Help Scout vs Front: which shared inbox should your team choose?

Help Scout vs Front: which is better?

Help Scout is the better pick for a support team that answers customers by email and chat and wants a simple, affordable helpdesk. Front is the better pick when support shares the inbox with sales, account management or operations and needs heavy collaboration on email.

Both start at $25 per user or seat a month. The gap opens above the entry plan: Help Scout tops out at $75 per user, while Front's Professional and Enterprise plans cost $65 and $105 per seat billed annually, with AI QA and CSAT sold as add-ons below Enterprise.

On AI, Help Scout charges $0.75 per resolution for AI Answers, a bot that answers from your knowledge base and other sources. Front sells Autopilot, an AI agent that runs playbooks and takes actions in connected systems, starting at $0.05 per conversation through sales. If you want neither a seat-heavy inbox nor a bolt-on bot, there is a third option at the end.

How do Help Scout and Front compare side by side?

Help Scout is a support helpdesk with a built-in knowledge base. Front is a collaborative inbox that grew into a support platform. The table shows what each plan includes.

Checked October 2026 on helpscout.com/pricing and front.com/pricing. Confirm current prices on each vendor's site.

What are the main differences between Help Scout and Front?

The core difference is who works in the inbox. Help Scout is designed for a support team. Front is designed for any team that talks to customers over email and other channels.

Inbox and collaboration

Help Scout gives each team shared inboxes (2 on Standard, 5 on Plus, 10 on Pro, extra inboxes $10 a month), saved replies, tags, workflows and SLA policies. Front adds internal comments, shared drafts and guest accounts so a colleague outside support can weigh in on a thread without a paid seat, and workspaces to split inboxes by team (1 on Starter, up to 5 on Professional, unlimited on Enterprise).

Channels

Help Scout includes live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger from Standard up. Front's Starter plan is limited to a single channel type; omnichannel, including SMS, social and Slack, starts on Professional, and native WhatsApp is a Professional and Enterprise add-on billed at Meta's costs plus a 20% admin fee. Neither has native phone: Help Scout connects through integrations such as Aircall, and Front through integrations like Aircall and Dialpad.

AI

Help Scout's AI Answers answers customers from your Docs content and other sources you add, and hands off to the team when it can't. AI Drafts and AI Assist help agents write and translate. Front's Autopilot is positioned as an agent that runs multi-step playbooks across connected systems on email, chat and Slack, and Copilot drafts replies and suggests next steps.

Knowledge base and self-service

Help Scout's Docs is a strength: every plan includes at least one Docs site, and the Beacon widget puts articles, chat and a contact form on your site. Front includes a knowledge base on every plan, with a customer portal and multi-language support on higher tiers.

Scale and administration

Front's plans cap seats (10 on Starter, 50 on Professional), and Front requires a paid onboarding package on contracts over $25,000. Help Scout's Standard and Plus plans cap at 25 and 50 users, and Pro is sold through a demo with a 10-user minimum.

Is Help Scout or Front cheaper?

Help Scout is usually cheaper. Both start at $25, but Help Scout's mid tier is $45 per user against Front's $65 per seat, and Help Scout includes AI drafting on Plus while Front charges $20 per seat for Copilot below Enterprise.

Checked October 2026 on helpscout.com/pricing and front.com/pricing. Confirm current prices on each vendor's site.

Worked example: 10 agents, 3,000 conversations a month

Assumptions: 10 full agents, list prices, and an AI agent that resolves 1,000 conversations a month. Help Scout's per-user prices are shown at the monthly rate because that is how its page displays them.

• Help Scout Plus: 10 x $45 = $450 in seats, plus 1,000 x $0.75 = $750 for AI Answers. About $1,200 a month, less with annual billing.
• Front Professional with Copilot: 10 x $65 = $650 in seats, plus 10 x $20 = $200 for Copilot. $850 a month before Autopilot, which Front quotes per conversation through sales.
• Aftersales Growth: 10 x $69 = $690 in seats, plus 1,000 x $0.99 = $990 for Agent resolutions. $1,680 a month billed annually, with Copilot as a $29 per rep add-on.

On these assumptions Help Scout is cheapest per AI resolution. What you get for each resolution differs, which the next sections cover. Prices change often, so check the Help Scout pricing page and the Front pricing page before you budget.

Should your team pick Help Scout or Front?

Pick by who answers customers and how they work together.

• Small support team, email first, tight budget: Help Scout. The free plan covers 5 users and the Standard plan adds chat and messaging channels.
• Self-service heavy (SaaS, info products): Help Scout, for Docs and Beacon on every plan.
• Account managers, sales and ops sharing customer email: Front, for shared drafts, comments and guest access.
• B2B teams that work in Slack with customers: Front, which can bring Slack messages into the inbox on Professional and up.
• Healthcare teams that need HIPAA: Help Scout lists HIPAA compliance on Pro and as an add-on. Front's pricing and security pages do not mention HIPAA, so ask Front directly.
• Teams that want AI to complete tasks, not only answer: compare Front's Autopilot with the third option below.

For more head-to-heads, see Freshdesk vs Help Scout, Help Scout vs Zendesk and Front vs Zendesk, or the full list of shared inbox software.

Is there a third option to Help Scout and Front?

Yes. Aftersales is an AI customer service platform built around resolving conversations rather than routing them. Agent resolves conversations end to end and takes actions, such as verifying a Shopify order, creating a replacement or issuing a Stripe refund, inside spend limits you set. Copilot drafts replies that cite their sources, and Inbox is the shared helpdesk for everything that needs a person.

Checked October 2026 on helpscout.com/pricing and front.com/pricing. Confirm current prices on each vendor's site.

Where it differs from both: Agent hands a conversation to a person with the data it looked up and what it already tried, and escalation rules fire on sentiment, keywords, customer tier or legal language. Free Lite seats (20 on Growth, 50 on Scale) let colleagues view, comment and approve, which covers part of what teams like about Front's guest access.

Where it is not the better pick: Aftersales costs more per AI resolution than Help Scout's AI Answers, it was founded in 2024 so its ecosystem is smaller than either vendor's, and teams that mainly need non-support colleagues collaborating on email may still prefer Front. Confirm niche integrations on a call. Median resolution is 71% of conversations after 90 days, and Northwind Outdoors cut cost per conversation by 41%. See pricing, customer stories and our Help Scout alternative and Front alternative pages.

Frequently asked questions