Help Scout is a Customer support tool: Email-centric helpdesk with a human touch.

How much does Help Scout cost?

Help Scout uses a Freemium model; paid plans start at $25 per month.

What are the best alternatives to Help Scout?

Community-listed alternatives to Help Scout include Front, Zoho Desk, Crisp, Stonly.

Does Help Scout have a free trial?

Yes, Help Scout offers a 15-day free trial.

What does Help Scout integrate with?

Help Scout integrates with Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, Jira, Zapier and more.

Which platforms does Help Scout support?

Help Scout is available on web, ios, android.

Help Scout

Email-centric helpdesk with a human touch

Freemium · $25Customer support

Visit website

Help Scout is a customer support tool for Small businesses, offered as freemium ($25/mo). Based in United States, founded in 2011. Popular alternatives include Front, Zoho Desk, Crisp.

About Help Scout

Help Scout is a customer support platform founded in 2011 in Boston and run as a remote company. It is designed to feel like email rather than a ticketing system: customers write to a support address and see normal replies, while agents work in shared inboxes with assignments, internal notes, saved replies, tags, workflows and collision detection.

Around the inbox, Docs provides a knowledge base with multiple sites, and Beacon is an embeddable widget that offers article suggestions, contact forms and live chat. Customer profiles pull data from tools such as Shopify, Stripe and HubSpot through integrations. AI features draft and improve replies, summarize long threads and power AI Answers, which responds to customers from your Docs content. Reports cover volume, response times, productivity and customer satisfaction. Paid plans are priced per user per month (Standard, Plus and Pro), and a free plan covers up to 5 users and 100 contacts a month.

Help Scout fits small and mid-size companies that value personal, human support and want agents productive in a day. Per-user pricing is predictable for small teams, but costs rise as more staff need seats. It has no native phone channel, routing and automation are lighter than Zendesk, and enterprise reporting is limited. Zendesk suits complex multi-channel operations, Intercom is stronger on AI-first deflection and messaging, and Front fits teams managing shared inboxes beyond support.

Key features of Help Scout

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

Pros and cons

Pros

Free plan for up to 5 users
Simple, email-like experience agents like
Fast to set up; good docs product
Free tier for very small volumes

Cons

No phone support channel
Routing and automation less deep than Zendesk
Per-user pricing adds up as the team grows
Fewer enterprise features

Help Scout pricing

Help Scout uses a freemium model. A 15-day free trial is available.

Plan	Price	Includes
Free	$0	5 users, 1 inbox, 100 contacts/mo
Standard	$25 / user/mo	25 users, 2 inboxes, unlimited contacts; 16% off annually
Plus	$45 / user/mo	50 users, 5 inboxes, Salesforce/Jira/HubSpot
Pro	$75 / user/mo	Min 10 users; 10 inboxes, SSO/SAML, HIPAA

Source: www.helpscout.com · checked on Oct 20, 2026

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How Help Scout compares in Customer support

Rank by votes: #1 / 31
Starting price: $25
Free alternatives: 3

Help Scout ranks #1 of 31 customer support tools by community votes and is priced below most tools in the category.

Common use cases

1Small SaaS support team sharing one inbox
2E-commerce brand with Shopify data in the inbox
3Company where many staff help customers occasionally
4Startup launching a help center with Docs

Best for

Small and mid-size companies that want personal email-based support with a knowledge base.

Not ideal for

Call centers or enterprises needing WFM, QA and voice.

Integrations

Slack
HubSpot
Salesforce
Shopify
Jira
Zapier
Mailchimp
Klaviyo

Our take

Help Scout is the friendliest help desk, and its free plan and simple per-user tiers make it easy to start. Scale to Zendesk when routing complexity demands it.

FAQ

What is Help Scout?: Help Scout is a Customer support tool: Email-centric helpdesk with a human touch.
How much does Help Scout cost?: Help Scout uses a Freemium model; paid plans start at $25 per month.
What are the best alternatives to Help Scout?: Community-listed alternatives to Help Scout include Front, Zoho Desk, Crisp, Stonly.
Does Help Scout have a free trial?: Yes, Help Scout offers a 15-day free trial.
What does Help Scout integrate with?: Help Scout integrates with Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, Jira, Zapier and more.
Which platforms does Help Scout support?: Help Scout is available on web, ios, android.
Who is Help Scout for?: Small and mid-size companies that want personal email-based support with a knowledge base.

Alternatives to Help Scout

See all 10

Front
▲ 0
Shared inbox for customer-facing teams
Paid · $35Small businesses
checked Oct 20
Zoho Desk
▲ 0
Multichannel help desk with the Zia AI assistant from Zoho
Freemium · $7Small businesses
checked Oct 20
Crisp
▲ 0
Affordable all-in-one messaging and helpdesk
Freemium · $45Small businesses
checked Oct 20
Stonly
▲ 0
Interactive guides and AI knowledge base for customer support teams
FreemiumSmall businesses
checked Oct 20
Tidio
▲ 0
Live chat and AI agent for small e-commerce
Freemium · $29Small businesses
checked Oct 20
Embage
▲ 0
Chat and voice agents for websites that save every chat as a record
Freemium · $19Small businesses
checked Nov 2

More Customer support tools

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AloTech
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Cloud contact center software from Türkiye, sold abroad as CCS
PaidSmall businesses
checked Oct 20
Higher Logic Vanilla
▲ 0
Customer community and support forum software for B2B and B2C brands
PaidEnterprise
checked Oct 20
Chatbase
▲ 0
Custom ChatGPT for your website in minutes
Paid · $40Small businesses
checked Oct 20
Bulutfon
▲ 0
Cloud phone system for Turkish businesses
PaidSmall businesses
checked Oct 20
Juphy
▲ 0
AI sales assistant for Shopify stores
Paid · $19E-commerce
checked Oct 20
Gleap
▲ 0
AI customer support with bug reports, session replay and code fixes
Paid · $35Small businesses
checked Oct 22

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