5-person team: Front Starter + Google Workspace
Shipmail
$9/mo (Shipmail Pro)
Front
$161/mo ($25/seat Front + $7.20/user GWS)
Shipmail replaces both products. The savings are $1,824/year.
Front vs Shipmail: do you need a separate shared inbox tool?
Short answer
Front is a shared inbox platform. Shipmail is an email host with shared inbox built in. They solve overlapping problems from different directions. If you are evaluating Front, you already have an email host and you are looking for a tool to manage team email on top of it. The real question is whether you need two products or one.
Founder of Shipmail. Building business email hosting for solo founders and small teams.
Front: shared inbox and multi-channel collaboration on top of an existing email host
Shipmail: email hosting with shared inbox, calendar, and contacts included
A 5-person team on Front + Google Workspace pays $161/mo. Shipmail Pro is $9/mo.
Why this is not a typical comparison
Front and Shipmail are different products in different categories. Front does not host email. It connects to Gmail, Google Workspace, or Microsoft 365 and adds collaboration features: shared inboxes, assignment, internal notes, rules, analytics, and multi-channel messaging. Your email host is still a separate product with a separate bill.
Shipmail hosts email and includes shared inbox as a built-in feature. Calendar and contacts are included too. There is no second product to buy, no second dashboard to manage.
The comparison is not which product has more features. It is whether the team needs the two-product stack or whether one product handles the job.
When Shipmail replaces the need for Front
For teams under 10 people whose main collaboration need is shared email, Shipmail handles it without a second product. If the daily workflow is multiple people reading and replying from support@, hello@, and sales@, that is what Shipmail does out of the box.
This fits startups, small agencies, freelancers with collaborators, and lean support teams where email is the primary channel. No need to pay for multi-channel support, SLA tracking, or automation rules the team does not use.
When Front is worth the extra cost
Front earns its price when the team handles high-volume support across multiple channels. If incoming messages arrive via email, SMS, WhatsApp, and social media and need to be triaged in one place, Front consolidates them. Shipmail is email only.
Front also makes sense for teams that need response time analytics, SLA tracking, workload distribution dashboards, and advanced routing rules. These features live on Front's Growth ($59/user) and Scale ($99/user) plans. If the team measures email performance at that level, the cost is justified.
Enterprise compliance requirements (HIPAA, custom security policies, SSO) are covered on Front's Scale plan. Shipmail does not offer HIPAA compliance, custom security policies, or SSO.
Verdict
Small teams with straightforward shared inbox needs save money and complexity with Shipmail. Growing support teams with multi-channel workflows and performance reporting get real value from Front.
If the team is currently paying for Google Workspace plus Front and only uses the email channel, Shipmail replaces both for a fraction of the cost. If the team actively uses Front's analytics, automation, and multi-channel features, it is worth keeping.
Pricing breakdown
Last verified July 2026
5-person team: Front Growth + Google Workspace
Shipmail
$9/mo (Shipmail Pro)
Front
$330/mo ($59/user Front + $7.20/user GWS)
Front Growth adds analytics and SLA tracking. Most small teams do not need either.
Solo user needing shared inbox
Shipmail
$4/mo (Solo)
Front
$25/mo + email host
Front alone costs more than Shipmail, and still needs a separate email host.
Sources
- Shipmail pricing
Shipmail plan prices, mailbox limits, team access, and send limits.
- Google Workspace pricing
Current Google Workspace plan pricing and included suite features.
- Zoho Mail pricing
Zoho Mail paid plans, free plan limits, storage, and mail features.
- Fastmail pricing
Fastmail individual and business plan pricing.
- Proton Mail business pricing
Proton Mail for Business plan pricing and included encrypted mail features.
- Migadu pricing
Migadu flat account pricing, Micro annual plan, and plan limits.
- Missive pricing
Missive shared inbox and team collaboration plan pricing.
- Front pricing
Front shared inbox and customer operations seat pricing.
FAQ
Questions worth answering.
Common questions about choosing between Shipmail and Front.
- How much does a Front shared inbox cost?
- Front's Starter plan is $25 per user a month, and it doesn't host email, so you also pay for a mail provider like Google Workspace underneath. A five-person team lands around $161 a month for both. Shipmail includes the shared inbox in its hosting from $4 a month.
- Can I use Front with Shipmail as the email host?
- Technically yes, since Shipmail supports standard email protocols. But that defeats the purpose. Shipmail's built-in shared inbox covers the same core use case without a second product.
- Does Shipmail have the same shared inbox features as Front?
- The basics: yes. Assignment, shared visibility, team replies from shared addresses. Front goes further with SLA tracking, multi-channel support, advanced automation, analytics dashboards, and CRM integrations. Shipmail covers what small teams need without the complexity.
- What if my team grows and we need Front later?
- Start with Shipmail. If the team outgrows basic shared inbox and needs multi-channel support or advanced analytics, add Front at that point. Adding Front later when you actually need it is cheaper than paying for both products from the start.
- Is Front overkill for a small team?
- For teams under 10 people handling fewer than 100 emails/day on a single channel, typically yes. The multi-channel support, analytics, and enterprise features go unused. Shipmail covers the fundamentals at a tenth of the cost.
Internal links
Related
More on Shipmail pricing, use cases, and how it handles shared inboxes.