Why Drag is the best alternative to Hiver.
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, reports, integrations and mobile app.
- Drag offers horizontal features that can be used across workflows, such as custom fields. Hiver goes deeper into the Helpdesk use case with functionalities such as CSATs.
- Public reviews suggest that Drag is a more customizable solution and suits Small Businesses better.
- Hiver’s entry pricing is 130% higher than Drag’s, and upgrading plans in Hiver results in a 160% price jump vs 75% in Drag.
- Hiver shares inboxes by duplicating emails across team members’ individual inboxes, posing data security issues and overloading your Google Workspace storage.
- 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.
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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’s starter plan doesn’t limit number the number of shared inboxes, or number of users. Hiver’s entry level plan limits both of these.
- Hiver’s entry pricing is 130% higher than Drag’s.
- Upgrading plans in Drag results in a 75% 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
- User and tag reports
- Zapier integration
Drag Starter Plan
As many as necessary
$8
Unlimited
Hiver Lite Plan
Up to 10
$19
2
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.
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.
⚠️ Email duplication.
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. In addition, the duplication of emails can overload your Google Workspace account storage, resulting in further costs.
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. And your Google Workspace account does not get overloaded with duplicated emails.
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. Drag, on the other hand, leaves your Gmail untouched, as if it had never been there.
Hiver’s architecture relies on Gmail labels to allow for email collaboration. 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. And worse, these labels are not even removed when you uninstall Hiver.
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.
Finally, Hiver imposes a ‘Powered by Hiver’ footer on every email sent by users in their Lite plan. You need to upgrade to their higher plans to get rid of it. Drag does not use watermarks on users’ emails.
“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
Pricing that works at scale
92% of users increased team productivity after switching to Drag.
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
- 3-month reporting window
Try for Free
Plus
For growing teams that need to scale work.
$14
user / month, billed yearly.
$18 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.
$20
user / month, billed yearly.
$26 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
- Custom user roles
- 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.”
Anton von Rueden
President & COO @ Boosted Commerce
Read story
Join 200,000+ users using Drag
Exceptional collaboration, automation and communication in Google Workspace
Leading collaboration tool for Google Workspace users
Named Momentum Leader by G2.
200,000+ users worldwide
Spanning across 50+ countries.
No credit card required
No catch – free and paid options.
Setup in under 5 minutes
No IT teams required.
Google-approved security and trust
Google CASA certified, does not store your emails.
99.99% uptime in last 12 months
Monitored 24/7/365.
4.7 stars from 1,200 reviews.
