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ATON Desk vs Front
Chat and AI beside a shared email inbox.
Front is built around email several people answer together. ATON Desk is built around a chat on your website that the AI answers first. The two overlap less than the price lists suggest, so this page is mostly about which job you have.
Coming soon
You cannot buy it today
ATON Desk is not open to customers yet. It runs for Atheron's own support, on our own sites, which is how we find the rough edges before you do. The prices below are the prices it will be sold at, in Canadian dollars. Ask us to tell you when signup opens and we will, once.
Ask to be told when it opensWhat each one is
ATON Desk
ATON Desk is a Canadian live chat for websites where an AI agent answers first and a person takes over in one click, sold per seat in Canadian dollars.
Front
A shared inbox for teams who answer customers mostly by email, which their own site calls an AI customer operations platform.
Prices, as published
Our prices are the prices ATON Desk will be sold at, in Canadian dollars. Theirs are the figures their own pricing page printed on the day we read it, with the page linked so you can check today's.
ATON Desk, per seat a month
- Free$0
- Starter$19 annually, $25 monthly
- Team$45 annually, $55 monthly
- Business$75 annually, $89 monthly
- Enterprisefrom $115 annually
Front: Their plans
per seat a month, billed annually
- StarterUS$25 ($36)
Their page says up to 10 seats.
- ProfessionalUS$65 ($93)
Their page says up to 50 seats.
- EnterpriseUS$105 ($150)
Charged by use
- from US$0.05 ($0.07) per conversation for Autopilot
- US$20 ($28) per seat a month for Copilot, or in Enterprise
- US$20 ($28) per seat a month for Smart QA, or in Enterprise
- US$10 ($14) per seat a month for Smart CSAT, or in Enterprise
Their page says a 14-day trial with no credit card.
front.com/pricingUS dollars converted at 1.4246 USD/CAD, the Bank of Canada daily average for October 2, 2026. They bill in US dollars, so a Canadian card pays whatever the rate and the card's fee are on the day. Our conversion, not their price.
Feature by feature
A chat widget for your website
ATON Desk
Yes
Front
Yes
Prices published in Canadian dollars
ATON Desk
Yes
Canadian dollars only. Sales tax is added where it applies.
Front
No
Published in US dollars on the page we read.
A free plan, not a trial
ATON Desk
Coming soon
Priced at no charge for 2 seats, 1 website and 20 AI conversations a month, and not open yet. Signup opens after the waitlist.
Front
No
A 14-day trial, no card.
Priced per seat
ATON Desk
Yes
Per seat a month, annually or monthly.
Front
Yes
Per seat a month.
A monthly price printed beside the annual one
ATON Desk
Yes
Both periods on the pricing page.
Front
Not stated
The plan prices on the page we read are the annual ones.
AI answers inside the plan price
ATON Desk
Yes
20 to 1,500 AI conversations a month by plan, then packs or capped overage.
Front
Charged by use
Autopilot is charged per conversation, and Copilot per seat.
A monthly cap you set before overage is charged
ATON Desk
Yes
Overage is off until you turn it on, and never passes your cap.
Front
Not stated
The pages we read do not say.
A phone channel
ATON Desk
No
No phone channel, and no plan to add one this year. The website chat is the one channel at launch.
Front
Not stated
The pages we read do not say.
A marketplace of ready-made connectors
ATON Desk
No
An API and webhooks, with API Plus for higher limits. No marketplace.
Front
Not stated
The pages we read do not say.
Seats capped on the lower plans
ATON Desk
No
No seat cap on any plan. Enterprise has a 10-seat minimum.
Front
Yes
Their page says Starter is up to 10 seats and Professional up to 50.
Your data stored in Canada
ATON Desk
Priced as an add-on
An add-on, and in Enterprise. AI answers are written outside Canada, in the United States.
Front
Not stated
The pages we read do not say.
Channels today
What ATON Desk can actually answer on right now. The rest are built and switched off, and we would rather say so here than let you find out after you have paid.
- Website chatYes
- Text messages (SMS)Coming soon
- TelegramComing soon
- DiscordComing soon
- WhatsAppComing soon
- MessengerComing soon
- InstagramComing soon
What Front does better
- Shared email inboxes are what Front is for. If most of your work is a mailbox several people answer together, with assignments, internal notes and drafts on the same thread, Front is on its home ground and we are not.
- Their page publishes a WhatsApp channel on Professional and Enterprise, at Meta's own message cost plus a 20% admin fee. WhatsApp in ATON Desk is built but switched off, and shown as coming soon.
- Smart QA and Smart CSAT are published add-ons at a per-seat price, with a bundle price for the pair. Our QA scorecards cover the same ground; we have nothing that measures customer satisfaction.
Who should pick which
Pick them if: Front
Pick Front if your customers write to a mailbox, several people share the answering, and the thread is where the work happens.
Pick us if: ATON Desk
Pick ATON Desk if the conversation starts on your website, you want an AI first reply at any hour, and you want the bill in Canadian dollars with no seat cap on the lower plans.
How we checked
- Every figure and every claim about another product comes from a page that company publishes, and each page is linked above.
- The date beside each price is the day we read their page. Prices change, and ours is not the copy to trust about theirs.
- Where their page does not say something, we say that their page does not say it. We do not fill the gap from a review site, and we do not guess a number.
- Their names are used to compare, nothing more. We are not affiliated with any of them, and their product names belong to them.
- front.com/pricing
- front.com/ how they describe themselves
- bankofcanada.ca/valet/observations/FXUSDCAD/json USD/CAD
Be told when it opens
ATON Desk is not open to customers yet. Leave us a line and we will tell you when it is.