The best shared inbox software for UK teams, honestly compared.

The honest answer to best shared inbox software is that it depends on where your support already lives and how much you want to grow it. A Gmail team, an Outlook team and a team drowning across five channels do not have the same best choice.

A shared inbox tool sits on top of an address such as support@, info@ or accounts@ and lets several people work it without two of them replying to the same email or one quietly slipping through. The cheapest version is a plain shared mailbox in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, which is free but gives you no ownership, status or service-level targets. The next step up is a helpdesk that turns each email into an owned ticket you can assign, prioritise, time against an SLA and report on.

Solves is one of those owned-ticket tools, built email-first and UK-first: GBP pricing with VAT visible, first-response and resolution SLA timers with a breaching view that surfaces overdue tickets, and support for several brands in one queue. It is not an omnichannel suite. If you need live chat, a phone line or social inboxes, a broader platform is the better fit, and we point you at the right kind of tool below rather than pretending otherwise.

Solves: email-first, multi-brand, UK pricing

Solves turns shared inboxes into owned tickets with assignment, states, priority, tags, saved replies, public replies kept hard-separate from private notes, saved queue views and first-response and resolution SLA timers with a breaching view that surfaces overdue tickets. Several brands run in one unified queue, each with its own mailbox, signature and brand-locked sending. It is the better fit when support is mostly email, you bill in GBP and you want ownership and SLAs without paying for chat and voice channels you will not use. It is not the right tool if you need live chat, phone or social inboxes, which it does not offer.

Help Scout: a clean helpdesk with a free plan

Help Scout is a well-regarded standalone helpdesk. Its free plan covers up to five users, one inbox and a docs site, capped at around one hundred contacts a month with limited saved replies and tags, after which you move to per-user paid plans (Standard, Plus and Pro start at USD 25, USD 45 and USD 75 per user a month, with AI billed per resolution). It is the better fit if you want a polished, opinionated helpdesk and a knowledge base out of the box and are happy with US-dollar, per-user pricing. Solves is the better fit if you want GBP pricing, team bands rather than per-seat charges, built-in SLA timers and multi-brand in one queue.

Hiver: the Gmail-native choice

Hiver runs a shared inbox inside Gmail, so a Google Workspace team keeps the interface it already knows rather than learning a separate app. It has a forever-free plan, and paid tiers (Growth, Pro and Elite) run from around USD 25 to USD 95 per user a month depending on plan and billing. Hiver is the better fit when you are firmly committed to Gmail and want collaboration layered on top of it. Solves is the better fit when you would rather have a dedicated ticket queue, brand-locked sending across several brands and SLA reporting, and you are not tied to working inside Gmail.

Front: shared inbox for busier, multi-channel teams

Front is a shared inbox built for teams that work a high volume across several channels in one place, with strong real-time collaboration. It has no free plan, only a fourteen-day trial, and annual pricing runs Starter USD 25, Professional USD 65 and Enterprise USD 105 per seat a month, with eligible startups able to get up to six months free. Front is the better fit for larger, busier teams that genuinely work many channels together. Solves is the better fit for a smaller, email-focused UK team that wants ownership, SLAs and multi-brand without omnichannel pricing.

Google and Microsoft shared mailboxes: free, but no ownership

A plain shared mailbox in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 is free if you already pay for the email, and several people can open it from Gmail or Outlook. It is genuinely fine at low volume. The limit is structural: there is no owned ticket, no status, no priority, no SLA timer and no reporting, so two people answer the same email, or nobody does, and there is no record of who replied or how long it took. It is the better fit only when volume is tiny and predictable. The moment collisions and dropped messages start, an owned-ticket tool earns its place, and you can move off the shared mailbox with forwarding-first setup that keeps the same address.

• Channels you really use. If support is almost all email, an email-first tool is simpler and usually cheaper than an omnichannel suite you will only half use.
• Owned tickets. Every message should become an owned, assignable ticket with a status, or collisions and dropped emails return as you grow.
• SLA timers and a breaching view. Check that the tool times first response and resolution against a target and surfaces overdue tickets, so a slipping reply is visible rather than lost.
• Pricing you can read. Look for GBP with VAT visible, and check whether you pay per seat or per team band, because per-seat charges punish occasional helpers.
• A clean way off your current mailbox. You should be able to keep the address customers already use, via forwarding-first setup, rather than asking people to write to a new one.
• Multi-brand, if you need it. If you answer email for more than one brand, check whether several brands fit in one queue without a separate account each.

Run those six checks against any shortlist and the field narrows quickly. A Gmail-only team that wants to stay put leans to Hiver. A team that wants a polished standalone helpdesk with a free plan leans to Help Scout. A busy multi-channel team leans to Front. A UK email-first team that wants ownership, SLA timers, GBP team bands and multi-brand in one queue is the team Solves is built for, and a plain shared mailbox is the thing all of them are usually trying to outgrow.

What Reddit threads tend to say

Search threads usually split by stack: Gmail teams get pointed at Hiver or a plain Google shared mailbox, helpdesk seekers at Help Scout or Zoho Desk, and busier multi-channel teams at Front. The most repeated warning is that a bare shared mailbox has no ownership, so replies collide or vanish. Use any thread as a shortlist, then verify pricing and features against the vendor, because community posts go stale fast.

Free shared inbox software, with the catch

Free is real but capped. Hiver has a forever-free plan; Help Scout, Zoho Desk and HubSpot Service Hub offer feature-limited free tiers; Google and Microsoft shared mailboxes are free with your existing email. Solves Starter is GBP 29 for three users, one brand, one mailbox and 1,000 tickets a month, and it is paid from the start rather than free forever. Read the current cap before you commit, because every free plan moves its limits over time.

Running a shared inbox in Outlook

Microsoft 365 lets you create a shared mailbox several people open from Outlook at no extra licence cost, which is a fine starting point at low volume. As volume rises you feel the missing pieces: no owned ticket, no status, no SLA timer, no reporting. Moving to Solves does not mean changing the address. Forwarding-first mailbox setup keeps your existing Outlook or Gmail shared address and adds ownership, states and SLAs on top, so customers carry on writing to the same place.