Front Pricing Explained for Small Support Teams

Front costs $25 per seat a month on Starter, $65 on Professional and $105 on Enterprise, billed annually (Front pricing, checked 26 October 2026). Monthly billing is $35 and $85; Enterprise is annual only. Front’s Autopilot AI is advertised “starting at $0.05”, but a fully resolved conversation costs $0.89.

Key takeaways

• Front charges per seat. Three seats on Front Professional cost $195 a month billed annually, or $255 monthly.
• Front Starter covers one channel type. Email plus live chat needs Front Professional at $65 a seat.
• Autopilot has three prices: $0.05 to triage, $0.39 to hand off and $0.89 to resolve, charged once at the highest outcome.
• Copilot is $20 per seat a month on Starter and Professional, included in Enterprise.
• Seat caps apply: Starter holds up to 10 seats and Professional up to 50.

A founder buying support software needs the cost of running the team, not just the cost of admitting one agent. Every founder, agent or developer who needs paid access adds a seat, whether the queue is quiet or busy, so headcount becomes a purchasing decision as well as a staffing decision.

How much does Front cost?

Five seats on Front Starter cost $125 a month billed annually. Eight seats on Front Professional cost $520. Neither figure includes AI, WhatsApp, or any seat you add later. The seat price is where a Front quote begins, and for a team supporting several products it is rarely where it ends.

Source: Front pricing, checked 26 October 2026. Front’s toggle says “Save 24%” for annual billing; Starter works out to about 29% and Professional 24%. There is a 14-day free trial with Professional features and no card.

Front pricing page, captured 1 October 2026. Seat prices unchanged on 26 October.

Treat the headline as a floor

The seat price answers one narrow question: what one person’s access costs on the chosen billing cycle. AI, channels, API capacity and onboarding sit outside it. Before comparing vendors, write down the shape of your operation:

• People who need access: founders, agents and developers who regularly join conversations.
• Products sharing support: separate your app count from your team size.
• Channels customers use: the ones you run today, not ones you might launch.
• Automation you intend to buy: assistance for agents is a different purchase from software that resolves conversations.

A five-person team supporting two products on email and chat can land on a very different bill from a five-person team on email alone. The seat count is the same; the configuration is not.

Compare the right economic units

Agent infrastructure can also sit outside a help desk subscription. If you are weighing a separate agent stack, AgentStack’s pricing for deploying support agents works as an extra budgeting reference. Keep that deployment budget separate from the shared inbox contract until you confirm what each purchase covers.

Buying rule: Compare the cost of supporting the same team, products and channels. Don’t compare one vendor’s starting price with another’s complete configuration.

What each Front plan is built for

Front’s tiers are easier to judge as different jobs than as badges. Start from the lowest tier that runs your actual workflow, not the middle card because it looks like a safe compromise.

Front Starter should pass the basic inbox test

Front Starter fits a small team handling one kind of conversation, usually email, in a shared inbox. The constraint to test is the channel limit: Starter supports a single channel type, so a team that answers email and website chat already needs Professional. Test a real conversation that needs a developer’s input and check whether that developer needs a paid seat.

Front Professional should solve a named constraint

Front Professional adds omnichannel (email, SMS, social, WhatsApp), macros, up to 20 automation rules, multiple workspaces, SSO and SCIM. Buy it when the lower tier can’t support a workflow you can name, such as one queue across email and chat, rather than a general wish for a more capable help desk.

• Channel requirement: the team must work email, chat and messaging in one place.
• Collaboration requirement: agents need to involve colleagues without losing ownership.
• Automation requirement: repeated work needs rules rather than a manual checklist.

Front Enterprise needs a specific justification

Front Enterprise adds unlimited rules and macros, custom roles, a multi-language knowledge base, and includes Copilot, Smart QA and Smart CSAT. It is annual only. Ask which requirement the lower plans can’t meet. If nobody can name one, the tier needs more scrutiny. Front also requires an onboarding package for contracts over $25,000.

Buy the tier that supports your operating requirements. Don’t treat the highest tier as insurance against requirements nobody has defined.

Where Front pricing adds cost beyond seats

Seats set a fixed floor. If automation reduces incoming work but everyone keeps paid access, the seat part of the bill doesn’t fall. Budget the automation separately, then decide whether its operational benefit justifies it.

What Front’s AI costs

Front prices its AI agent, Autopilot, by the outcome it reaches, and charges each conversation once at the highest outcome:

Source: Autopilot pricing on Front’s pricing page, checked 26 October 2026. Autopilot is an add-on on every plan. Copilot, the AI assistant for agents, is $20 per seat a month on Starter and Professional and included in Enterprise.

The headline “starting at $0.05” describes triage only. For budgeting, the resolution price is the one that matters: 100 resolved conversations cost $89, and conversations Autopilot hands off still cost $0.39 each.

Separate subscription, usage and setup

• Recurring subscription: paid seats, plus per-seat add-ons such as Copilot.
• Usage: Autopilot outcomes, and WhatsApp at Meta’s message costs plus a 20% admin fee (Professional and Enterprise).
• API capacity: a higher API rate limit costs $200 per 100 requests a minute per month.
• Implementation: onboarding and training; required as a package above $25,000.

Ask Front to mark each line as included, optional, usage-based or separately quoted.

Demand comparable prices

A credible comparison uses the same unit. Price per seat belongs beside price per seat, and a per-outcome rate needs its outcome defined before it means much. Research on price perception and reference prices separates meaningful comparisons from arbitrary anchors; for a buyer, that means ignoring a “starting at” figure and pricing the configuration you’ll actually buy.

What a small team actually pays on Front

Three, five and eight seats, priced from Front’s published rates, show how seats and AI stack up. These are worked examples, not quotes, and assume annual billing unless marked.

Our calculation from Front pricing, 26 October 2026. AI rows count resolutions only; any handed-off conversations add $0.39 each.

Email only. Three seats on Front Starter cost $75 a month, the cheapest way into Front, as long as one channel is enough.

Email and chat. Adding a second channel moves all three seats to Front Professional, from $75 to $195 a month.

AI on top. With Autopilot resolving 100 conversations a month, the three-seat bill reaches $284; at 400 resolutions on five seats it reaches $681, more than half of it AI.

Keep the unknowns visible

Ask Front whether each product you support would need its own workspace or channel setup, and price the deployment it describes. Run the same inputs through our help desk price calculator to sanity-check the spreadsheet, and mark any charge not confirmed in writing as unconfirmed.

Which Front plan fits your team?

Plan choice should follow a constraint you can name. An email-led founder team should test Front Starter. A team working email and chat in one queue needs Front Professional. A company with security, roles and QA requirements should ask whether Front Enterprise is necessary to meet them.

Start with the workflow that would break

Identify the support task the team can’t afford to handle badly: pulling in engineering, keeping ownership clear across channels, or restricting admin access. Then test that task on the proposed plan.

• Email-first operation: the simplest plan that handles the inbox process.
• Shared multi-channel queue: channel coverage and collaboration together.
• Several supported apps: confirm workspace structure and channel charges before assuming one subscription covers the portfolio.

For Shopify app teams, customer context is another requirement. Decide whether agents need the merchant’s plan, MRR and billing history beside the conversation, and ask how the system supplies it.

Give the incumbent a fair evaluation

Front can remain the right choice for a team that runs an effective shared inbox, values its collaboration model and can afford seat growth. A cheaper subscription isn’t automatically a cheaper migration: history, retraining and rebuilt workflows all cost time. If a capability or pricing structure doesn’t fit, our comparison of Front alternatives builds a shortlist.

How flat team pricing compares with Front

The central difference is what the vendor meters. Per-seat pricing ties the bill to who has access. Convot, the help desk we make for small software teams, prices by the number of apps you support with seats included, so weigh this section with that in mind.

Source: Convot pricing, October 2026. Extra seats are $10 a month and extra apps $20 a month (apps are unlimited on Scale). Cove AI is $0.20 per resolved conversation on paid plans; Community has no Cove AI.

Run the Front rows through that model:

Our calculation, 26 October 2026. Convot plans by row: Starter, Starter, Growth, Growth plus one extra seat. For the full feature side-by-side, see Convot vs Front.

Flat pricing still needs a capacity check

A whole-team price doesn’t mean every dimension is unmetered. Included seats, app count and AI activity still decide the bill.

• Contributor access: can a developer join without changing the subscription?
• Product coverage: can one team support every app from one inbox?
• AI billing: is the charge tied to seats, activity or resolved conversations?
• Tool replacement: count savings only for tools you’ll actually retire.

Context and migration matter too

For Shopify app support, Convot’s Shopify integration shows the merchant’s plan, MRR and billing history beside conversations through the Partner API. Cove AI hands the conversation to a human when it isn’t sure.

Migration needs equal scrutiny. Moves from Intercom, Zendesk and Freshdesk are free and founder-assisted, done with the founder rather than by a tool. Crisp is the one source with a one-click import. A Front migration isn’t on that list. Front deserves the contract when its collaboration model fits the team’s work and the cost is acceptable; app-based pricing deserves a look when product count and occasional contributors drive the budget. Our guide to help desks with flat pricing compares that model without assuming every flat plan has the same limits.

How to check a Front quote before you sign

A usable quote lets you rebuild the bill. If the proposal shows only a per-seat figure, ask for one that separates seats, add-ons, usage and implementation.

• Record the baseline: plan, billing cycle, seat count and the date you checked Front’s page.
• Expose per-seat add-ons: Copilot and any QA tools on their own lines.
• Price Autopilot by outcome: expected resolutions at $0.89 and handoffs at $0.39.
• List channel charges: WhatsApp at Meta cost plus 20%.
• Separate implementation: onboarding outside the run rate.
• Check the growth case: reprice for more colleagues and another product.
• Confirm renewal: what happens when discounts expire.

Before approving: put Front’s complete configuration beside an app-based plan covering the same team, channels and AI, with every unresolved charge marked.

FAQ

How much does Front cost per user?

Front costs $25 per seat a month on Front Starter, $65 on Front Professional and $105 on Front Enterprise, billed annually. Monthly billing is $35 and $85; Enterprise is annual only. Prices checked on front.com on 26 October 2026.

Does Front have a free plan?

Front has no free plan. It offers a 14-day free trial with Professional features and no credit card.

How much does Front Autopilot cost?

Autopilot costs $0.05 per conversation for triage, $0.39 for a handoff and $0.89 for a full resolution, charged once at the highest outcome reached. It is an add-on on every Front plan.

Can Front Starter handle email and live chat?

Front Starter supports a single channel type, such as email or chat. A team that needs both in one inbox needs Front Professional at $65 per seat billed annually.

What is a cheaper alternative to Front for small software teams?

For small software teams, Convot starts free under $1,000 MRR, then $49 a month for 3 seats with email, chat and a help center, and AI at $0.20 per resolution. Our Front alternatives guide compares Missive, Help Scout, Hiver and others.

Convot makes a help desk for small software teams, with app-based plans, seats included and Cove AI at $0.20 per resolution. Bring your app count, seat needs and expected AI resolutions, and compare plans with your itemized Front quote.

Tarang Agarwal, founder of Convot. Front prices checked on front.com on 26 October 2026.