Freshdesk
Solo $19 · Team-5 $95/mo
G2 4.4 (3,908)
Ticketing help desk with AI agent, automations and SLAs for growing support teams.
Free trial
EU hosting
Help Scout
Email-style shared inbox, live chat and knowledge base for small support teams.
Free planFree trial · 15 days
Own Help Scout? or
Facts verified Nov 2026. Spotted a mistake?
What you'd pay
verified Nov 2026Solo
$25/mo
Team of 5
$125/mo
Per seat
PlanMonthlyAnnual, per monthUnitIncluded
FreeMonthly: $0Annual, per month: $0per user
- · Up to 5 users
- · 1 inbox, 1 Docs site
- · 100 contacts helped per month
StandardMonthly: $30Annual, per month: $25per user
- · Up to 25 users
- · Live chat, SMS and social channels
- · AI drafts and summaries
PlusMonthly: $54Annual, per month: $45per user
- · Up to 50 users
- · Advanced permissions and Salesforce/Jira integrations
ProMonthly: $90Annual, per month: $75per user
- · Minimum 10 users
- · Enterprise security and onboarding
AI Answers (Envoy)Monthly: —Annual, per month: —usage
- · $0.75 per resolution
- · 3-month free trial
External ratings
verified Nov 2026Our scores
Value3/5
Ease of use5/5
Depth3/5
Support5/5
Automation 3/5Omnichannel 4/5
What it is
Help Scout is a help desk built around a shared inbox that feels like personal email to customers. It adds the Beacon chat widget, a Docs knowledge base, customer profiles and AI drafting and summaries. The free plan covers up to 5 users and 100 contacts a month, and AI Answers are billed per resolution.
Standout capability
The cleanest shared-inbox experience in the category, with highly rated vendor support.
Best for
Small support teamsSaaS and ecommerce businessesTeams wanting email-like support
- Shared inbox with collision detection
- Beacon live chat widget
- Docs knowledge base
- AI drafts, summaries and answers
Community sentiment
What people praise
Users consistently describe a clean, email-like inbox that new teammates pick up in a day, with saved replies, notes and collision detection keeping everyone in sync.
What people complain about
Reviewers find reporting and workflow customisation basic for complex teams, mention occasional outages, and note that per-user costs climb as the team grows.
Geo & compliance
- Local-currency pricing
- No
- Regional pricing
- Personas use Standard on annual billing ($25/user). Pro requires 10 users minimum.
- EU data hosting
- No
- DPA available
- Yes
What we like
- Very easy to learn
- Free plan for 5 users
- Highly rated vendor support
Worth knowing
- Reporting basic for complex needs
- US-only data hosting
- AI answers billed per resolution
Alternatives to consider
Zendesk
From $19/agent/mo
The support desk for teams with volume
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Intercom
From $29/seat/mo
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G2 4.5 (207)
Flat-priced, EU-hosted omnichannel inbox with live chat, AI agent and knowledge base.
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