Choosing a Help Scout Alternative: Top 10 Picks

Posted by
Tetiana Belevska

Updated December 4, 2023

Help Scout might seem like a perfect help desk that has everything your company needs. However, today's market is full of Help Scout alternatives that have more functionality to offer for

Whether you are a long-time Help Scout user or just weighing your options, this article will help you understand what help desk software exists to improve your customer service. Dive into our selection of the best 10 alternatives to Help Scout and figure out what option is right for your team.

What Makes Help Scout so Popular?

Help Scout is an all-in-one help desk platform with a simple design and rich functionality — it has everything the business needs for great ticket management. Both ease of use, agility, and quality of support make it a top pick among other Help Scout alternatives.

Its advanced plans are HIPAA-compliant, which makes it a go-to option for those working in the healthcare sector. What is more, if you work in a startup or a non-profit business, you get a discount price too for the first year of use.

Other prominent Help Scout features include:

• Fast and reliable support in each of the pricing plans
• Help Scout knowledge base
• Instant answers thanks to integrated Beacon
• Ability to send better replies in less time
• Support of 40+ integrations
• Help Scout chat
• Better collaboration with teammates

Why Look for a Help Scout Alternative?

But if Help Scout is so good, why search for another option?

Like any other software, Help Scout has its pros and cons that might not suit every business. Here are some of the most common reasons why companies start looking for Help Scout alternatives:

1. Although Help Scout is a user-friendly and feature-rich customer support software, there might be some situations when it doesn’t meet all the business requirements.
2. Help Scout is not that good as collaboration software. So, if you often need to connect with other people from outside to solve your issues or send your emails to the secondary recipients (to CC in email language), this software won’t be a wise choice for you.
3. If you get used to organizing your tickets in folders with tags, Help Scout won’t fit you, too, as it doesn’t support creating folders based on tags.
4. Each mailbox in Help Scout software comes separately, making it extra hard to bring all your conversations to one place.
5. Pro-active messaging in Help Scout is based on Beacon technology, which works with URLs that, in turn, don’t work with a single-page application.
6. You can add only one store to your account. If you need to manage more, you have to opt for advanced pricing plans and pay more.

10 Best Help Scout Alternatives to Consider

Let’s look at Help Scout alternatives to help you decide which is best for your business. Here are ten top picks for Help Scout alternatives.

1. Hubspot Service Hub

Like Help Scout, Hubspot Service Hub is also an all-in-one customer service solution that combines a help desk and ticketing system. It also features a Knowledge Base that you can customize so that your customers find the needed answers themselves.

Key features:

• Help desk and ticketing system
• Ability to build and customize your Knowledge Base
• 1:1 video messaging
• Reliable customer portals
• Live Chat
• VoIP system
• Customer feedback surveys
• Various automation workflows
• Shared inbox

Ticketing in HubSpot Service Hub. Source: HubSpot

Pros:

• With Hubspot Service Hub, you get everything in one single platform
• Automated workflows to customize based on your logic
• Advanced reporting system to measure your productivity and customer satisfaction
• Seamless integration with 50+ apps

Cons:

• Heavy price tag as you pay for different features separately
• An overwhelming number of features
• Difficult to set up, so you may need a professional paid help

Pricing:

• Free: Free for such features as help desk, ticketing system, CRM, live chat
• Starter: $45/month
• Professional: $ 450 per agent/month
• Enterprise: $1,200/month

2. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is another free Help Scout alternative with a wide range of features, including various automation options, automatic delivery of tickets, advanced reports, and a customizable knowledge base.

Key features:

• Automatic ticketing
• Support across multiple channels
• Chatbot that works with Freddy AI
• Great customization options
• State-of-the-art security measures

All tickets in Freshdesk. Source: Freshdesk

Pros:

• Freshdesk supports omnichannel customer service. Get in touch with your customers through various channels, including email, social media, WhatsApp, etc.
• It has integrations with more than 600 apps
• Freddy AI, a behavior-based bot
• It has several default collaboration features that facilitate the work of your agents and the ticket resolution process

Cons:

• If you compare Help Scout vs Freshdesk, Freshdesk is not the easiest tool to set up and work straight away
• It might not suit eCommerce businesses as it lacks important features like complex integration, customer data, modification of the order data, etc.
• Freshdesk can be costly for SMEs; you need to pay an extra fee to unlock the core features

Pricing:

Support Desk:

• Free: free for up to 10 agents
• Growth: $18 per agent/month
• Pro: $59 per agent/month
• Enterprise: $79 per agent/month

Omnichannel:

• Growth Omnichannel: $35 per agent/month
• Pro Omnichannel: $71 per agent/month
• Enterprise Omnichannel: $119 per agent/month

3. Zendesk

Zendesk is an enterprise-sized Help Scout alternative with a front-end portal, live chat, vast integration options, and a number of self-service options.

Key features:

• Omnichannel customer support
• Customizable knowledge base, forums, CRM, and customer portals
• Support of live chat and phone calls
• Advanced reports
• Wide integration options

Ticket fields in Zendesk. Source: Zendesk

Pros:

• Fully customizable agent workspaces
• Advanced analytics for you to better understand your productivity
• Advanced pricing plans allow you to get access to advanced support features

Cons:

• If you compare Help Scout vs Zendesk, the latter takes quite a long time to set it up
• Some of the pricing plans are quite expensive

Pricing:

• Support Team: $19 per agent/month
• Support Professional: $49 per agent/month
• Support Enterprise: $99 per agent/month

4. Kayako

Kayako is one of the oldest help desk solutions on the market. Although it is pretty limited in functionality, it is still an all-in-one solution with features like private notes, assignment rules, real-time visitor monitoring, collision prevention, and many more.

Key features:

• Multiple unified channels for communication with customers
• Real-time messaging and visitor monitoring
• Customizable help center
• Custom fields
• Smart ticket workflows and automation
• Native apps for iOS and Android

Ticketing in Kayako. Source: Kayako

Pros:

• With Kayako, you can see the whole picture of interaction with your customers
• Social media integration even in the basic plans
• Excellent collaboration features

Cons:

• If compared to Help Scout, Kayako has poorer functionality
• Customization is available if you opt for advanced pricing plans
• You can’t sort or search your tickets by custom field

Pricing:

Based on the number of agents: $60 per agent/month

5. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is another great Help Scout alternative based on AI. It is also a great asset management system with a customizable layout and design to best match your brand.

Key features:

• CRM integration
• Customizable and scheduled reporting
• Ticketing assignment and management
• Self-service portal
• High customization

All open tickets in Zoho Desk. Source: Zoho Desk

Pros:

• AI Zia can help customers via chatting or speaking
• Numerous integrations
• Automation of workflows
• Time tracker

Cons

• There is no on-premise version of the software

Pricing:

• Free: Free for 3 agents
• Standard: $14/month
• Professional: $23/month
• Enterprise: $40/month

6. Front

Front is a very easy-to-use help desk software with a shallow learning curve and fast setup. Moreover, it allows its users to share their personal inboxes and supports social media and SMS so you can contact customers in any desirable way.

Key features:

• Inbox with both email and SMS threads together
• Integration with social media
• Management of both personal and shared emails in an app
• Automation of custom workflows

Inbox in Front. Source: Front

Pros:

• Easy collaboration between team members
• A great number of integration options
• Omnichannel communication
• User-friendly UI

Cons

• It might not be a great fit if you have high ticketing volumes
• It requires an annual contract
• Pricing plans can be expensive for SMEs

Pricing:

• Starter - $19 per agent/month
• Prime $49 per agent/month
• Enterprise – $99 per agent/month

7. Gorgias

Gorgias is an eCom-focused help desk with a bunch of helpful features like a shared inbox, knowledge base, live chat, smart analytics, and reporting. It also supports some of the most popular eCom integrations like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce to directly process the orders without switching between different apps.

Key features:

• Gorgias is easy for both end users and agents
• Feature-rich ticketing system
• Omnichannel support
• Wide range of automation options
• Real-time notifications

Closed ticket in Gorgias. Source: Gorgias

Pros:

• Integration with eCom platforms
• Knowledge base builder

Cons:

• Pricing plans depend on the volume of tickets

Pricing:

• Basic: $60/month for 300 tickets (extra $40 per each additional 100 tickets)
• Pro: $360/month for 2000 tickets (extra $36 per each additional 100 tickets)
• Advanced: $900/month for 5000 tickets (extra $36 per each additional 100 tickets)
• Enterprise: upon request

8. ServiceNow

ServiceNow is an ideal alternative to Help Scout that helps automate many aspects of support for IT-oriented teams. It has a similar layout to a Kanban board with status updates directly in the task.

Key features:

• The shared inbox for incoming requests
• Self-service portal
• IT asset management

Create a ticket in ServiceNow. Source: ServiceNow

Pros:

• Easy Kanban-style task management system
• Wide range of integration options
• Comfy agent workspace with knowledge management

Cons:

• This software is primarily suitable for internal support
• It isn’t right for users with no tech background

Pricing: Available upon request

9. Intercom

Intercom is one of the leaders among Help Scout competitors that is aimed mainly at proactive sales and marketing as well as customer relations management.

Key features:

• Custom bots
• In-app messaging for customers
• Product tours to engage customers
• Database of self-serve articles
• Reporting dashboard

Unassigned ticket in Intercom. Source: Intercom

Pros:

• Modern, intuitive interface
• Business messenger with a wide range of features
• Advanced automation with the help of bots
• Outbound and proactive messages to customers

Cons:

• Pricing is based on agents and the number of customers
• If you compare Intercom vs Help Scout, this customer support software is not cheaper than Help Scout
• It lacks robust email support management
• Basic analytics

Pricing:

• For most businesses: There are three pricing plans: Support, Engage, and Convert. The cost of each depends on the seats + the number of unique people you have reached.
• For small businesses: Starter: from $74/month (the total cost also depends on the seats + the number of unique people you have reached)

10. Reamaze

Reamaze customer support software is aimed at online retail businesses mainly. It integrates with well-known eCommerce solutions like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce for managing orders. Besides, it allows you to directly give refunds for your Shopify store.

Key features:

• Integration with social media and popular eCommerce tools
• Live chat
• Community portal for customers
• FAQ center

All conversations in Reamaze. Source: Reamaze

Pros:

• You can connect multiple stores to your help desk
• Automated workflows allow helping your customers at every stage of their journey
• Live view of site visitors

Cons:

• The reporting feature is quite weak compared to other Help Scout alternatives
• The chat app has glitches
• You can’t add images to the FAQ center

Which Help Scout Alternative to Pick?

If you're considering any Help Scout alternative, you have many great options. The right choice depends on your business type and why you're looking for an alternative. Decide on the one that offers just enough features and flexibility for your business to grow. Just choose a help desk system that would make it easier to help your customers without feeling overly pricey or bulky.