Hiver

What it is

Hiver started as a Gmail extension that turned shared addresses like support@ and billing@ into a ticketing system without anyone leaving Gmail. It still sells that product, now called Hiver in Gmail, and since 2026 it also sells Hiver Omni, a standalone web app that works with Gmail, Outlook, or any other mail provider and adds live chat, voice, WhatsApp, Slack, social, a customer portal, and web forms in one workspace. Both editions share the same AI layer and the same price ladder. The company was founded in Bengaluru as GrexIt, renamed in 2015, and raised a $22M Series B led by K1 in 2022. It claims 10,000+ teams, with Flexport and Ping Identity among the named customers.

The question it answers: “We live in Google Workspace. Do we need Zendesk, or will a helpdesk inside our inbox hold up?” For email-led teams under roughly 50 agents, Hiver is the strongest yes. Above that, or when chat and voice carry most of the volume, the answer starts to tilt back toward a ticket-first platform.

What shipped in 2026

The pitch has moved from “shared inbox” to “agentic customer service platform,” and the release notes back part of it up:

• May 2026: Customer Portal and Web Forms (Omni), so customers can submit and track requests outside email, plus AI Topics, which clusters conversations into topics and subtopics with volume, CSAT, sentiment, and resolution time per topic.
• August 2026: Skills, which are written procedures the AI follows across tools (check the order, verify the refund policy, reply or escalate), with per-step approval and an evaluation mode on real conversations before go-live. Also Customer Intelligence (accounts scored Healthy, Indifferent, or At Risk from sentiment, SLA, and resolution signals; Omni first, Gmail “coming soon”), a WhatsApp channel in Omni, chat inside iOS and Android apps, and a Hiver MCP server. Through MCP, Claude or another assistant can query SLA and CSAT data, read conversations, and add notes or tags. It cannot send a customer email, and that limit is deliberate.
• Integrations: HubSpot email logging to contacts, companies, and deals; NetSuite sales orders created from an email or PDF invoice; up to three Shopify stores per account; Jira, Asana, and Salesforce record views and updates.

Pricing

Both editions list the same per-user prices. All plans start at 2 seats and grow in steps (2, 5, then blocks of 5). Billing annually saves $10 per user per month:

• Growth: $25/user/mo annual ($35 monthly). Includes AI Agents, AI Copilot, Skills, AI Knowledge Builder, rule-based automations, and basic integrations. eesel’s June 2026 pricing review reports a 10-user ceiling on this tier.
• Pro: $55 annual ($65 monthly). Adds Customer Portal, SLAs, CSAT surveys, advanced analytics, premium integrations, and API access.
• Elite: $85 annual ($95 monthly). Adds AI QA, AI Insights, Customer Intelligence, skill-based routing, custom objects, SSO, and HIPAA.
• Voice (Omni only): $30 per voice seat per month, 1,000 minutes included.

Real-world band: most teams land on Pro, since SLAs and CSAT are where a shared inbox becomes a helpdesk. A 10-agent team then pays $6,600 a year on annual billing. The structural difference from peers is that Hiver publishes no per-resolution AI meter: AI Agents ride on the seat price. On the same 10 seats, Zendesk Suite Team costs about the same, but each automated resolution then bills at roughly $1.50 to $2.00. Front’s Professional tier is $65 a seat before $20 Copilot and $20 Smart QA add-ons. A 7-day trial opens on Elite with no card required.

Best for

Support leads and CS operations managers at Google Workspace companies with 3 to 50 agents whose volume is mostly email, especially operations-heavy teams like logistics, finance AP, and B2B account management, where one request crosses support, finance, and sales. The scoped use case: put support@, billing@, and orders@ into one SLA-tracked queue, let Skills handle refund and order-status requests against Shopify or NetSuite, and keep agents in the Gmail tab they already work in. Pick Omni instead of the Gmail edition once chat, WhatsApp, or voice exceed about a fifth of volume, or if part of the team is on Outlook.

Versus the alternatives

• Zendesk and Freshdesk are the share leaders. Pick Zendesk above about 50 agents, or when you need complex multi-brand routing, workforce management, and a large marketplace. Pick Freshdesk when you want a ticket-first helpdesk at a $19 entry seat and accept that its Freddy AI agent is session-priced.
• Front is the closest structural rival, an email-first collaboration inbox. Pick it when the conversations are account-based relationship threads across many channels and you need Front’s deeper Salesforce context. Expect a higher bill once its AI add-ons stack.
• Help Scout wins on its free tier and its Docs knowledge base. Pick it when deflection through good articles matters more than staying inside Gmail.
• Intercom sets the benchmark for AI agents at $0.99 per resolution. Pick it when chat-led, high-volume deflection is the whole problem and you will pay per outcome for a stronger agent.

Watch-outs

• The Gmail edition inherits Gmail’s limits. G2 reviewers repeatedly cite slow loading on busy threads, and Hiver in Gmail works only as a Chrome extension on a Gmail or Google Workspace account. Guard: run the trial with your three heaviest inboxes at real volume, and if lag shows up, trial Omni on the same inboxes before you sign.
• “AI included” has no published resolution cap. No per-resolution meter is listed, and none of the sources we checked state a fair-use ceiling. Guard: before an annual commitment, get in writing how many AI Agent resolutions a month your seat count covers and what happens above that.
• Key AI features sit on Elite. AI QA, AI Insights, Customer Intelligence, and skill-based routing are Elite-only at $85 a seat, so a Pro team that expects churn-risk scoring is buying the wrong tier. Guard: list the three AI features you will actually use in the first 90 days and price the tier that contains all three.
• Feature parity between editions lags. Customer Intelligence, WhatsApp, and in-app chat shipped to Omni first. Guard: check the edition column in Hiver’s monthly release notes for every feature in your business case, not the marketing page.
• Reporting is thinner than Zendesk’s. Reviewers flag limited analytics, and cross-inbox reports in the Gmail edition arrived only in August 2026. Guard: if leadership needs custom BI, confirm API access (Pro and up) and plan to export to your warehouse instead of relying on built-in reports.