Help Scout vs Stonly
Help Scout and Stonly are both customer support tools. Help Scout is aimed at small businesses, while Stonly is aimed at small businesses and enterprise. Both have a free plan.
Email-centric helpdesk with a human touch
Interactive guides and AI knowledge base for customer support teams
| Pricing | Freemium · $25 | Freemium |
| Starting price | $25/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | 15 days | 14 days |
| Built for | Small businesses | Small businesses, Enterprise |
| Platforms | web, ios, android | web |
| Country | US · 2011 | FR · 2018 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Help Scout if
Small and mid-size companies that want personal email-based support with a knowledge base.
- Free plan for up to 5 users
- Simple, email-like experience agents like
- Fast to set up; good docs product
Look elsewhere if: Call centers or enterprises needing WFM, QA and voice.
Choose Stonly if
Customer support teams that handle complex, multi-step issues and want guided self-service plus consistent agent troubleshooting.
- Decision trees handle complex troubleshooting better than flat articles
- Same content serves customers, agents and AI answers
- Help desk integrations bring guides into the agent workspace
Look elsewhere if: Product teams primarily optimizing in-app onboarding and feature adoption metrics (Userpilot, Appcues, Pendo).
Help Scout vs Stonly pricing
Help Scout
- Free$05 users, 1 inbox, 100 contacts/mo
- Standard$25/user/mo25 users, 2 inboxes, unlimited contacts; 16% off annually
- Plus$45/user/mo50 users, 5 inboxes, Salesforce/Jira/HubSpot
- Pro$75/user/moMin 10 users; 10 inboxes, SSO/SAML, HIPAA
Stonly
- Basic$0400 guide views/mo, 5 published guides, 1 team member
- Small BusinessQuoteUnder 100 staff; 4,000 guide views, 5 seats, 1 knowledge base
- EnterpriseCustomAI Agents, SSO, surveys, auto-translation, white label
Help Scout · Key features
- Shared inboxes with assignments, tags and workflows
- Docs knowledge base with multiple sites
- Beacon widget for chat, contact forms and article suggestions
- AI drafts, summaries and AI Answers for customers
- Customer profiles with app data via integrations
- Reports on volume, happiness and productivity
Cons
- No phone support channel
- Routing and automation less deep than Zendesk
- Per-user pricing adds up as the team grows
Stonly · Key features
- Interactive step-by-step guides and branching decision trees
- Embeddable widget for in-app guides and product tours
- Knowledge base with versioning, review flows and scheduled publishing
- AI Answers and a conversational bot built on your guide content
- AI Agent Assist that summarizes tickets and drafts replies
- Knowledge Agents and Business Process Agents for automated support flows
Cons
- Paid prices are not published and require a sales call
- Guide-view limits can force plan upgrades as traffic grows
- Help desk integrations, AI Agents and SSO are Enterprise-only
Help Scout vs Stonly: FAQ
Do Help Scout and Stonly have a free plan?
Yes, both Help Scout and Stonly have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.