive, your team can collaborate on drafts (in real-time). Unlike Front, it has an excellent rich text editor (which works on mobile). It also natively syncs your calendars and contacts with GCal, Outlook, and iCal.
Unlike Front, Missive is easy to use, stable, and offers great customer support. Plus, it’s 1/3rd the cost.
There are a few downsides. Missive doesn’t offer analytics or reporting dashboards. It provides limited integrations. There are no read statuses.
Top Missive Features:
- Offers support for (almost) any email provider.
- Create, assign, and manage tasks for your team.
- Conversation assignment and collaborative writing.
- One-to-one live chat with users and website visitors.
- Team collaboration for SMS, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc.
Recommended For:
Teams looking for task and calendar management features.
Pricing:
Missive starts at $14/mo/user for up to 5 users.
The enterprise plan (for $26/mo/user) gives you access to all Missive features:
The best part: Missive offers a free trial. Plus, 30d money-back guarantee on paid plans!
6. Zendesk
Zendesk and customer support are synonymous. Many people call it “the godfather” of helpdesk platforms.
With Zendesk, companies can offer support over email, chat, social media, phone, etc. It provides one of the most potent ticketing systems, a knowledge base, and 1,000+ integrations.
Zendesk offers plans for small businesses. But the cost and complexity of Zendesk show that it was built for large enterprises.
Features like SLA management, agent workspaces, sandboxes, custom roles, and permissions appeal to enterprise customers.
Zendesk is expensive compared to most tools on this list. It’s not intuitive or customizable. So there’s a steep learning curve. Training your agents can easily cost upwards of $1500.
Plus, it doesn’t play well with Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce. Zendesk might not be suitable for you if you're an E-commerce company.
Top Zendesk Features:
- Offer intelligent self-service to visitors with their chatbot.
- Boost sales productivity with Zendesk Sell CRM
- Powerful live chat (Zendesk Live Chat and Messaging)
- Create community forums with Zendesk Gather.
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT) rating and NPS Surveys.
Recommended For:
Zendesk is the best Front alternative for enterprise companies.
Pricing:
From a features perspective, Zendesk pricing is unnecessarily complicated.
The suite team plan starts at $69/agent/month. The professional is $149/agent/month:
There’s a free 30d trial available on every plan. Plus, a discount if you pay annually.
Zendesk also offers a no-frills basic plan:
But you only get access to:
- Ticketing system
- Email, Twitter, and Facebook
- Business rules
- Customer details and interaction history
- Out-of-the-box reporting and analytics
Sidenote: According to G2, Zendesk customer support and account management aren’t great.
7. Hiver
Hiver is a Gmail-based customer support tool built for teams.
If you love using Gmail (but find Collaborative Inbox weak), Hiver might be the right choice.
Like most tools on this list, Hiver offers the same standard customer support features — shared inbox, automation, analytics, integrations, etc.
What makes Hiver different? It’s a helpdesk right within Gmail.
Hiver is multi-channel and lets you manage a shared inbox with your team. Assign, comment, or tag conversations without ever leaving Gmail.
With shared drafts, collision alerts, notes, and @mentions, Hiver can bring order to the chaos of using a Google group or shared email.
Top Hiver Features:
- Signup takes ~5 minutes
- Works with Google Workspace
- Multi-channel support in Gmail
- Native iOS and Android apps
- 24/7 support on all paid plans
Recommended For:
A great alternative to Front for teams using Google Workspace.
Pricing:
Hiver’s pricing is affordable. At $15/user/month, you get access to most features:
But SLAs, CSAT, access controls, visual analytics, etc, are available on higher-tier plans.
Hiver offers a 7-day free trial on all their plans.
Sidenote: Like Front, Hiver is notorious for unexpected (and wild) price hikes. Don’t like surprises? Pick a tool that'll grandfather your existing plan.
Front App Alternatives: How to Decide
We’ve covered the 7 most popular Front alternatives. So which option is best?
It depends.
Front is the best option for some. It’s a great way to handle support emails (without tickets). But like any tool, it has its flaws.
Some questions to help you decide:
- Do you like the idea of sharing inboxes?
- Do you prefer Gmail or an external tool?
- Are you a growing business or enterprise?
Ultimately, test-driving each tool is the best way to make the right choice.
Unlike Front, most tools on this list offer a generous free trial. Take advantage of them!
With Superhuman, your team will save one month every year. Built for teams using Gmail and Outlook, Superhuman is fast, powerful, and delightful. Try Superhuman today!
Questions? Ping us on Twitter 🙂
