Who this is for
Small teams moving support or client email out of personal inboxes into a shared one, choosing between two tools that both start at $25 a seat.
Side by side
| Compared on | Help Scout (AI features) | Front |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | An email-first shared inbox and help desk with AI drafts, summaries and an AI Answers bot. | A shared team inbox for email and messaging channels with AI that triages, drafts and resolves. |
| Starting price (checked 2026-10-09) | $25 per user/month (Standard); free plan. | $25/seat/month (Starter, up to 10 seats). |
| AI pricing | $0.75 per AI Answers resolution, with a monthly spending limit you set. | Autopilot $0.05 triage, $0.39 draft, $0.89 resolve per conversation; Copilot $20/seat on lower plans. |
| Channels | Email-first; AI Answers runs in the Beacon website widget. | Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Slack and a portal in shared inboxes. |
| Where it breaks | Reviewers call reporting basic and automation limited; the free plan blocks replies past 100 contacts a month. | Autopilot English only; seat caps push you up a tier; reviewers find per-seat cost high for big teams. |
| Setup | No-code. | No-code. |
| A custom build beats it when | The bot must act inside your own systems, beyond answering questions. | You only need cheap classification and routing of inbound email into your own tools. |
The verdict
Both are shared inboxes priced from $25 per user a month with AI that drafts and summarizes. Help Scout is email-first with a free plan for up to 100 contacts helped a month, and its AI Answers bot charges $0.75 only when it resolves a question, under a monthly spending limit you set, but that bot lives in the website widget and reviewers call reporting basic. Front covers email, SMS, WhatsApp, Slack and a portal, and its Autopilot bills per conversation by how far it gets, from $0.05 to triage to $0.89 to resolve, but it is optimized only for English, Starter stops at 10 seats, and Copilot costs $20 per seat on lower plans.
Pick Help Scout if your support is mostly email and you want a hard cap on AI spend; pick Front if your team works email and messaging channels together in shared inboxes.
Read the full take on each
Sources
- helpscout.com/pricing/
- helpscout.com/ai-features/
- docs.helpscout.com/article/1746-ai-resolutions-pricing
- docs.helpscout.com/article/1597-free-plan
- capterra.com/p/136909/Help-Scout/reviews/
- front.com/pricing
- help.front.com/en/articles/4890624
- capterra.com/p/132901/Front/reviews/
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