Helply vs Hiver (2026)

TL;DR

• Pick Helply if you want a standalone help desk where AI agents and humans work in the same inbox, and you prefer paying for AI work in credits to paying per seat.
• Pick Hiver if your team is on Google Workspace and wants support tooling that lives inside Gmail, with no new login and no context switching.

What they share

Both Helply and Hiver replace the chaos of a shared support@ inbox with a proper shared inbox and assigned conversations. Both cover basic reporting, and both suit teams that want less overhead than a full enterprise help desk.

The difference is the philosophy. Helply is an AI-native product, rebuilt from scratch, that positions itself against Zendesk, Intercom, Help Scout and Freshdesk. Hiver builds inside Gmail and keeps the workflow familiar.

Interface and adoption

This is the axis that usually decides the comparison.

Hiver's Gmail integration means agents never leave their inbox. The Hiver panel appears in the Gmail sidebar, where shared inboxes, conversation assignments, notes, tags, and SLA timers all live. For a team where every member checks Gmail dozens of times a day, the adoption friction is near zero.

Helply is a separate application. A Support Agent talks to customers, and an Assist Agent helps human agents investigate and draft replies, all in one inbox. But it is a second tab, a second login, a second place to check. For some teams that discipline is an asset (support is separate from personal email); for others it's drag.

Pricing

Helply: Starter is $49/mo, Pro is $199/mo, Scale is $449/mo, and Enterprise is custom. Every plan has unlimited users, so seats cost $0. Instead, AI work is billed in credits: a draft or summary costs 1 credit, a task touching one or two systems costs 4, and a multi-system investigation costs 12. Starter includes 500 to 32,000 credits, Pro 2,000 to 32,000, and Scale 4,000 to 32,000. Annual billing is 15% cheaper and pools credits across the year. The 14-day trial includes 1,000 credits and needs no card.

Hiver: Lite at roughly $19/user/mo, Pro at ~$49/user/mo, Elite at ~$79/user/mo (verify at hiver.com, as pricing has shifted in recent periods). One nuance: Hiver bills every Google Workspace user who handles support email, which can make the effective per-seat cost higher if support is a shared responsibility across a broad team.

For a focused 8-agent team, Hiver Lite comes to about $150/mo, against $49/mo for Helply Starter. The Helply figure is a floor, though, because the bill grows with credit use: 1,000 full investigations at 12 credits each use 12,000 credits. Helply's cost advantage grows with team size, since a 40-agent team pays the same plan price as a 4-agent team. Hiver costs more if you're counting seats across a larger team where only some people handle support.

Automation and workflows

Helply's automation is its main feature. Background agents (Churn, Knowledge, Revenue, Feature Request, Insights) watch conversations and act on them, flagging churn risk, feature requests and knowledge gaps without an agent opening the ticket. Skills-based routing arrives on the Scale plan.

Hiver's automation is rule-driven and runs inside Gmail's infrastructure, which means it hooks into Google Workspace's own filters and labels. For teams that already use Gmail filters extensively, Hiver's automations feel natural. Teams with more complex routing needs on Hiver will eventually find it limiting and may be pointed toward Freshdesk or Zendesk.

Reporting

Helply includes basic reporting on Starter. CSAT surveys, SLAs and custom reports start at Pro ($199/mo), and audit logs and HIPAA compliance at Scale ($449/mo). Hiver's reporting covers the core metrics: conversation volume, response time, first reply, and CSAT.

Teams that need cohort analysis or executive-level BI on top of Hiver will need a dedicated tool, or something like Freshdesk Analytics or Zendesk Explore. Helply's Snowflake and BigQuery integrations give it a route into your own warehouse.

Integrations

Helply integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Linear, Jira, Notion, Snowflake and BigQuery, and connects to Slack and Microsoft Teams as support channels.

Hiver lives inside Google Workspace, which means Google Calendar, Google Meet, and Google Drive integrations are native. Third-party integrations (Salesforce, Slack, HubSpot) exist but are add-ons rather than native features.

Verdict

If your team is fully on Google Workspace and your support is primarily email, Hiver's inbox-native experience is a genuine differentiator, so try it before assuming you need a separate tool. If you want AI to resolve tickets, need channels like WhatsApp, SMS or Telegram, or have a large team where per-seat fees add up, Helply is the better fit. Estimate your monthly conversation volume in credits before buying, because that sets your real cost. Helply is a rebuild, so workflows from the earlier product may not carry over one to one.