A help desk turns customer emails and messages into tracked tickets, so nothing is missed and every answer is consistent. Compare help desk tools by channels, automation, self-service options and per-agent pricing.
ITSM and service desk from Atlassian, tightly linked to Jira
Best for: IT, DevOps and internal service teams already on Atlassian
Jira Service Management is Atlassian's service desk for IT, operations and customer support. Requests arrive through a portal, email or chat, flow into queues…
Customer-centric CRM and help desk that unifies every conversation into one timeline
Best for: Mid-size and enterprise support teams, particularly ecommerce brands that need one timeline per customer
Customer-centric help desk and CRM that unifies email, chat, SMS, social and voice into a single timeline. Quote-based pricing.
All-in-one help desk with live chat, call centre and ticketing
Best for: Teams that want ticketing, chat and calling in a single tool
LiveAgent is a help desk that combines ticketing, live chat, a call centre, social channels and a knowledge base in a single product. Agents…
Long-running open-source ticketing system for self-hosted support
Best for: IT teams and organisations that want a free, self-hosted ticket system
osTicket is a widely used open-source support ticket system. It turns email, web forms and phone requests into tickets, applies routing and SLA plans,…
Affordable multichannel help desk and live chat built for ecommerce teams
Best for: Small and growing ecommerce teams that want a capable, affordable help desk
Affordable multichannel help desk, live chat and chatbot platform for ecommerce, with a flat-rate plan for unlimited users.
Live chat and AI chatbot for small online businesses
Best for: Small online businesses wanting chat plus a chatbot quickly
Tidio combines a website live chat widget, chatbots and a lightweight inbox in one product. Small online businesses use it to answer visitor questions,…
Enterprise-grade support suite with ticketing, messaging and AI agents
Best for: Growing support teams that need many channels and deep automation
Zendesk is one of the longest-established customer service platforms. It turns email, chat, social and phone conversations into tickets that agents work from a…
Context-aware help desk that fits neatly into the wider Zoho ecosystem
Best for: Budget-conscious teams and Zoho CRM users
Zoho Desk is the customer service product from Zoho. It manages tickets across email, phone, chat, social and web forms, with an agent workspace…
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Start with where customers write to you. Email only? A shared inbox tool like Help Scout, Front or Hiver handles it without ticket-system overhead. Email, chat, social and phone? You want a proper ticketing platform such as Zendesk, Freshdesk or Zoho Desk, where every channel lands in one queue. Selling on Shopify or a similar platform? Gorgias pulls order data straight into each ticket.
Count your agents, then count the people who need a look. Almost every help desk charges per agent. Developers, account managers and finance staff who need to read tickets but never reply shouldn't take a full seat. Ask each vendor about light-agent or collaborator seats before you add up the bill.
Look hard at automation. Routing tickets by topic, setting priorities by customer tier and closing resolved threads automatically save more time than most features on a list. Test one real rule in a trial. Then look at self-service. A help centre and knowledge base cut ticket volume, so check what each plan includes.
Ask what the AI costs. Several vendors now sell AI replies, and the price models differ a lot. Help Scout charges $0.75 per resolution on top of its seat price. HelpDesk's Essential plan includes just 10 AI resolutions a month. Freshdesk sells its Freddy Copilot as an add-on to the Pro plan. Model your expected volume before you rely on any of it.
Check reporting and integrations last, but check them. You'll want first-response time, resolution time and satisfaction scores out of the box, plus a connection to your CRM, chat tool and billing system.
Across the 20 help desks in our directory, 18 publish a starting price. Those run from free to $45 a month, with a median of $19. Gladly and Kustomer sell by quote only. We checked figures on vendor pages in November 2026. Prices change, so confirm before you buy.
Zoho Desk starts lowest at $7 per agent a month on annual billing, then Zendesk and Freshdesk at $19, Help Scout at $25 and Intercom at $29 per seat. Jumps between tiers are steep. Zendesk goes from $19 on Support Team to $55 on Suite Team and $115 on Suite Professional. Freshdesk goes from $19 to $55 to $89. Intercom goes from $29 to $85 to $132. Monthly billing costs more: Zendesk's $19 plan is $25 when billed monthly, and Intercom's $29 plan is $39.
Take a team of eight agents on annual billing. Zoho Desk Express costs about $56 a month, Zendesk Support Team and Freshdesk Growth about $152, Help Scout about $200 and Intercom Essential about $232. Move that team to a mid-tier plan and the bill nearly triples.
Gorgias works differently. It charges by ticket volume, not by agent: $10 a month covers about 50 billable tickets, $60 covers about 300 and $360 covers about 2,000. Busy shops should watch that curve.
Free options exist. Help Scout's free plan covers up to five users and 100 contacts a month. Zoho Desk and Jira Service Management are free for up to three agents. Chatwoot and osTicket are open source and free to self-host, though you pay for servers, upkeep and the person who runs them.
Buying the suite when you need the inbox is the classic. A five-person team that answers email doesn't need a phone, chat and social platform on day one.
Underestimating migration comes next. Moving old tickets, macros and customer records takes real effort, and not every tool imports all of it. Ask what carries over before you commit.
People also forget the exit. Check that you can export tickets and customer data in a standard format, and read the contract for minimum terms and renewal prices.
Finally, don't judge by the demo. Send yourself ten real support emails during a trial. Watch how fast agents can find an answer, assign a ticket and see a customer's history.
A shared inbox lets a team read and reply to email together. A help desk adds ticket numbers, assignments, SLAs, automation and reporting across channels. Small teams often start with a shared inbox and move up later.
Freshdesk, Zoho Desk and Help Scout all suit small teams, each in a different way. Our guide to the best help desk software for small business compares them side by side.
Yes. Several tools have free plans or free self-hosted editions. The limits are agents, contacts or channels. Check which one you'll hit first.
A simple tool runs in a day. Plan a few weeks if you need custom workflows, a help centre and a migration from another system.
Not always, but chat suits fast-moving questions. Many help desks include it, and some chat tools work as a lightweight help desk. Browse our live chat category to compare.
Ready to narrow it down? Compare two or three help desks side by side and price them at your real agent count.
