Turn Gmail into your Team’s Workspace

When Drag is the best Hiver alternative.

Here’s a comparison for those that may be looking for a Hiver alternative.

In a nutshell.

Both tools work inside Gmail and offer shared inbox, automations, analytics, integrations and mobile apps.
Drag offers horizontal features that can be used across different workflows, such as merge cards or custom fields. Hiver goes deeper into the Help Desk use case with functionalities such as CSAT and SLAs.
Public reviews suggest that Drag is a more customizable solution and suits Small Businesses better.
Hiver’s entry pricing is double than Drag’s, and upgrading plans in Hiver results in a 160% price jump per user, while in Drag this number is 50%.
Hiver shares inboxes by duplicating emails across team members’ inboxes, posing data security issues.
When uninstalling Drag, your Gmail account is left the way it was before Drag was introduced. Hiver leaves a significant footprint in your Gmail account, even after you uninstall it.

Hiver vs Drag: which one is right for your team?

Ultimately, picking the right tool between Hiver vs Drag depends on your specific needs and workflow, and this choice doesn’t come down to only feature sets. If you are part of a team using Google Workspace and are looking for a collaboration tool in Gmail – definitely read on. We have designed this page to help you make a clear and simple decision and explore insights into why customers switch from Hiver to Drag.

Both Drag and Hiver offer a Shared Inbox that works inside Gmail and Google Workspace – one of the main differences is that Hiver is built specifically for customer support. It is, essentially, a Help Desk in Gmail. It does the job very well of enabling different team members to reply to emails, but if you are a small team looking for more flexibility and cost savings, you may want to think a little further into what tool is best for your team.

In addition, although both tools work inside Gmail, technically speaking, Drag and Hiver take very different approaches. Keep reading to learn more about them and other key differences between Hiver vs Drag.

Pricing.

Both tools offer a 7-day free trial, however, Drag and Hiver have contrasting views on pricing. If you’re more of an enterprise customer than Hiver prices will be more palatable, however, if you’re a small team Drag may be best placed to serve your needs.

Drag offers a free plan for small teams with up to 3 users. Hiver offers no free plan, whatsoever.
Drag’s starter plan doesn’t limit number the number of shared inboxes, or number of users. Hiver does both of these to push you to the higher pricing.
Hiver’s entry pricing is double than Drag’s.
Upgrading plans in Drag results in a 50% user / month price increase, while upgrading plans in Hiver means a 160% price jump.

Here is a comparison of prices:

Number of users
Price per user
Shared inboxes
Collision detection
Emails assignment
Team chat and @mentions
Email templates
Shared drafts
Automations
Zapier integration

Drag Starter Plan

As many as necessary

Unlimited

Hiver Lite Plan

Up to 10

$15

Reviews.

According to reviews from business software reviews website G2, Drag outranks Hiver in a number of key areas. But there are two that stand out: customization and small business fit.

Drag is overall a more flexible tool, allowing users to manage workflows beyond Help Desk or traditional shared inboxes. For example, Hiver only allows you to share entire inboxes, while with Drag you can either share entire inboxes or just specific emails. Drag also offers better visualization of workspaces with different views (eg. kanban boards), as well as task management features.

When it comes to team sizes, Hiver targets mid-market and enterprises, while Drag focuses almost exclusively on best serving companies with up to 50 employees.

Customization

97%

Quality of Support

94%

Dashboards

90%

Small businesses (50 or fewer emp.)

85%

Customization

84%

Quality of Support

93%

Dashboards

87%

Small businesses (50 or fewer emp.)

71%

Source: G2 reviews.

Customer Support.

When it comes to choosing software, customer support is key to consider. Both Drag and Hiver have solid customer support reviews.

Although Hiver offers 24/7 email and chat support to all plans, while Drag offers 12/5, Drag offers support calls from the plans starting at $12 user/month, while in Hiver you need to be paying $59 user / month to have access to support calls.

Drag’s customer support is among the highest-rated ones in the shared inbox space and has been awarded several times. For example, it has been receiving the “Customers Love Us” badge from G2 (below) for 24 quarters in a row (and counting).

Here at Drag, we pride ourselves on providing fast and personalized support to our customers. This is also highlighted very often in reviews from our customers.

If you are unhappy with the Hiver customer support or are looking for a Hiver alternative with special attention to support, Drag may be a good option for you.

Data Security.

Hiver has built its architecture so that when an email is sent to a shared inbox, a copy of the email is sent to every individual user’s inbox. This means that you can’t stop users from forwarding emails externally, for example. Or, if someone leaves the company or a specific team, every email sent to the shared inbox will still be in their inbox.

Needless to say, this dramatically increases the risk of data security breach.

With Drag, if someone leaves your company, they immediately lose access to any future and historical emails in a shared inbox. We do not duplicate emails across multiple inboxes. Technically, Drag shares the account permissions to access a specific inbox, which can be revoked at any time, with immediate effect.

Features.

Both Drag and Hiver offer excellent Shared Inboxes for Gmail and Google Workspace. Both comprehensively cover the core collaboration features that any Help Desk may need – assignments, internal chat, storage of files, automations, email templates, etc.

If you are looking to go further than exclusively a Help Desk solution, then Drag offers broader features such as merge cards, custom fields or kanban boards. These all enable a richer experience outside of a traditional Help Desk solution. For example, custom fields can be created for each of your boards to manage multiple types of workflows. They can represent deal values or lead job titles for sales teams, or years of experience for recruiting teams. Unfortunately, Hiver does not offer this flexibility.

In contrast, Hiver offers more comprehensive data and analytics if you are specifically looking for Help Desk functionality such as CSAT and SLAs – if you have a larger team and their exclusive use case is closing of support tickets, then Hiver may be the solution for you.

In summary, the best Hiver alternative for you and your team will depend on your priorities and workflows needs. If you are looking for something more than helpdesk-only, then Drag may be for you.

Gmail disruption.

Hiver leaves a significant footprint in your Gmail account, even after you uninstall it.

Hiver’s architecture relies on Gmail labels to allow for email collaboration. Basically, when you share emails or other information in Hiver, you are technically sharing Gmail labels. This means for each inbox, stage, team member, etc, a new label is generated in your Gmail account. These labels are not removed when you uninstall Hiver. Instead, when uninstalling it, you are left with a series of intrusive and inconvenient labels.

Likewise, Hiver automatically creates Gmail filters on users’ accounts upon installation. For example, a rule to ‘auto-skip inbox’ is created on every users’ accounts so that emails load on the shared inboxes and not in their personal inboxes. These filters are not removed when you uninstall Hiver either.

When uninstalling Drag, your Gmail account is left exactly the way it was before Drag was introduced.

“I have 300+ Hiver shared labels in my Gmail + my own custom labels. Let’s say I start 10 projects and I would like to share each of these with different set of people. If I want to make steps on each project (only 3, let’s say started, ongoing, done), to do this I have to create 30 new labels. It’s a jungle.”

Miko Linnavirta | Total Sec

Affordable pricing.

Collaborate directly from Gmail over your 7-day free trial
– then choose a plan or continue for free.

Free

For small teams that need
the essentials.

$0

user / month, billed yearly.

$0 per user / month if billed monthly.

Up to 3 users
1 WorkspaceA workspace can be a Shared Inbox, a Google Group, or a custom board.
Assign, mention, and team chat
Shared drafts
Collision detection
Email tracking

Try for Free

Starter

For teams starting with collaboration & automation.

$8

user / month, billed yearly.

$10 per user / month if billed monthly.

Unlimited users
Unlimited WorkspacesA workspace can be a Shared Inbox, a Google Group, or a custom board.
Unlimited shared conversations
Unlimited integrations
Unlimited rule executions
Email templates
Email notes and subtasks
1-month reporting window

Try for Free

Plus

For growing teams that need to scale work.

$12

user / month, billed yearly.

$15 per user / month if billed monthly.

Unlimited users
Unlimited WorkspacesA workspace can be a Shared Inbox, a Google Group, or a custom board.
Unlimited shared conversations
Unlimited integrations
Unlimited rule executions
Email sequences
Merge cards
6-month reporting window

Try for Free

Pro

For teams with advanced email workflows.

$16

user / month, billed yearly.

$20 per user / month if billed monthly.

Unlimited users
Unlimited WorkspacesA workspace can be a Shared Inbox, a Google Group, or a custom board.
Unlimited shared conversations
Unlimited integrations
Unlimited rule executions
Custom fields
Priority support
12-month reporting window

Try for Free

“I am very excited to have discovered Drag! I am impressed with this simple, cost-effective and infinitely scalable solution to facilitate our global customer service conversations.”