Front is excellent as a shared inbox where your team assigns emails, adds comments, and runs workflows. askVela puts an AI in front of it that answers customer questions from your content, handles order status and cancellations on its own, and negotiates fair partial refunds — before an agent has to step in.
Fair flat rate · EU-hosted under GDPR · Free migration · €100 time guarantee
Front brings conversations together brilliantly — but every single one still ends up with a human. In day-to-day e-commerce, that costs time and margin.
Front assigns and organizes, but it doesn’t answer customer questions on its own. Order status, cancellations, and “where’s my package?” keep landing back with the team.
Front charges per agent (Starter, Professional, Enterprise), and AI features like Copilot or Autopilot are paid add-ons on the lower tiers.
Front is primarily US-hosted. For DACH shops, that means more work around GDPR, DPAs, and truly native German AI.
Fairly speaking: Front is strong at team inbox and collaboration, askVela at action-taking customer self-service. Here’s where their strengths differ.
| Feature | askVela | Front |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Fair flat rate | Per seat + AI add-on |
| Shared team inbox & collaboration | ||
| AI answers included (unlimited) | Add-on / higher tier | |
| Unlimited team members | ||
| Customer self-service via chat widget | ||
| AI handles refunds & order status on its own | ||
| Product recommendations in chat (upsell) | ||
| Answers from your content with source citations | ||
| Knowledge-gap queue → 1-click article | ||
| EU hosting / GDPR / DPA | ||
| Native German AI | ||
| Self-hosting available | ||
| Free migration |
Keep the benefits of a great inbox and add an AI in front of it that actually takes action in your shop instead of just assigning tickets.
With source citations — no hallucinations. Spots knowledge gaps and suggests ready-to-publish articles.
Recommends the right products in chat and negotiates a fair partial refund before money changes hands.
Native German AI, self-hosting available. Your customer data stays in the EU.
We’ll migrate your entire help center for free and build you a ready-to-use demo. Don’t like it at all? We’ll send you €100 for your time.
Switch nowIt depends on your focus. If your team collaborates heavily across email, social, and SMS, assigning and commenting on conversations, Front is very strong as a shared inbox. If your main goal is for customer questions in the shop to be solved automatically and independently — order status, cancellations, refunds, product questions — askVela is the better choice. Many shops start with askVela as an action-taking support AI in front of the inbox and only pass true edge cases to the team. We handle the migration for free.
Yes. askVela is EU-hosted, a data processing agreement (DPA) is included, and the AI is natively German-speaking. Self-hosting is available on request. Your customer data never leaves the EU — a clear difference from primarily US-hosted platforms.
Front is a shared team inbox: it brings conversations from many channels together so your team can assign them, comment on them, and process them via workflows. But Front doesn’t answer customer questions on its own — every conversation ends up with an agent. askVela is an action-taking customer AI with a live chat widget: it answers questions from your content with source citations, handles order status and cancellations on its own, negotiates fair partial refunds (payout only after your approval), and recommends products. That reduces ticket volume instead of simply distributing it better.
askVela costs a fair flat rate — with unlimited agents and unlimited AI answers. There’s no billing per seat, per ticket, per conversation, or per AI-resolved case. Front charges per seat (Starter, Professional, Enterprise) and offers core AI features on lower tiers as paid add-ons. As your team grows and volume increases, your askVela bill stays predictable instead of rising with every seat and every AI resolution.