A shared support@ inbox, or a helpdesk?
Most small teams start the same way: a support@ address that lands in one mailbox, or forwards to everyone. That is a good start, and for plenty of teams it is all they will ever need. Here is how to tell which side of the line you are on.
When a shared inbox is enough
- One or two people answer, and they sit near each other.
- A handful of emails a day, and you can see at a glance which ones are done.
- No chat on your website, or none you need in the same place.
If that is you, keep it. It costs nothing, everyone already knows how it works, and a helpdesk would be one more thing to log in to.
Signs you have outgrown it
- Two people answer the same email - or nobody does, because each thought the other had it.
- People hit Reply All or CC each other just to say "I've got this one".
- You cannot say which customers are still waiting, or for how long.
- You type the same answers every week.
- You want website chat, and you do not want it living in a second tool.
- You have promised a response time and have no way to see whether you keep it.
What a helpdesk changes
- Every conversation has an owner and a status, and anything nobody has taken sits under Unassigned.
- You get a warning when a teammate has the same conversation open.
- Private notes on a conversation, and saved replies for the answers you give every week.
- Email and website chat in one inbox.
- In Coasting, the AI answers the questions your help articles already cover, and emails your team when it cannot.
You keep your support@ address
Your customers keep writing to the address they already use. In your email provider, set support@ to forward to the address Coasting gives your team, and mail starts arriving in the shared inbox. Replies go out under your team's name from noreply@coasting.app, and when the customer answers, their reply comes straight back into the same conversation.
What it costs
| Who and how much | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | Everyone who shares the mailbox | Nothing on top of the email you already pay for |
| Coasting Starter | 3 agents, 50 AI answers a month | $0, no card |
| Coasting Growth | 5 agents, 500 AI answers a month | $29 a month for the team |
| Coasting Scale | Unlimited agents, 5,000 AI answers a month | $79 a month for the team |
Paid plans are by card, month to month. Full pricing.
What Coasting does not do yet
- Replies do not come from your support@ address. They carry your team's name but are sent from noreply@coasting.app. If replies must show your own address, stay where you are for now.
- The free plan stops at 3 agents. If more people need to answer and the budget is zero, a shared inbox is still the cheaper answer.
- No WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram - email and website chat only.
- No app store app. The inbox works from your phone's browser or home screen. There are no push notifications; Coasting emails your team when someone is waiting.