Front charges per seat and sells the AI separately. We do neither.
Front runs $25 to $105 per seat a month on annual billing, and Copilot, Smart QA, and Smart CSAT are extra on every plan below Enterprise. ThriveDesk is flat per plan with the AI agent included. Used by 2,000+ support teams worldwide.
- No credit card required
- Set up in under 5 minutes
- Cancel anytime
Powering support for growing teams
Where the two tools actually differ
Below is where ThriveDesk comes out ahead and where Front does.
Flat per plan, not per seat
ThriveDesk: One price per plan. The tenth teammate costs nothing extra.
Front: Every seat adds $25 to $105 a month depending on the tier.
The AI agent is in the plan
ThriveDesk: Included. No per-seat AI licence and no per-conversation meter.
Front: Copilot $20 a seat, Smart QA $20, Smart CSAT $10, Autopilot metered on top.
Help center inside your website
ThriveDesk: Run the help center on your own WordPress site, no code required.
Front: Knowledge base is basic on Starter; multilingual needs Enterprise.
How much could you save with ThriveDesk?
Your ThriveDesk plan: Standard. Front rates are its published annual-billing prices, read from front.com in August 2026 — monthly is higher at $35 and $85, and Enterprise is annual only. Starter caps at 10 seats and Professional at 50. Copilot, Smart QA, and Smart CSAT are per-seat add-ons below Enterprise, and Autopilot is metered separately.
ThriveDesk vs Front: which should you pick?
- On price
- Front Starter is $25 a seat a month on annual billing, so five people cost $125 against $69 for ThriveDesk Standard. Professional is $65 a seat — $325 for the same five. The add-ons compound it: Copilot and Smart QA are $20 a seat each and Smart CSAT $10, so a Professional team wanting AI assistance is closer to $105 a seat before Autopilot, which is metered separately at around $0.05 a conversation.
- On getting started
- Front is the most polished shared inbox in this comparison and it deserves the reputation — threads stay recognisably like email, and agents get their individual inbox, calendar, and scheduling in the same place. What reviewers report is a steep curve on advanced workflows and analytics that lack depth for a support team managing to SLAs.
- On features
- Front is built for high-touch client communication rather than ticket volume, and it shows: internal comments and shared drafts sit on top of a real email thread, so customers never get a robot-shaped reply. ThriveDesk goes deeper on ecommerce context and runs the help center inside your own site. Neither of us has a native phone channel — Front routes voice through Aircall or Dialpad, and we do not offer it at all.
- Pick Front if
- Choose Front if support is really account management — agencies, client services, logistics teams where the same named people email you for years. Its email fidelity and the inbox-plus-calendar-plus-scheduling combination have no equivalent here. Take it too if you need multilingual help content at enterprise scale, or SSO and SCIM governance we do not match.
On G2, side by side
Read the sample sizes before the scores. Front has far more reviews than we do, which makes its average harder to move in either direction — a higher score off a smaller base is not the same claim. G2 publishes per-dimension scores only on its own comparison pages, and it has none for ThriveDesk yet, so there is no honest way to show a category-by-category split here.
ThriveDesk vs Front
The two tools, feature by feature. Where Front has something ThriveDesk doesn’t, the table says so.
Why choose ThriveDesk over Front?
- Flat pricing, not per agent Add teammates without the bill moving. ThriveDesk: included Front: not available
- AI with no per-resolution charge The AI agent is part of the plan, not a usage meter. ThriveDesk: included Front: not available
- Free migration on annual plans Our team moves your data for you, at no cost, when you sign up for an annual plan. ThriveDesk: included Front: not available
- MCP server for AI assistants Front’s is an open beta an admin sets up as a developer app. ThriveDesk is one address and a sign-in. ThriveDesk: included Front: included
- Shared inbox All customer conversations in one place. ThriveDesk: included Front: included
- Live chat Talk to visitors and customers in real time. ThriveDesk: included Front: included
- Knowledge base Self-service help content for customers. ThriveDesk: included Front: included
- Workflow automation Route, assign, tag, and follow up automatically. ThriveDesk: included Front: included
- Private notes & mentions Discuss a ticket with teammates without emailing the customer. ThriveDesk: included Front: included
- Free plan A permanently free tier for very small teams. ThriveDesk: not available Front: not available
- Multilingual help content Serve articles and replies in more than one language. ThriveDesk: included Front: included
- Native voice channel Phone support built into the platform. ThriveDesk: not available Front: not available
Migrate with confidence
We do not run an assisted migration from Front yet. Talk to us about your data and we will tell you honestly what we can move.
“ ThriveDesk is really easy to use while being super effective. I can say without a doubt that ThriveDesk is the best live chat software for small businesses. ”
“ The ThriveDesk team truly exceeded expectations with their exceptional work on integrating SureCart. Their dedication resulted in a powerful integration that surpassed all our requirements. ”
“ As our business and list of clients grew, user classification data became vital for us. We needed to serve our premium customers first to keep our business running. ”
“ At some point, we were paying top dollar yet not all our support requirements were being met. After some digging, we found ThriveDesk. ”
“ I love ThriveDesk so much. It’s easy to use and user friendly — the best choice for anyone who wants to modernize a classic support system and get live chat built in. ”
“ The performance of ThriveDesk is very good, and it’s intuitive. I just tried the AI chatbot — add a few knowledge base articles and it’s answering mostly correctly. ”
Connect with your existing tech stack
Integrate ThriveDesk with the marketing, analytics, and growth tools you already use, and hand the repetitive work to automation so your team can focus on customers.
Ready when you step away from the desk
Everything you rely on in the ThriveDesk web app comes with you on mobile.
- View, reply to, and forward messages
- Add notes
- Mention colleagues
- Create, edit, and tag conversations
- Manage the assignee
- Collision detection
Welcome, Alamin Ahammed
Our pricing philosophy
How we keep pricing flat
Letter no. 0003
From the founder’s desk
Our competitors raised venture capital or private equity, chased rapid growth, and put profits ahead of people.
At first they build for you, the small business owner. Then their sights shift. Enterprise clients promise bigger paydays, so they chase them. New features get built for enterprise instead of for you, interfaces bloat, and simplicity gets sacrificed. The tool you loved stops feeling like yours.
That is not us. We took a different path. We are bootstrapped, funded by one group only: you, our customers. There are no investors to impress, no quarterly profit targets, and no enterprise ambitions pulling us away from the people we set out to serve.
Our mission is simple — help you grow your business through great customer service. We keep our costs low so we can pass the savings on to you. If you are tired of paying enterprise prices for features you will never use, we understand.
We are not here to outgrow you. We are here to grow with you.
Parvez Akther
Founder & CEO
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Before you switch
The questions people usually ask when they compare ThriveDesk with Front.
Is ThriveDesk cheaper than Front?
Does Front include AI?
Does Front have a free plan?
Which is better for a team that emails the same clients for years?
Does either have a native phone channel?
Can you move my Front data across?
Weighing other tools too?
See every comparison side by side on the help desk comparison hub.
