Missive is the better choice for a team under fifty that wants email, SMS, WhatsApp, team chat and tasks in one window at $14 to $36 per user. Front is the better choice for a larger organization that routes inbound between departments on rules and needs SLA reporting, at $25 to $105 per seat. Both are standalone shared inbox apps that connect your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 accounts and pull the conversations into their own workspace.
Missive is the smaller, lower priced, more contained tool, with team chat and tasks built in. Front is the larger, higher priced, more configurable one, with routing and SLA policies across teams and AI sold as add-ons below Enterprise. Prices verified October 2026. Both ask every person to move into the app.
| Front | Missive | |
|---|---|---|
| Channels | One channel type on Starter; email, SMS, social and WhatsApp on Professional and Enterprise | Email, SMS and social accounts from Starter; WhatsApp Business through Meta, billed by Meta |
| Where mail lives | In Front's app, connected to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 | In Missive's app, connected to Gmail, Outlook and other accounts |
| Assignment | Rules, routing across teams, SLA policies | Assign to a user or team, with rules |
| Notes | Comments on the conversation | Comments on the conversation, plus team chat rooms and tasks |
| Collision detection | Shows when a teammate is replying | Shows when a teammate is replying |
| Analytics | Cross-team reporting on Professional and Enterprise | Reports on who handles what |
| AI and how it is billed | Copilot $20 per seat per month as an add-on below Enterprise; Autopilot from $0.05 per conversation | AI assistant and automations on every plan, paid through Missive AI credits or your own API key |
| Price range | $25 to $105 per seat per month billed annually; Starter capped at 10 seats, Professional at 50 | $14 to $36 per user per month billed yearly; Starter capped at 5 users, Productive at 50 |
- Pick Missive if the team is small, wants messaging, chat and tasks next to email in one window, and will not design workflows.
- Pick Front if inbound moves between departments on rules, SLA reporting is a requirement, and someone will own the configuration.
- Pick neither if the inbound is the same named clients returning for years. Both apps organize the conversation and keep no record of what was promised in it. Sektra keeps that record per client, as the last section shows.
What is the difference between Front and Missive?
Missive is an all-in-one for small teams. It covers email, SMS and social accounts from its entry tier, adds WhatsApp Business through Meta, and puts team chat rooms and tasks in the same application as the inbox. It is priced so a group of five can run everything from one window, and it caps that entry tier at five users.
Front starts from the same shared inbox foundation and adds routing rules, SLA policies, cross-team automation and analytics built for larger organizations. Its entry tier is limited to one channel type, and its AI is sold as add-ons below Enterprise. Everything beyond assignment and comments needs configuring.
Front vs Missive pricing and seat caps in 2026
Seat caps matter more than headline prices here, because both vendors gate team size by tier. Figures are from the two pricing pages, verified October 2026, on annual billing.
- Missive Starter: $14 per user per month billed yearly, up to 5 users. Productive: $24 per user, up to 50 users. Business: $36 per user, unlimited. Yearly billing is labeled 20 percent off. Every new team gets a 30-day trial of Productive with no card.
- Front Starter: $25 per seat per month billed annually, up to 10 seats, one channel type. Professional: $65 per seat, up to 50 seats, omnichannel. Enterprise: $105 per seat, no cap listed. Annual billing is labeled a 24 percent saving. The trial is 14 days with Professional features.
A six-person team lands on Missive Productive at $24, about $1,730 a year, or Front Starter at $25, about $1,800 a year. Price is not the deciding factor at that size.
A thirty-person team is where the gap opens: Missive Productive is $8,640 a year, while Front Professional at $65 is $23,400 before any AI add-ons. Front is selling routing, SLAs and reporting at that size. The question is whether the thirty people will use them.
Which channels does each include?
Missive includes email, SMS and social accounts on every tier, and connects WhatsApp Business through Meta, with Meta billing the usage and Missive adding no fee. Group chats and voice calls on WhatsApp are outside what it supports. Front's Starter plan is limited to one channel type, and omnichannel arrives with Professional, where the native WhatsApp channel is billed at Meta's rates plus a 20 percent admin fee.
Team chat and tasks
Missive puts team chat rooms and tasks in the same application as the inbox. The internal conversation about a client thread happens next to the thread, and a to-do can be attached to it. Front handles internal discussion as comments on conversations and integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams. Neither design keeps the outcome of that discussion once the thread is archived.
How is AI billed?
Missive ships an AI assistant and AI automations on all three plans. The model-backed features draw on Missive AI credits or your own API key, so the AI cost is a separate, usage-based line.
Front sells Copilot at $20 per seat per month on Starter and Professional, includes it on Enterprise, and meters Autopilot from $0.05 per conversation on every plan. On a thirty-seat Professional plan, Copilot alone adds $7,200 a year. Both lines belong in the spreadsheet before the seat prices are compared.
Workflow and reporting
Front's rules engine, SLA policies and analytics are the reason it costs what it costs. Inbound moves between teams on conditions, what is late escalates, and response and resolution are reported across the organization. That engine needs someone on your team to spend a week designing workflows and then maintain them. Missive has rules and lighter reports, which a small team uses to automate the repeated moves and see who is handling what.
Missive vs Front: the adoption question both share
Both apps become the place where your email lives. That works only if everyone moves, and partial adoption is worse than none, because context now lives in two places. Before choosing either, count the people who will resist: the founder with fifteen years of Gmail habit, the part-time finance person, the contractors who rotate through. Each one is a hole in the shared context.
Start a Missive vs Front decision with a two-week parallel run on real mail. Include the people who will resist. The Missive review takes the adoption question further.
Where Sektra fits
We build Sektra. It changes the adoption math, because it is a separate workspace that syncs two-way with Gmail, Outlook, IMAP and WhatsApp Business instead of becoming the only place mail lives. Anyone who has not moved yet keeps working in their mail client, so the move can be gradual, person by person.
The shared inbox basics are there: assignment by rule, round robin or current workload, notes and mentions on the thread, and a typing indicator when a teammate is already replying. Internal notes live on the thread, and Sektra does not replace Slack or Teams.
The memory layer is the part neither app has. It is a record per client of every commitment with its date, every open question, the people and the history, built from the mailbox on connect. Set a silence watch with the day count you choose and Sektra tells you the day a client goes quiet. The assistant drafts from that record, and a person always sends.
Plans and the trial are on the pricing page. The row-by-row pages are Sektra vs Front and Sektra vs Missive. The product page covers the memory layer, and agencies shows the inbound it is built for.
Front and Missive are the same idea at two weights. Weigh the team you have against the configuration you will maintain, and keep the AI line in the same spreadsheet as the seats.
