The Best Hiver Alternative for Teams

Hiver is a help desk software that can be added to Gmail allowing you and your team to provide customer support directly from Google’s email client. It is built to help customer support teams stay organized and work more efficiently together by offering features such as shared inboxes, task and email assignments, and some degree of real-time collaboration.

Hiver is similar to Google Collaborative Inbox in many ways, but it offers a few more features. However, chances are if you’re reading this article, it’s probably not the perfect solution for your business.

Luckily, if you are looking for a better Hiver alternative, you’ve come to the right place.

Missive is a shared inbox and communication tool that can be tailored to meet your needs, making it the perfect solution for your business and team.

Let's explore how Missive is a great Hiver alternative, allowing you to collaborate with your team more effectively and reach a higher level of productivity.

Missive vs. Hiver: What’s Right for You?

When it comes to tools to manage shared inboxes, particularly for customer support, both Hiver and Missive offer a variety of features to help you and your team prioritize and organize shared emails. However, the two tools have distinct differences that set them apart.

Hiver is similar to Gmelius because it is an add-on to Gmail that helps teams collaborate around emails. Missive, on the other hand, is a shared inbox, communication tool, and email management software for teams.

Despite some similarities such as live chat that you can add to your website, assignments, contacts, shared drafts (although Hiver does not allow for real-time collaboration on drafts like Missive), SLA rules, and email tags, the two tools have several notable differences.

Hiver does offer a knowledge base feature, out of the box, which Missive does not. Though it's customization is less than what you would get from a full suite ticketing system like Help Scout, Freshdesk, or Zendesk. 

Missive offers a built-in calendar that can be synced with Office 365 and Google Calendar and shared with colleagues, while Hiver does not. Additionally, Missive includes a built-in chat feature, whereas Hiver only includes notes on the right side of emails in Gmail. It is also not possible to merge emails in Hiver, while it can be done in Missive.

Hiver only allows you to share inboxes with your own team, across 1 single domain. With Missive, you can collaborate with people no matter their organization. They don’t even need to use the same service provider as you. It’s a great way to delegate emails to an assistant. Hiver, however, only allows you to share inboxes with your own team, across 1 single domain.

In addition, Missive offers an API for integration with other tools so you can easily integrate it into your existing workflow. You also have the ability to see who is currently viewing a conversation which can help avoid duplicated work.

Missive also has an integration with OpenAI to help you quickly create emails and replies, translate incoming messages, correct your grammar and spelling, and more.

Both Hiver and Missive offer analytics.

Pricing

Both Missive and Hiver have a range of plans to better suits you need and budget. It’s also important that both platforms also offer free trials. Missive offers a 30-day trial while Hiver offers a 7-day trial. Missive also offers a free plan which is something Hiver doesn’t have.

Here’s a breakdown of both shared inbox solutions’ pricing.

Hiver Doesn’t Offer a Built-In Calendar

One key difference is that Missive offers a built-in calendar that you can sync with Office 365 and Google Calendar and share with your colleagues. Hiver, on the other hand, does not have this feature. This can be especially useful for teams that need to coordinate meetings and appointments.

Hiver Doesn’t Have a Built-In Chat

Another difference is that Hiver does not have a built-in team chat, only notes on the right side of emails. With Missive, you can chat with your team directly inside a conversation, making it easier to have more details and the context around the comments and chats.

Hiver Isn’t Great at Managing Emails

Another feature that Missive offers and not Hiver is merge emails, you can merge conversations with Missive. With Hiver, you can only share an entire inbox, while Missive allows you to share single emails.

Hiver is built in a way that when an email is sent to a shared inbox, a copy of the email is sent to every individual user’s inbox. Hiver only allows you to share inboxes with your own team, across 1 single domain. With Missive, you can collaborate with people no matter their organization and it's a great way to delegate emails to an assistant.

With Missive, you can see who is currently viewing a conversation and who viewed it. Replies, even drafts, also appear in the conversation helping your team avoid duplicated work. Missive offers an API so you can integrate it with the tools you use.

Ultimately, the choice between Missive and Hiver will depend on your specific needs and preferences. If you're looking for a more collaborative solution that includes team chat, calendar, and merge emails, Missive is a good option. If you're looking for a more specialized solution for managing your business-shared emails.

Hiver Doesn’t Support All Email Providers

If you're in the market for an email management and collaboration tool, it's important to consider the level of integration with different email providers. After all, you'll want to make sure that the tool you choose is compatible with the email provider your team uses.

In this regard, Missive has an advantage over Hiver. While you can use the Google feature to forward your emails from another email provider, only Gmail accounts are supported in Hiver.

Missive supports a wider range of providers, including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and all other services. This means that if your team uses an email provider other than Google, Missive is more likely to be a good fit for you.

Hiver Doesn’t Offer a Unified Experience on All Devices

It might be important for you and your team that the shared inbox tool you’re using is available on all devices that you use. It’s another place where Missive takes the edge.

Missive offers a unified experience across all devices, let it be web browsers, Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. You can use the same app on your computer, smartphone, and tablet, and get the same fast, and intuitive experience.

On the other hand, Hiver's Gmail add-on is only available on Chrome which limits the use of the tool a lot. All your team will need to switch to Google’s browser to use Hiver. Additionally, Hiver's mobile app is limited to shared inboxes and does not provide access to your personal emails, making it less convenient since you’ll have to switch between two apps to access all your emails.

With all that in mind, Missive may be the better option with its consistent and seamless experience across all devices and browsers.

Collaborate on More Than Just Emails with Missive

Emails have been crucial for business communication, but with new technology and platforms coming out it’s not the only communication method you need especially for customer support. Missive supports a wider range of communication methods than Hiver.

Hiver wants to position itself as a great helpdesk alternative for business, but sadly only supports emails and recently WhatsApp. Missive lets you and your teams collaborate on SMS, calls, WhatsApp, and social media, in addition to emails. It makes Missive a better tool for teams that need to do customer support and communicate with clients in various ways.

Of course, email is still an important part of the equation, and both Missive and Hiver offer robust shared inbox management features. But if you're looking for a tool that can help your team collaborate on more channels, then Missive may be the way to go.

Missive Offers More Integrations than Hiver

Being able to integrate the tools you already use with your shared inbox software is a big advantage that can help you improve your team workflow.

Missive offers a range of integrations, including:

• Asana
• ClickUp
• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• Grammarly
• Hubspot
• OpenAI
• Retool
• Shopify
• Todoist
• Trello
• Zapier
• Zoom
• And more

On the other hand, Hiver's integration options are more limited and may not offer the same level of seamless integration and flexibility for your team.

Hiver offers the following integrations:

• Asana
• JIRA
• Salesforce
• Slack
• Zapier

As you can see, Missive offers way more integrations and the ability to create yours if a tool you need isn’t supported.

Conclusion

Hiver focuses more on teams that need to manage support shared inboxes, while Missive is a more comprehensive collaboration and communication tool that includes email, team chat, and calendar. It is also a great tool for your customer support team as they can collaborate on emails, but also social media messages, live chat, WhatsApp, calls, SMS, and more.

If you are interested in learning more about how Missive can help your business, book a demo call today!