Front vs Help Scout

by Gralio Feb 19, 2025

Front and Help Scout are both customer service platforms with shared inboxes, but Front offers more advanced collaboration and automation features, while Help Scout emphasizes simplicity and ease of use. Front is better for teams needing robust internal communication and complex workflows, while Help Scout is a good starting point for smaller teams prioritizing ease of implementation and use.

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This comparison was created by analysing 2744 reviews and 60 websites, saving 15 hours, 44 minutes of reading.

Logo of Front
Logo of Help Scout

About

Front is a customer service platform designed to help businesses manage customer interactions efficiently. It offers a shared inbox that combines email, chat, social media, and other channels into one place. This allows teams to collaborate, automate tasks, and access customer information easily. Front also provides analytics and insights to help businesses improve their customer service operations and measure performance. It's suitable for businesses of all sizes looking to streamline customer support and enhance team collaboration.
Help Scout is a customer service platform designed for growing businesses. It provides a shared inbox to manage customer emails, live chat, and self-service tools like a knowledge base. Help Scout helps teams stay organized, respond faster, and track performance. It's known for being user-friendly and easy to set up, unlike more complex help desk software.

Summary

Main difference
Front offers more robust collaboration features, including shared drafts and internal discussions, making it ideal for teams working closely together on customer communications. Help Scout prioritizes simplicity and ease of use, making it a better fit for smaller teams or those new to shared inbox tools.

Relative strengths of Front (compared to Help Scout)

  • Superior collaboration tools (shared drafts, internal comments)

  • Integrates with more communication channels (email, chat, social media)

  • Offers more advanced automation and rules

Relative weaknesses of Front (compared to Help Scout)

  • Can be more complex to set up and use

  • Pricing can be higher for smaller teams

  • Mobile app has limited functionality compared to the desktop version

Who is using Front and Help Scout?

Kevin Jurovich
Co-founder & CEO at Circles and Huble
Ollie Forsyth
New Economies Founder
Josh Payne
Partner OpenSky Ventures
Sal Abdulla
Founder NixSheets - SaaS Finance Expert
No data

Who should use Front VS. Help Scout

Front is a customer service platform that streamlines customer interactions through a shared inbox. Ideal for businesses of all sizes, especially those with remote or hybrid teams, Front centralizes communication channels and offers collaboration features. Users praise the snooze and tagging features, while some find the rules confusing and the search function lacking. Consider Front to improve team collaboration and customer support efficiency.

Help Scout is a user-friendly customer service platform ideal for growing businesses. It offers a shared inbox, live chat, and self-service tools. Users praise its clean interface and ease of use, while some find the mobile app lacking. Help Scout prioritizes efficient communication and streamlined workflows.

  • Best for small, mid-sized, and enterprise businesses.

  • Suitable for most industries, including Healthcare, Finance, E-commerce, Retail, and more.

  • Best for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

  • Suitable for most industries, especially e-commerce, retail, and software.

Front and Help Scout features

Supported
Partially supported
Not supported
Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

  • Shared Inbox
    Supported

    Front offers a shared inbox for emails, social messages, and team collaboration.

    Supported

    Help Scout offers a shared inbox for emails, social messages, and team collaboration.

  • AI-powered assistance
    Supported

    Front offers AI-powered features like automated summaries, suggested replies, and task automation.

    Supported

    Help Scout offers AI assistance for tasks, replies, and indirectly helps prioritize conversations.

  • Project Tracking
    Partially supported

    Project tracking is supported via integration with project management tools like Trello, Asana, and ClickUp.

    Partially supported

    Help Scout does not directly support project tracking but offers workflows and integrations that can be adapted for some project management tasks.

  • Shared inbox
    Supported

    Front supports the ability to have a shared team inbox for emails.

    Supported

    Help Scout offers a shared inbox designed for team collaboration and customer service.

  • Email drafts collaboration
    Supported

    Front supports email drafts collaboration, allowing multiple users to collaborate in real-time on email drafts.

    Not supported

    Help Scout does not support real-time collaboration on email drafts.

  • Internal comments
    Supported

    Front supports the ability to comment on emails internally, visible only to the team, not the external recipient.

    Supported

    Help Scout supports internal notes for team collaboration, hidden from customers.

Qualities

  • Value and Pricing Transparency
    +1
    Strongly positive sentiment
    No data
  • Customer Service
    +0.68
    Rather positive sentiment
    +1
    Strongly positive sentiment
  • Ease of Use
    +0.83
    Strongly positive sentiment
    +0.86
    Strongly positive sentiment
  • Reliability and Performance
    -0.03
    Neutral sentiment
    +0.5
    Rather positive sentiment
  • Ease of Implementation
    +0.29
    Neutral sentiment
    No data
  • Scalability
    +1
    Strongly positive sentiment
    No data

Front and Help Scout Pricing

No data

User sentiment

Rather negative
-0.43

See full Pricing page

Help Scout's pricing is based on the number of contacts helped per month. A contact is defined as someone who received a reply or had their question resolved by the AI assistant. Unlimited users are included in all plans. A Fair Billing Policy is used where the contact tier is based on a three-month rolling average. Additional add-ons are available for features like extra inboxes and docs sites. Help Scout also offers discounted pricing for non-profits and startups.
Plans

See full Pricing page

Front and Help Scout review insights

2724 reviews analysed from and

Users love

  • The "Snooze" feature is great for clearing the inbox and prioritizing emails.
  • Tagging rules are very helpful for filtering and organizing emails.
  • Internal commenting allows for collaboration without cluttering the email thread.
  • Easy to assign emails to team members for efficient task management.
  • Clean and simple user interface.
  • Easy to set up and use.
  • Excellent customer support.
  • Useful saved replies and workflows.

Users dislike

  • Rules can be confusing and don’t always seem to work consistently.
  • Emails are sometimes missed due to the assigned teammate archiving conversations.
  • The search function is not very effective, requiring users to sift through many emails.
  • Mobile app lacks functionalities available on the online version.
  • The mobile app is underwhelming with limited functionality.
  • The "previous conversation" on the right side isn\'t always accurate.
  • Saved replies are crippled: all images are stripped from the reply.
  • The integration with our CRM could be improved.

Front and Help Scout Ratings

  • G2
    4.7/5
    (2121)
  • Glassdoor
    4.5/5
    (226)
  • G2
    4.4/5
    (404)
  • Capterra
    4.7/5
    (214)
  • Glassdoor
    3.2/5
    (40)

Company health

Employee growth

34% increase in the last year
14% increase in the last year

Web traffic

9% decrease in the last quarter
35% decrease in the last quarter

Financing

March 2022 - $204M
No data

How do Front's and Help Scout's mobile app functionalities compare?

Front's mobile app receives criticism for lacking functionalities present in the desktop version, while Help Scout's mobile app is considered underwhelming with limited functionality. Both platforms seem to have shortcomings in their mobile apps compared to their desktop counterparts.

Which product best supports a primarily email-based workflow?

Both Front and Help Scout support email-based workflows with shared inboxes and team collaboration features. However, Help Scout is described as being specifically designed for growing businesses looking for an affordable, user-friendly, email-centric customer service platform. While Front also handles email, it integrates other channels like chat and social media, potentially shifting focus away from a primarily email-based workflow. Therefore, Help Scout appears to be the better choice for a business prioritizing email.

What are the advantages of Front?

Front offers more robust collaboration features, such as email drafts collaboration and internal comments, enabling better teamwork compared to Help Scout. Front also integrates a wider range of communication channels beyond email, including live chat and social media, providing a more unified customer communication platform. Furthermore, Front leverages AI for tasks like suggesting replies and prioritizing conversations, offering more advanced automation capabilities.

What are the disadvantages of Front?

Front's rule-based automation can be confusing and inconsistent, sometimes leading to missed emails. The search functionality is reportedly inefficient, making it difficult to locate specific emails. The mobile app lacks feature parity with the desktop version, limiting its usefulness. Finally, user reviews indicate a negative sentiment towards Front's pricing.

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Page co-authored by
MK
Michal Kaczor
CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

TT
Tymon Terlikiewicz
CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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