Hiver
Customer Support
Hiver deal: Free-forever plan + free trial on paid tiers — Growth from $25/user/mo
Turn Gmail into a shared helpdesk — assign, track and automate team email without leaving your inbox.
- Native Gmail and Outlook
- Real help-desk features
- Free plan available
- Strong collaboration
How Hiver scored 77/100
6 weighted criteria, each scored out of 10 and published with its reasoning. Featured placements never move a score.
Deal Strength
8.0 /10Hiver ships a genuinely free-forever plan alongside a 7-day free trial of its top Elite tier, no credit card required. There's no exclusive coupon here; the value is a working free shared inbox plus full access to premium AI, SLAs and analytics so teams can prove it out before committing budget.
Value for Money
8.0 /10At $25 per user per month on the annual Growth plan, Hiver undercuts standalone help desks like Zendesk and Freshdesk while layering ticketing directly onto Gmail or Outlook. The real saving is avoiding a separate support system entirely — no second platform to buy, migrate to, or train agents on.
Capability
8.0 /10Hiver turns a Gmail or Outlook mailbox into a full shared-inbox help desk: email assignment, collision detection, status tracking, SLAs, round-robin routing, CSAT surveys and analytics. Higher tiers add AI Agents, an AI Copilot and multichannel support across live chat, WhatsApp, voice and a knowledge base — deep for its niche, though heavy-volume operations may still outgrow it for a dedicated platform.
Time to Value
10.0 /10Because Hiver runs inside the inbox agents already use, onboarding is close to instant — install the Gmail extension or connect Outlook and shared inboxes are live in minutes. There's no new interface to learn and no email migration, which is exactly why it earns top marks for speed to a real result.
Trust & Reliability
5.0 /10Hiver carries serious credentials: SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA and GDPR compliance, 10,000+ teams including Flexport, Vacasa and NYU, and a 4.6/5 rating on G2. The score stays mid-pack because Hiver is a layer on top of Gmail and Outlook, so real-world uptime is ultimately tied to Google and Microsoft rather than a standalone service guarantee.
Flexibility & Exit
5.0 /10Hiver stores email natively inside Gmail or Outlook, so your core data never leaves your own Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 — a genuine ownership advantage if you switch tools later. Holding the score back is rigid seat-block pricing (two-seat minimum, then increments of five) and the annual commitment needed for the lowest rate; month-to-month billing costs noticeably more.
Free-forever plan + free trial on paid tiers — Growth from $25/user/mo
Affiliate link — same price for you, and it never moves the score.
- Native Gmail and Outlook
- Real help-desk features
- Free plan available
- Strong collaboration
About Hiver
Quick answer
Hiver is a shared-inbox and help-desk tool that lives directly inside Gmail and Outlook, letting teams assign, track, and collaborate on shared addresses like support@ without learning a separate ticketing system. It is best for teams that already run on Google Workspace or Microsoft and want help-desk structure without leaving their inbox. There is a free plan plus a 7-day trial; paid plans are per user. Confirm current pricing at signup.
What is Hiver?
Hiver is a shared-inbox and customer-service platform that runs as a layer on top of Gmail and Outlook rather than as a separate ticketing app. Teams managing shared addresses such as support@, billing@, or orders@ get help-desk capabilities, including ticket assignment, status tracking, internal notes, collision alerts, SLA timers, and analytics, without ever leaving the email interface they already use every day. Because it lives inside the inbox, onboarding is unusually fast: agents keep their familiar Gmail or Outlook workflow and simply gain new buttons and a sidebar.
That native approach is Hiver biggest strength and its boundary. For teams committed to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, it delivers the structure of a help desk with almost no learning curve, which drives quick adoption and consistent use. The trade-off is that it is tied to those email platforms, and organizations that want a fully standalone omnichannel help desk with deep customization may eventually prefer a dedicated platform. For inbox-centric support, ops, and finance teams, though, that constraint is usually a feature, not a limitation.
Key features
Email delegation
Assign emails as tickets to specific teammates with clear owners and statuses, all inside Gmail or Outlook.
Shared drafts and notes
Collaborate on replies with internal notes and shared drafts instead of messy forwards and CC threads.
Collision alerts
Get warned when a colleague is already viewing or replying to the same email to prevent double responses.
SLAs and automation
Set SLA timers and automation rules to route, tag, and escalate emails so nothing breaches deadlines.
Analytics
Track response times, volume, and team performance with reports built for shared-inbox support.
Multichannel add-ons
Higher tiers extend beyond email with knowledge base, chat, and other channels for a fuller help desk.
Hiver pricing explained
Hiver offers a free plan with basic shared-inbox features, then per-user paid tiers. Lite (around $24/user/mo) covers core shared inboxes and collaboration, Growth (around $29) adds more automation and analytics, and Pro (around $45) layers on advanced SLAs, multichannel options, and deeper reporting. Elite is custom-priced for larger teams that need the most advanced controls. Plans start at a 2-seat minimum and scale in seat increments, and annual billing runs up to 20 percent cheaper than monthly. An optional Hiver AI add-on (around $20/user/mo) is available across paid tiers, and a 7-day free trial lets you test premium features. Because exact tier inclusions and prices change, confirm current pricing at signup.
Hiver vs Front vs Help Scout
| Tool | Best for | Pricing | Standout |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hiver | Teams wanting help-desk structure inside Gmail or Outlook | Free plan, then per user about $24-$45/mo | Native Gmail and Outlook integration, near-zero learning curve |
| Front | Teams wanting a dedicated omnichannel shared inbox app | Per user, generally higher | Unified inbox across many channels in a standalone app |
| Help Scout | Support teams wanting a standalone email help desk | Per user, tiered | Polished customer-facing help desk and knowledge base |
✓ Use it if you
- Run on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365
- Manage shared addresses like support@ or billing@
- Want fast adoption with no new app to learn
- Need assignments, SLAs, and analytics on shared email
✗ Skip it if you
- Want a fully standalone, inbox-independent help desk
- Do not use Gmail or Outlook
- Need deep, highly customized omnichannel workflows
Is Hiver worth it?
For teams that already work in Gmail or Outlook and manage shared inboxes, Hiver is worth it. It brings genuine help-desk discipline (ownership, SLAs, collision alerts, analytics) while keeping everyone in the email tool they already know, which makes adoption fast and sticky. The free plan and 7-day trial let you validate the fit at no risk. The main reasons to skip it are if you do not use Gmail or Outlook, or if you specifically want a standalone omnichannel help desk. Otherwise, Hiver is one of the cleanest ways to turn a shared inbox into an organized support operation.
What's included
- Native Gmail and Outlook integration
- Email assignment and status tracking
- Internal notes and shared drafts
- Collision alerts
- SLA timers and automation rules
- Shared-inbox analytics and reporting
- Free starter plan
- Multichannel add-ons on higher tiers
Hiver pricing
Vendor's published rates at the time we checked — always confirm at checkout.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | free forever |
| Growth | $25/mo | per user/mo |
| Pro | $55/mo | per user/mo |
| Elite | $85/mo | per user/mo |
How to claim it
4 steps. The last one is the part most people skip.
- 1
Open Hiver through the link on this page
It carries our referral tag. The price you pay is identical either way, and it never changes the score on this page.
- 2
Pick the plan that matches your usage
This offer applies automatically through the link — there is no code to enter.
- 3
Confirm the discount before you pay
The order summary should show the reduced amount. If it does not, stop and tell us — we re-test listings that stop working.
- 4
Check what happens at renewal
Note the renewal date and the rate it reverts to, so the second invoice is not a surprise. Annual plans are usually cheaper per month but harder to exit.
Where Hiver wins and loses
What works
- Native Gmail and Outlook
- Real help-desk features
- Free plan available
- Strong collaboration
- Useful analytics
What doesn't
- Tied to Gmail and Outlook
- Per-user pricing with minimums
- Not a standalone omnichannel suite
- Short trial
The bottom line
Hiver is the fastest way to give a support, operations or finance team real help-desk discipline without dragging them out of Gmail or Outlook: shared inboxes, SLAs, automation and AI all live where they already work. Rigid per-seat pricing in fixed blocks keeps it from a perfect score, but for inbox-bound teams it's a clear Strong Buy.
Hiver offers a free-forever plan at $0, then three paid tiers billed per user: Growth at $25/user/month, Pro at $55, and Elite at $85, all on annual billing (monthly billing adds roughly $10 per seat). Every paid plan requires a minimum of two seats and scales in blocks of five, so smaller teams should budget for a few unused seats.
Yes. Hiver has a genuinely free-forever plan covering core shared-inbox and ticketing features, plus a 7-day free trial of the top Elite tier that needs no credit card. The trial unlocks premium capabilities like AI Agents, SLAs, advanced analytics and multichannel support, so teams can test the full platform before paying anything.
For support, operations or finance teams already living in Gmail or Outlook, Hiver is usually worth it because it adds help-desk structure — email assignment, SLAs, automation and analytics — without forcing anyone to learn a separate app. Teams handling very high ticket volumes or needing a fully standalone omnichannel platform may outgrow it and prefer a dedicated tool like Zendesk.
Hiver differs from Zendesk and Front by working entirely inside Gmail or Outlook rather than as a separate interface, making adoption faster and cheaper for email-first teams. Zendesk offers deeper omnichannel ticketing and reporting for large support operations, while Front leans into collaborative inbox workflows. Hiver wins on simplicity and time-to-value; the others win on scale and breadth.
Hiver's main limitation is rigid per-user pricing: paid plans require at least two seats and scale in increments of five, so a seven-person team still pays for ten seats. Because it layers onto Gmail and Outlook, it's also less suited to organizations that need a fully standalone, high-volume omnichannel help desk with deep custom reporting.
Yes. Hiver runs natively inside both Gmail (Google Workspace) and Microsoft Outlook, added through a browser extension rather than a separate application. Email stays inside your own Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account, so there's no data migration and messages never leave your existing mailbox — one reason setup typically takes minutes rather than weeks.
