How is support time billed on a fixed-fee retainer?

Log time from the conversation to track effort and retainer usage. Hourly retainers bill actual eligible time from completed periods. Fixed-fee retainers bill the agreed fee per started period, so logging another hour does not add another hourly charge. You review and create the draft in Xero; sending a reply does not create an invoice.

Which plan includes the inbox?

Business includes one inbox seat. Team can add paid inbox seats, and Business can add seats beyond its included one. You only need inbox seats for the people who answer client email. The inbox has its own 14-day trial.

Is Hour Cap a Front alternative?

For an agency that bills by the hour, often yes. Front is a shared inbox with more channels, more automation and a large app directory, built for teams whose whole job is the inbox. Hour Cap gives you the shared inbox part inside the tool that already knows your rates, retainers and invoices, so the time spent answering client email stops being invisible.

How does the pricing compare?

Front publishes $25 per seat per month on Starter (capped at ten seats), $65 on Professional and $105 on Enterprise, but those are the annual-billing rates and paying monthly costs roughly a quarter more. Hour Cap's Customer Support Inbox is $12 per seat per month on top of a plan starting at $12 a month. Comparing month to month, six people all on the inbox costs $108 on our Team plan against about $198 for six seats on Front's Starter tier, and that $108 already includes the time tracking and Xero invoicing. Inbox seats are given out per person, so you only buy them for the people who answer client mail. Re-check current vendor pricing before relying on these figures.

Does Hour Cap support SMS, WhatsApp or live chat?

No. Hour Cap's inbox is email only. If your clients reach you across several channels and you need them in one queue, that is exactly what Front is for.

Does Hour Cap have rules and automation like Front?

Not to the same depth. Front has a mature rule builder. Hour Cap supports auto-assignment, sender filing, snooze presets and issue creation for known clients, plus automatic acknowledgements, response targets measured in office hours and scheduled replies. Saved views and grouped tags organise the queue. There is no general-purpose rule engine.

Can Front track billable time?

Only through an integration with a separate time tracker, which means a second subscription and a second place the answer lives. Hour Cap logs the time on the conversation and it joins the same timesheet as project work. Eligible hourly work can be invoiced through Xero; fixed-fee work counts toward delivery effort without another hourly charge.

Who should choose Front?

A team whose inbox is the whole job: multiple channels, high volume, complex routing rules, and a need for the integrations directory. That is the job Front is built for. Hour Cap is built for agencies who have to bill the hours the inbox costs them.

Comparison

Hour Cap vs Front

Front is built for teams whose whole job is the inbox. Hour Cap is built for agencies who bill the hours that inbox costs them, at a fraction of the per-seat price.

Try Hour Cap free See Customer Support Inbox →

Front and Hour Cap are built for different jobs

Front has been building a shared inbox for over a decade: channels beyond email, a rule builder that can express almost anything, analytics, and an integrations directory with a few hundred entries. All of it is aimed at teams whose day is the queue itself.

For an agency, the thing that decides it is what happens to the hour after the email is answered.

In Front, that hour goes into a different application, if anybody remembers. Its connection to the client, the project and the retainer is rebuilt by hand at the end of the month, from memory, by whoever is doing the invoicing. Often it is lost.

In Hour Cap that hour is logged from the conversation against the matched client. It becomes eligible for hourly invoicing or measures delivery effort on a fixed-fee retainer. You review the work and create the Xero draft from the same application.

Side by side

Feature	Hour Cap	Front
Shared inbox for client email
Assignment, snooze, internal notes
SMS, WhatsApp, live chat
General rule builder
Track billable time on a conversation		Via a separate tracker
Retainer cap visible while replying
Draft an invoice from the work	Into Xero
One-click Linear issue		Via an integration
Send from your own domain
Per-seat price, billed monthly	$12 add-on	$33 and up

Compiled August 2026 from Front's published pricing. Vendors change, so check current figures before deciding.

Key difference

One subscription instead of two

Front does the inbox and nothing else, so billing the time means buying a tracker as well and connecting the two. That is a second subscription, a second login, and a link between a conversation and an hour that somebody has to maintain.

Here it is one screen. The sender is matched to a client from your Xero contacts, the retainer meter is right there, and the hour you log joins the project timesheet. Eligible hourly work can be invoiced together; fixed-fee work is billed at its agreed price.

One bill, not an inbox subscription plus a tracker subscription
The retainer cap in view before you decide how long to spend
Replies still go out from your own domain

Can you pull last quarter's usage report? Open

Dan Okafor

[email protected]

9:14am

Morning, the partners want the Q3 numbers before Thursday's meeting. Same format as last time is fine.

Reply as your agency

Morning Dan, no problem. I will pull Q3 in the same layout and have it with you tomorrow, well ahead of Thursday.

Goes out from your own domain Send

Client

Harbourline Legal

Matched from your Xero contacts

Project

Ongoing support

Time on this thread

Log time

Start timer

Retainer

Monthly 11 days left

22 / 25h

88% 3h left

Pricing at a glance

Six people, everyone on the inbox, both paying monthly.

Hour Cap

Inbox + time tracking

Team plan, 2 users included $12/mo

4 extra users at $6 $24/mo

6 inbox seats at $12 $72/mo

Total for 6 people $108/mo

Includes the time tracking, retainer budgets and Xero invoicing. Inbox seats are given out per person, so you only buy them for the people who answer client mail.

Front

Starter, per seat, billed monthly $33/mo

Starter, per seat, billed annually $25/mo

Professional, billed annually $65/mo

Enterprise, billed annually $105/mo

6 people on Starter, monthly $198/mo

Front's published rates are the annual-billing prices; paying monthly costs roughly a quarter more. Starter caps at ten seats. August 2026, re-check before relying on it.

$90 a month less for 6 people, with the time tracking and Xero invoicing included rather than bought separately.

Frequently asked questions

The inbox, and the invoice

Answer the client, log the hour, and watch the retainer cap while you do it.

Try Hour Cap free

Included in the trial

One forwarding rule

No credit card

Keep exploring

The other shared inboxes we are measured against, and the product itself.

Hour Cap vs Help Scout

Help Scout is built for support teams. Compare that with an inbox that turns the conversation into an invoice.

Read on

Hour Cap vs Missive

Missive collaborates on the email. Compare that with knowing what the email costs the retainer.

Read on

Hour Cap vs Productlane

Both do the inbox and one-click Linear issues. Hour Cap also tracks what the reply cost you.

Read on

Customer Support Inbox

The shared inbox itself: what it does, what it costs, and how it is set up.

Read on

All comparisons

Every shared inbox and time tracker Hour Cap is measured against.

Read on

Comparison note: competitor features and pricing were researched on a best-effort basis in June 2026 and can change at any time. We aim to be accurate and fair, but details may be out of date, so always confirm the latest information on the vendor's own website before making a decision. Hour Cap capabilities on these comparison pages were reviewed on 6 September 2026. Plan requirements apply; prices shown as annual equivalents require annual billing.