Automate Basics

Freshdesk vs Help Scout

Pick up to 4 tools and see their free plans, entry prices, platforms and limits in one table. Every fact comes from each vendor's own pages, checked 7 November 2026.

Compared on
Freshdesk

Free trial · from $19/agent/mo

Help Scout

Free plan

What it isFreshworks help desk with ticketing, a knowledge base and Freddy AIShared inbox and help desk for customer support teams, with an AI chatbot billed per resolution
Free planNoUp to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts a month; 10 saved replies, tags and articles each
Cheapest paid plan$19/agent/mo billed annually (Growth)Freshdesk pricingNot publishedHelp Scout pricing
What it coversCheapest plan; includes the Freddy AI Agent with 500 free sessions once per account.Not stated
Free trial14-day free trial with access to the Enterprise plan, no credit card required15-day free trial of Standard and Plus, no credit card needed; Pro is not offered as a trial
PlatformsWebWeb
Integrations (vendor's figure)Not stated100+ tools
Open sourceNoNo
Good for
  • Managing customer emails as tickets in a shared inbox
  • Publishing a self-service knowledge base and customer portal
  • Trying an AI agent on common questions using the included sessions
  • Small and mid-sized teams that want a shared inbox rather than a heavy ticketing system
  • Teams that want a free starting plan for up to five people
Watch out for
  • No free plan on the pricing page; after the 14-day trial you buy a plan or, on Freshdesk only, move to a 6-month Free Program for up to two agents
  • Freddy AI Copilot is not offered on Growth and costs $29 per agent a month billed annually ($35 monthly)
  • The 500 free AI Agent sessions come once per account; more cost $49 per 100
  • Envoy chatbot resolutions are billed on top of the plan at $0.75 each
  • Additional inboxes cost extra ($10 a month paid annually, $12 monthly)
  • Plan limits on inboxes and users are stated differently in different parts of the pricing page
Made byFreshworks Inc.Help Scout

Entry prices are the cheapest paid plan, as each vendor publishes it; “What it covers” says what that price is per (a user, a channel, a brand, a number of contacts). The sources are listed on each tool's page.

Every tool in AI customer support tools is on its category page, with the written head-to-heads on Compare.