Is Helpwise or Hiver cheaper?

Helpwise starts at $12 per user per month (Standard, annual billing; $15 monthly) (7 days trial). Hiver starts at $25 per user per month (Growth, billed annually; $35 monthly) (free plan available).

Helpwise vs Hiver

An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.

The short answer

Both sides assessed

Helpwise compared with Hiver

Hiver runs inside Gmail, so there is no new interface to learn and adoption is close to automatic for a Google Workspace team. Helpwise is a separate application, which costs you some adoption friction but gives you a real multichannel queue including WhatsApp, SMS, Instagram, and voice rather than an email-shaped one. Pick Hiver if the team will resist any tool that is not Gmail; pick Helpwise if you need channels beyond email and are willing to have people work somewhere new.

Hiver compared with Helpwise

Both are shared-inbox products with flat per-seat pricing and no per-resolution AI meter, so this is a close comparison. Helpwise is cheaper at $12 to $39 a seat and covers WhatsApp, SMS, and calling from its Premium tier, but it carries no SOC 2 or ISO certification. Hiver costs more, is a far older and better-certified vendor, and uniquely runs inside Gmail and Outlook rather than asking agents to move. Pick Helpwise on price and channel breadth; pick Hiver when adoption friction or a compliance questionnaire is the deciding factor.

Choose Helpwise if

Small businesses and lean operations teams (roughly 2 to 25 users) running several shared addresses across support, sales, billing, and HR, who want predictable flat per-seat pricing, broad channel coverage including WhatsApp and SMS, and no per-conversation or per-AI-resolution meter on the invoice.

Choose Hiver if

Small and mid-sized teams already standardised on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 whose support is email-led and whose biggest problem is coordination rather than volume. It suits support, finance, IT, and operations teams of roughly three to thirty people who need assignment, SLAs, and real reporting without asking anyone to abandon their inbox.

Side by side

13 attributes

Attribute	Helpwise	Hiver
Category	Support	Support
Starting price	$12 per user per month (Standard, annual billing; $15 monthly) (7 days trial)	$25 per user per month (Growth, billed annually; $35 monthly) (free plan available)
Pricing model	Flat per-user-per-month subscription across three tiers, with seat minimums and a user cap on the entry plan. No per-conversation, per-ticket, or per-AI-resolution metering.	Per-user subscription across three paid tiers, billed monthly or annually, with AI bundled into the seat price from Growth upward rather than metered per resolution. Seats are sold in fixed increments rather than one at a time.
Free plan	No	None currently advertised on Hiver's pricing page. Several third-party pricing trackers still list a free tier, which appears to be stale; treat the 7-day trial as the evaluation path and confirm at signup.
Free trial	7 days, no credit card required	7 days on the Elite tier, no credit card required
Best for	Small businesses and lean operations teams (roughly 2 to 25 users) running several shared addresses across support, sales, billing, and HR, who want predictable flat per-seat pricing, broad channel coverage including WhatsApp and SMS, and no per-conversation or per-AI-resolution meter on the invoice.	Small and mid-sized teams already standardised on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 whose support is email-led and whose biggest problem is coordination rather than volume. It suits support, finance, IT, and operations teams of roughly three to thirty people who need assignment, SLAs, and real reporting without asking anyone to abandon their inbox.
Setup time	An afternoon for a single inbox. Connect Gmail or Microsoft 365, invite the team, import saved replies, and you are working. Adding channels, rules, and a help center is another day or two of configuration.	Under an hour for a working setup. Install the extension across the team, connect the shared mailboxes, and the sidebar appears in everyone's Gmail. This is the fastest meaningful deployment in the category precisely because there is no new interface to roll out.
Learning curve	Low. This is a shared inbox that looks like a shared inbox, and agents who have used Gmail need almost no training. The person configuring automation rules and Smart Assign needs an hour with the documentation, and should note that several features they expect to find (SLA rules, custom views) only exist on the Advanced plan.	Close to zero for agents, which is the entire point. The only new concepts are assignment, status, and internal notes, all of which sit visibly in an interface people already know. The administrator has automation rules, SLA policies, and mailbox configuration to learn, which is an afternoon rather than a project.
Platforms	Web app, Embeddable live chat widget, Gmail and Microsoft 365 connections, Webhooks	Gmail and Google Workspace browser extension, Outlook and Microsoft 365, Hiver Omni standalone web app, iOS and Android apps
Compliance	GDPR compliance stated by the vendor with a dedicated policy page, Periodic third-party penetration testing, No SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA attestation published	SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, ISO 27001, HIPAA compliance support on the Elite tier
Founded	2016	2011
Headquarters	Palo Alto, California, United States	San Jose, California, United States, with significant operations in Bangalore, India
Ownership	Venture-backed, part of SaaS Labs, Inc.	Venture-backed, privately held. Operates as GrexIt, Inc. doing business as Hiver.

Strengths and limitations

Helpwise

Strengths

Flat per-seat pricing with no per-conversation or per-resolution meter, which in 2026 is a genuine differentiator rather than a lack of ambition.
Channel coverage at the Premium tier is unusually broad for the price: WhatsApp, SMS, Instagram, Facebook, live chat, voice, and email in one queue.
Sized by shared inbox rather than by ticket volume, which suits operations-heavy small businesses running several departmental addresses rather than one support queue.
The collaboration basics are all present and correct: collision detection, internal notes, mentions, shared drafts, and activity logs.

Limitations

No autonomous AI agent. The AI here assists agents and prioritises the queue; it does not resolve conversations without a human, so deflection is not on the table.
The Standard plan's ten-user ceiling and fifteen-saved-reply cap make it a starter tier rather than a viable long-term home for a growing team.
SLA rules, custom views, unlimited automation, and SSO are all locked to the $39 Advanced tier, which more than triples the entry price.
Compliance documentation is thin: GDPR, AWS hosting, encryption, and penetration testing are stated, but no SOC 2 report, ISO 27001, or HIPAA attestation is published.

Hiver

Strengths

Adoption is close to free. Agents keep working in Gmail or Outlook, which sidesteps the single biggest failure mode of help desk rollouts.
AI is bundled into the seat price from Growth upward with no per-resolution meter, so the monthly bill is genuinely fixed while competitors scale with volume.
Because Hiver operates on your existing mailboxes, evaluating it carries almost no switching risk: if you stop paying, your mail is exactly where it always was.
Analytics are strong for an inbox product: response time, resolution time, workload distribution, SLA compliance, and CSAT all reported properly.

Limitations

The seat increment structure is user-hostile. Two, then five, then multiples of five means teams routinely pay for one to four seats they do not use.
No light agent or read-only seat, so every engineer, contractor, or stakeholder who needs visibility costs a full licence.
It is an inbox, not a ticketing engine. There are no custom ticket fields, conditional forms, skills-based routing, or multi-brand help centers, and a growing support operation will hit that ceiling.
The knowledge base is functional but noticeably weaker than Zendesk's or Freshdesk's on theming, multi-brand support, and SEO control.

Pricing compared

Helpwise

Flat per-user-per-month subscription across three tiers, with seat minimums and a user cap on the entry plan. No per-conversation, per-ticket, or per-AI-resolution metering.

Standard$12
Premium$23
Advanced$39

Judged as capability per dollar, Premium at $23 a seat is strong: ten shared inboxes, WhatsApp, SMS, Instagram, voice, CSAT, and a help center for roughly what Help Scout charges for its Standard plan without any of the extra channels, and with no AI meter attached. Judged as capability in absolute terms, you are paying less because you are getting less: the interface is plainer, the knowledge base is thinner, the reporting is shallower, and there is no autonomous agent taking work off the queue. The honest framing is that Helpwise is the sensible purchase when your support problem is coordination rather than volume. If your problem is volume, a flat per-seat price is not a saving, it is a decision to keep paying humans to answer the same question.

Hiver

Per-user subscription across three paid tiers, billed monthly or annually, with AI bundled into the seat price from Growth upward rather than metered per resolution. Seats are sold in fixed increments rather than one at a time.

Growth$25
Pro$55
Elite$85

Hiver's value case is adoption and predictability rather than raw capability. You are paying so that nobody has to learn a new tool, and so that your support bill stays the same number every month regardless of volume. Both are worth real money. At $25 a seat with AI included, a five-seat team pays $125 a month for coordination, automation, analytics, and AI drafting, which is less than a single Zendesk Suite Professional seat plus Copilot. The weaknesses are structural: the seat increments overcharge teams whose headcount is not a multiple of five, there is no light agent option, API access costs $55 a seat, and the knowledge base and routing are noticeably thinner than a real help desk. If your support is email-led and your problem is coordination, this is excellent value. If your problem is volume, Hiver is the wrong shape and its bundled AI will not save you.

Editorial verdict on each

Helpwise

Helpwise is the unfashionable choice, and in 2026 that is close to a recommendation. While the rest of the category moved to charging per AI resolution, it kept a flat per-seat price of $12, $23, or $39 and shipped AI that helps agents rather than replacing them. For a small operations-heavy business running several departmental inboxes, that combination of broad channel coverage at Premium, real collaboration features, and a bill that does not move with traffic is genuinely good value, and cheaper than Help Scout or Front for the same core job. Be clear-eyed about what you are not getting: no autonomous deflection, a thin knowledge base, shallow reporting, no SOC 2, and a top-tier gate on SLAs, custom views, and SSO that triples the entry price. Buy it if your support problem is coordination and predictability. Look elsewhere if your problem is volume, because a flat seat price does not reduce a queue, it just makes the cost of answering it easier to forecast.

Read the full Helpwise profile

Hiver

Hiver solves a real and underrated problem: help desks fail not because they lack features but because agents quietly keep working in Gmail. By putting assignment, SLAs, analytics, and AI inside the mail client people already use, Hiver gets adoption almost for free, and it is one of very few vendors in this category that has refused to attach a per-resolution meter to its AI. A five-seat team pays $125 a month at any volume, which is a genuinely differentiated offer in 2026. The reservations are concrete rather than philosophical: the two-then-five-then-fives seat structure overcharges most teams, there is no light agent seat, API access costs $55 per user, and the knowledge base and routing are thinner than a real ticketing platform. Buy Hiver if your support is email-led, your team is on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, and coordination rather than volume is your problem. If you need deflection at scale or a configurable ticket model, buy something else.

Read the full Hiver profile

Helpwise profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Hiver last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.