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 Missive alternative?

For an agency whose shared inbox exists to handle client requests, yes. Missive is a collaborative inbox built around team chat inside the email thread, which is a different job. Hour Cap gives you the shared inbox inside the tool that already knows your rates, retainers and invoices.

How does the pricing compare?

Missive is around $18 per user per month on Starter and $45 on Business when billed monthly, dropping to $14 and $36 if you commit annually. It is the closest of the shared inboxes to us on price. Hour Cap's Customer Support Inbox is $12 per seat per month on top of a plan. Six people all on the inbox works out at $108 a month on our Team plan, which is the same as six seats on Missive Starter paid monthly. The difference is what is in the price: ours includes the time tracking and the Xero invoicing, so there is no tracker to buy separately. 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 have the chat-in-thread collaboration Missive has?

Not to the same depth. Hour Cap has threaded internal comments with @mentions and shared saved reply drafts. A teammate can resume a draft, and conflict checks protect it from being overwritten by another edit. Missive's simultaneous draft co-editing, real-time chat and separate team channels go further than that.

Does Hour Cap connect to my Gmail or Outlook account?

No, and that is a deliberate difference. Missive connects to your mailbox accounts directly. Hour Cap works by forwarding: you point your support address at the address we give you, and no mailbox password or OAuth grant is involved.

Can Missive track billable time?

No. Some teams wire a time tracker in through an integration, which means the hour lives in a second application and its link to the client and the retainer is rebuilt by hand at invoicing time.

Who should choose Missive?

A team that lives in shared drafts and in-thread chat, or one that needs several mailboxes and social channels in a single application. That is the job Missive is built for, and it is not what Hour Cap is for.

Comparison

Hour Cap vs Missive

Missive is built around collaborating on the email. Hour Cap tracks what the email costs you and who gets invoiced for it.

Try Hour Cap free See Customer Support Inbox →

Two different ideas of what a shared inbox is for

Missive's answer is collaboration. Chat sits inside the thread, drafts are written together, and the inbox becomes the place the team talks. For a team whose hard problem is agreeing on the reply, that is exactly right.

An agency's hard problem is usually further downstream. Writing the reply is the easy part. Getting those twenty minutes onto the right client's timesheet, and knowing whether that client's retainer can carry them, is what decides whether the account is profitable.

So Hour Cap puts the client, the project, the logged time and the cap meter beside the conversation, and matches incoming mail to your Xero contacts so most of that is filled in before anybody touches it.

Side by side

Feature	Hour Cap	Missive
Shared inbox for client email
Internal comments with mentions	Threaded replies	Plus real-time chat
Simultaneous draft co-editing	No; shared saved drafts
Connects to your Gmail or Outlook mailbox	Forwarding only
Track billable time on a conversation
Retainer cap visible while replying
Draft an invoice from the work	Into Xero
Matches senders to your clients	From Xero contacts
One-click Linear issue		Via an integration
Per-seat price, billed monthly	$12 add-on	$18 to $45

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

Key difference

Missive is built for writing the reply together

Two people drafting one email, chatting about it in the thread, is the job Missive is built for. What it does not know is which client the sender belongs to, what your hourly rate is, or how much of their retainer is left.

Here the sender is matched to a client from your Xero contacts when the mail arrives, and the cap is on screen while you reply. The logged hour is available for hourly billing once eligible, or measures delivery effort against an agreed fixed fee.

Senders matched to clients from your synced Xero contacts
Threaded internal comments, mentions and shared saved reply drafts
Logged effort stays with the client, project and billing workflow

Listing photos are not loading on mobile Open

Alice Nguyen

[email protected]

9:14am

Hi, a few of our agents are saying the gallery on listing pages is blank on their phones. Desktop looks fine. Can you have a look today?

Reply as your agency

Hi Alice, found it. The gallery script was failing on older mobile browsers. Patched and tested on both iOS and Android, so your agents should be fine now.

Goes out from your own domain Send

Client

Cedarwood Property

Matched from your Xero contacts

Project

Website retainer

Time on this thread

Log time

Start timer

Retainer

Monthly 8 days left

16 / 20h

80% 4h 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.

Missive

Starter, per user, billed monthly $18/mo

Business, per user, billed monthly $45/mo

Starter, billed annually $14/mo

Business, billed annually $36/mo

6 people on Starter, monthly $108/mo

Missive's published pricing, August 2026. Re-check before relying on it.

Six seats come to the same figure either way. Missive is the cheaper shared inbox on its own, and if that is all you need, buy it. The $108 here also covers the time tracking, the retainer budgets and the Xero invoicing, so there is nothing else to add when you want the hours billed.

Frequently asked questions

Answer the client, and bill the hour

A shared inbox that sits where your rates, retainers and invoices already live.

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 Front

Front is built for teams whose whole job is the inbox. Compare what happens to the hour after the email is answered.

Read on

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 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.