What is Help Scout?
Shared inbox, chat and knowledge base for support teams.
Who is Help Scout best for?
Help Scout is best for small support teams moving off a shared Gmail inbox who want email, chat and a help center.
Teams leaving a shared Gmail inbox
Assignments, saved replies, tags and customer history replace the guesswork of a shared email account, and the Free plan covers up to 5 users.
Support across several channels
Email, live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger arrive in the same Inbox from the Standard plan up.
Self-service help centers
Docs sites give customers a searchable knowledge base, and the AI Answers add-on uses that content to settle questions without a person.
Businesses handling sensitive data
Help Scout is SOC 2 Type II compliant, and the Pro plan adds HIPAA compliance and SSO/SAML sign-in.
How much does Help Scout cost?
Help Scout has a free plan for up to 5 users, and its paid plans cost $30, $54 or $90 per user per month (Standard, Plus, Pro), or $25, $45 or $75 billed yearly.
- Up to 5 users, 1 Inbox and 1 Docs site
- 100 contacts a month
- Up to 25 users, 2 Inboxes and 2 Docs sites
- Live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger
- Basic workflows and one basic SLA policy
- Up to 50 users, 5 Inboxes and 3 Docs sites
- Advanced workflows, round robin routing, unlimited AI Drafts
- Salesforce, Jira and HubSpot integrations
- Unlimited users, with a minimum of 10
- Unlimited workflows and SLA policies, SSO/SAML, HIPAA compliance
- Dedicated onboarding specialist and account manager
Billed yearly, Standard is $25, Plus $45 and Pro $75 per user per month. Standard and Plus come with a 15-day free trial with no credit card; a Pro trial goes through sales. AI Answers, an AI agent that replies to customers, costs $0.75 per resolved conversation and is free for the first 3 months. Extra Inboxes cost $12 a month and extra Docs sites $24 a month ($10 and $20 billed yearly). Qualifying non-profits and B Corporations get discounts through Help Scout for Good, and there is a separate plan for early-stage startups. Full pricing on helpscout.com. We checked these prices on .
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What are the best Help Scout alternatives?
Three tools on Recaply do Help Scout's job. All three are open source, so you can run them on your own server.
CossistantOpen SourceChoose it when you want open source code you can run and change yourself.
ChatwootOpen SourceChoose it when you want a shared email and chat inbox on your own server instead of a hosted help desk billed per user
Frappe HelpdeskOpen SourceChoose it when you want unlimited agents and tickets on your own server instead of paying for each user every month
More open source alternatives
See all
Questions about Help Scout
What is Help Scout?
Shared inbox, chat and knowledge base for support teams.
Who is Help Scout for?
Help Scout is best for small support teams moving off a shared Gmail inbox who want email, chat and a help center.
Is Help Scout free?
Yes. Help Scout has a free plan: up to 5 users, 1 Inbox and 1 Docs site.
How much does Help Scout's AI Answers cost?
AI Answers costs $0.75 per resolution, and you pay only when it settles a conversation with no human help, once per conversation. New accounts get 3 months of unlimited resolutions at no cost, and you can set a monthly spending cap that switches it off when reached.
Is there an open source alternative to Help Scout?
Yes. Cossistant, Chatwoot, Frappe Helpdesk and Zammad and 1 more are open source tools that do the same job, so you can run your own.
What are the best Help Scout alternatives?
The closest alternatives on Recaply are Cossistant, Chatwoot and Frappe Helpdesk.
Where can I try Help Scout?
On its official website, helpscout.com.
Can I try Help Scout's paid plans before buying?
Yes. Help Scout gives 15 days on the Standard or Plus plan with every feature switched on and no credit card needed. To try the Pro plan, you talk to the sales team first.
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