Help Scout vs Hiver: which shared inbox fits your team?

Help Scout and Hiver solve the same core problem, a shared support address that turns into a mess of replies, but they solve it from different places. Help Scout gives you a dedicated help desk with its own inbox, a built-in knowledge base called Docs and reporting. Hiver adds shared inboxes, assignment and notes directly inside Gmail, so your team never leaves the mailbox they already use.

If your team lives in Google Workspace and you want the smallest possible change, Hiver is the natural fit: support work happens in Gmail, alongside everything else. If you want support to feel like its own workspace, with a knowledge base your customers can search and reporting that is not bolted onto a personal inbox, Help Scout is the fuller standalone option.

Pricing and free tiers are close enough that they rarely decide it on their own. Both offer a free plan and both charge per user on paid tiers. The deciding factor is usually whether you want support inside Gmail or in a separate tool, and how much knowledge-base and reporting depth you need. We cover each below, then say plainly where Solves, our own email-first desk, fits and where it does not.

Help Scout is a dedicated support application rather than an add-on to your existing email. You get a shared inbox where customer emails become conversations your team can own, assign and reply to, a knowledge-base product called Docs for self-service articles, and reporting on top. Support has its own home, separate from anyone's personal Gmail or Outlook.

Free plan and pricing

Help Scout lists a Free plan at zero dollars for up to 5 users, with 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and caps of 100 contacts a month, 10 saved replies and 10 tags, with no custom fields or workflows. Paid plans are billed per user per month: Standard at 25 US dollars, Plus at 45 US dollars and Pro at 75 US dollars, with annual billing saving roughly 16 per cent. AI features are billed per resolution on top. Always confirm the current numbers on the Help Scout pricing page before you decide.

Who it suits

Help Scout fits a team that wants support to feel like its own workspace, values a built-in knowledge base, and is happy to work in a tool separate from their personal inbox. The free plan is genuinely usable for a very small team or a pilot, with clear caps that nudge you to a paid tier as volume grows.

Hiver takes a different route: instead of moving your team to a new application, it turns Gmail into a shared help desk. Shared inboxes, assignment, status, collaboration and notes all appear inside the Gmail interface your team already knows. For a Google Workspace business, that means support work and ordinary email sit side by side, with very little new to learn.

Free plan and pricing

Hiver offers a forever-free plan at zero dollars covering shared inboxes, email and knowledge-base support, collaboration and a Slack connection, with billing is founder-led during the pilot. Paid plans are priced per user per month in US dollars and rise through Growth, Pro and Elite tiers, with annual billing cheaper than monthly; the exact figures vary by source, so treat them as approximate and confirm on the Hiver pricing page. Hiver is built around Gmail, so it assumes a Google Workspace setup.

Who it suits

Hiver fits a team already committed to Gmail and Google Workspace that wants shared-inbox support with the least disruption. If the thought of asking your team to adopt a separate help desk feels like a hard sell, keeping support inside Gmail is a strong argument for Hiver.

Start with where your team works. If everyone is in Gmail all day and you want shared-inbox support with almost nothing new to learn, Hiver is the lower-friction choice. If you would rather support had its own dedicated space, with a knowledge base your customers can search and reporting that stands on its own, Help Scout is the fuller standalone desk.

1. Are you on Google Workspace and keen to stay in Gmail? Lean Hiver.
2. Do you want a separate support workspace with a built-in knowledge base? Lean Help Scout.
3. Need a searchable help centre for customers from day one? Help Scout includes Docs.
4. Want the lightest possible rollout for a Gmail team? Hiver keeps support in the inbox.
5. Pricing in GBP, team bands and built-in SLA timers matter most? Read the Solves note below.

Both have free plans, so the cheapest way to decide is to trial each with a real support address for a week and see which your team actually enjoys using. The tool people stick with is usually the one that fits the way they already work.

Whichever you pick, the common starting point is the same: a shared support address such as support@ that several people dip into. Help Scout and Hiver are both built to take that over, and Solves uses forwarding-first mailbox setup to do the same. You point your existing support address at the new queue, so every message becomes an owned, trackable ticket without breaking the email you already rely on.

With Solves the move is a guided setup with plain-English DNS and forwarding steps, and live sending for each mailbox stays gated until its checks pass, so sender identity and deliverability stay correct as you switch. Importing historical tickets from another help desk is not a live feature yet; it is guided and in pilot, so treat any move as forwarding your inbox first and bringing history across as a separate, assisted step.