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 Productlane alternative?

For the shared inbox and the Linear link, yes. For the rest of Productlane, no. Productlane is built for software product companies: an AI support agent, a self-updating help centre, changelog generation, a public roadmap with feedback voting. Hour Cap is built for agencies who bill by the hour, so the inbox exists to turn client requests into tracked, billable, invoiced work.

Does Hour Cap have the two-way Linear sync Productlane has?

Partly. Both create issues from a conversation, put a backlink on the issue, and reopen the conversation when the work is completed. Productlane also mirrors comments both ways and lets you reply to the customer from inside Linear. Hour Cap does not mirror comments. It can link existing issues and Linear projects, create issues from templates, and record the conversation as a customer request when the Linear workspace supports it. Completion can reopen linked conversations with a reply draft for review. Time stays attached to the conversation in Hour Cap for budgeting and invoicing.

Hour Cap, by a wide margin at small team sizes. Productlane's entry tier is $35 per user billed monthly, or $29 if you commit annually, with $59 and $99 tiers above it and AI resolutions charged on top. Hour Cap's Customer Support Inbox is $12 per seat per month on top of a plan. Comparing month to month, six people all on the inbox costs $108 on our Team plan against $210 on Productlane, and the $108 already covers the time tracking, retainer budgets and Xero invoicing. Inbox seats are given out per person, so you pay for each person who answers client mail, and a Business plan includes the first seat. Re-check current vendor pricing before relying on these figures.

Does Hour Cap have an AI support agent?

No. An AI agent that answers customers is the centre of Productlane's product. Hour Cap does draft a reply when a linked Linear issue completes, but it never sends without somebody reading it.

Can Productlane track billable time?

No. Productlane knows a conversation exists and which issue it relates to. It has no concept of an hourly rate, a retainer budget or an invoice, so the time a team spends answering support email is invisible to it.

Who should choose Productlane?

A software product company whose support volume justifies an AI agent, whose customers need a help centre and a public roadmap, and who wants replies to happen inside Linear. Productlane is built for that team, and Hour Cap is not trying to compete there.

Comparison

Hour Cap vs Productlane

Both give you a shared inbox and one-click Linear issues. Productlane is built for software product companies, and Hour Cap for agencies who have to invoice the time.

Try Hour Cap free See the Linear integration →

The difference is who you bill

Productlane's customers are software product companies. Their support volume comes from a large user base, most of it answerable from a help centre, and the valuable end of a conversation is a feature request feeding a roadmap. Everything in the product follows from that: an AI agent to absorb the volume, a self-updating help centre, changelog generation, feedback voting.

An agency's support volume is different. Fewer conversations, each from a named client, and each one costs an hour of somebody's afternoon that either goes on an invoice or gets written off. What the conversation has to produce at the end is a time entry.

That is why Hour Cap's inbox shows the retainer cap next to the reply box and lets you start a timer without leaving the thread. Productlane's customers have no use for either.

Side by side

Feature	Hour Cap	Productlane
Shared inbox for client email
Linear issue from a conversation	One click	One click
Conversation reopens when the issue ships	With a drafted reply	AI-drafted
Two-way Linear comment mirroring
Track billable time on a conversation
Retainer cap visible while replying
Draft an invoice from the work	Into Xero
AI support agent
Help centre and changelog
Public roadmap and feedback voting
Per-seat price, billed monthly	$12 add-on	$35 and up

Compiled August 2026 from Productlane's own site and documentation. Vendors change, so check current pricing and features before deciding.

Key difference

In Productlane, the hour has nowhere to go

Productlane tracks the conversation and the issue it produced. It has no concept of time, so the hours your team spends answering support email do not show up anywhere. In Hour Cap you start the timer on the thread. Eligible hourly work can go on a Xero draft invoice, while time on fixed-fee work measures delivery effort against the agreed fee.

That is a deliberate choice on their part. Their customers are software companies, who do not bill anyone for support time. Agencies do.

The retainer cap sits beside the reply box, before you decide how long to spend
Start a timer or log a duration on the thread itself
Eligible hourly work can be billed with the rest of the month in Xero

Can we add a second admin login? Open

Tom Alderton

[email protected]

9:14am

Hi team, our new practice manager starts Monday and needs her own login rather than sharing mine. How long would that take?

Reply as your agency

Hi Tom, straightforward one. I can set her up with her own admin login this afternoon, so she is ready before Monday. About half an hour all up.

Goes out from your own domain Send

Client

Meridian Health

Matched from your Xero contacts

Project

Product retainer

Time on this thread

Log time

Start timer

Retainer

Monthly 9 days left

35.5 / 30h

118% 5.5h over

Pricing at a glance

A six-person agency with everyone on the inbox.

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.

Productlane

Starter, per user, billed monthly $35/mo

Starter, per user, billed annually $29/mo

Pro, billed annually $59/mo

Scale, billed annually $99/mo

AI resolutions beyond the allowance $0.79 each

6 people on Starter, monthly $210/mo

Productlane's published pricing, August 2026, before any AI resolution usage. The headline rates are the annual-billing prices. Re-check before relying on it.

$102 a month less for 6 people, with the time tracking and Xero invoicing included rather than bought separately.

What Productlane is built for

If your support volume is large enough that an AI agent would meaningfully reduce it, Productlane is the tool for that. The same goes if you need a help centre that writes itself from merged pull requests, a changelog generated out of completed Linear work, or a public roadmap your users can vote on.

Their Linear integration mirrors comments in both directions, so a teammate can answer the customer from inside a Linear issue without opening the inbox. Hour Cap can create an issue from a template, link an existing issue or a Linear project, and record customer demand where supported by the workspace. Issue or project completion can reopen the conversation with a draft reply for review. Hours are logged in Hour Cap against the conversation, retainer and project.

What it will not do is put a price on the support time. If that time is billable for you, you will need a tracker alongside it, and somebody has to keep the two in step.

Frequently asked questions

If every email is billable, bill it

A shared customer support inbox inside the tool that already knows your rates, your retainers and your invoices.

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 Missive

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

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.