Freshdesk vs Help Scout
Pick Help Scout if customers reach you by email, chat and social messages and you want all of it in one inbox from the entry plan, with AI billed only when it resolves a conversation. Pick Freshdesk if your data has to be held outside the United States, or if most of your volume is email and you want an AI agent answering it today. The difference that decides most cases is what the entry plan covers. Help Scout's Standard plan includes live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, and Freshdesk puts chat and messaging in Freshdesk Omni, a separate package that starts at $29 an agent a month billed annually.
| Fact | Freshdesk | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $23/agent/mo | $30/agent/mo |
| Plans | Growth, Pro, Enterprise, Omni Growth, Omni Pro, Omni Enterprise | Free, Standard, Plus, Pro |
| Best for | SMB support teams, Budget-conscious buyers, Multi-channel ticketing | Small teams, SMB SaaS, Docs plus inbox |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Headquarters | San Mateo, US | Boston, MA, USA |
| Founded | 2010 | 2011 |
| Facts checked |
Which one fits your team?
Tick what's true for you.
Pick Freshdesk if
Pick Help Scout if
Tick what describes your team. We'll tell you which way it leans.
What each costs
Eight agents, billed annually, on an email-led store team with a chat widget that wants automatic assignment and separate SLA policies for VIP and standard customers. That puts Help Scout on Plus (round robin routing, two advanced SLA policies) and Freshdesk on Pro (intelligent routing, multiple SLA policies). Core Freshdesk has no chat, so we also price Freshdesk Omni Pro. The AI agent picks up 400 conversations a month and resolves 280 of them.
Help Scout Plus
- Seats: 8 × $45 = $360 a month, $4,320 a year
- AI: 280 resolutions × $0.75 = $210 a month. New accounts get three months of unlimited resolutions free, so year one is 9 × $210 = $1,890
- First year: $4,320 + $1,890 = $6,210
Freshdesk Pro
- Seats: 8 × $55 = $440 a month, $5,280 a year
- AI: each conversation the AI replies to counts as a session, so 400 a month and 4,800 a year. The first 500 are free once per account, which leaves 4,300, or 43 packs × $49 = $2,107
- First year: $5,280 + $2,107 = $7,387
Freshdesk Omni Pro, if you need chat
- Seats: 8 × $79 = $632 a month, $7,584 a year
- AI: the same 43 packs, $2,107
- First year: $7,584 + $2,107 = $9,691
Help Scout comes out $1,177 cheaper than Freshdesk Pro in year one and $3,481 cheaper than Omni Pro. In year two the AI bills swap places, with Help Scout's at $2,520 for a full twelve months and Freshdesk's 48 packs at $2,352.
The two AI meters cross at about a 65% resolution rate. After the free sessions, Freshdesk costs $0.49 for every conversation its AI replies to, resolved or not, and Help Scout costs $0.75 for every conversation its AI resolves. If your AI resolves fewer than about 65 of every 100 conversations it picks up, Help Scout is cheaper per solved problem.
Paying monthly, Help Scout Plus is $54 a user ($432 a month for eight) and Freshdesk Pro is $66 an agent ($528 a month). Freshdesk Omni Pro is $95 an agent billed monthly ($760 a month for eight).
The fees the headline leaves out:
- Freddy AI Copilot is $29 an agent a month billed annually ($35 monthly), sold on Pro, Enterprise, Omni Pro and Omni Enterprise. For eight agents that adds $2,784 a year
- For occasional helpers, Freshdesk Pro sells day passes at $7 each. Help Scout Plus includes 5 light users, who can read and collaborate without a full seat
- Freshdesk meters connector app tasks at $80 per 5,000 and MCP actions at $15 per 1,000
- Help Scout Plus includes 5 inboxes and 3 Docs sites. Extra inboxes are $10 a month billed annually ($12 monthly) and extra Docs sites $20 ($24)
- Phone costs extra on both. Help Scout connects calls through Aircall, which bills you separately, and Freshdesk Omni sells a voice add-on at $39 an agent a month on Omni Pro, billed annually ($47 monthly)
Freshdesk plans
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growth | $23 | $19 | No free plan. |
| Pro | $66 | $55 | Marked Most popular by Freshworks. |
| Enterprise | $107 | $89 | Adds the governance controls: sandbox, audit logs, allowed domains and IP whitelisting. |
| Omni Growth | $35 | $29 | Freshdesk Omni is sold separately from core Freshdesk and adds chat and messaging channels. |
| Omni Pro | $95 | $79 | Marked Most popular by Freshworks. |
| Omni Enterprise | $143 | $119 | Adds Freddy AI Insights, skill-based routing, custom objects, sandbox and audit logs. |
Prices are an agent a month, in US dollars. Source: freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing, checked ; freshworks.com/freshdesk/omni/pricing, checked .
Help Scout plans
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free | Up to 5 users, 1 Inbox, 1 Docs site, 1 Beacon, 10 articles, 10 tags, 10 saved replies, and 100 contacts a month. |
| Standard | $30 | $25 | Up to 25 users. |
| Plus | $54 | $45 | Up to 50 users. |
| Pro | $90 | $75 | Unlimited users with a 10-user minimum. |
Prices are an agent a month, in US dollars. Source: helpscout.com/pricing, checked .
Where the features differ
24 of the 27 features we checked on both differ in availability or the plan you need. The other 3 are the same on both. Each answer links to the page on the vendor’s own site that says so.
| Feature | Freshdesk | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Channels | ||
| Contact form and widget | Every plansource | Every plansource |
| Every plansource | Every plansource | |
| Live chat | Some plansfrom Omni Growthsource | Some plansfrom Standardsource |
| Phone | Some plansfrom Omni Growthsource | Paid add-onsource |
| Social DMs | Some planssource | Some plansfrom Standardsource |
| Some planssource | Some plansfrom Standardsource | |
| AI and automation | ||
| Agent copilot | Paid add-onfrom Prosource | Some plansfrom Standardsource |
| AI agent (customer-facing) | Every plansource | Paid add-onfrom Standardsource |
| AI agent takes actions | Some plansfrom Omni Growthsource | Not availablesource |
| Automation rules | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Standardsource |
| Intent detection and routing | Every plansource | Some planssource |
| Self-service | ||
| Customer portal | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Plussource |
| Customer-facing help centre | Every plansource | Every plansource |
| Multilingual support | Some plansfrom Prosource | Some plansfrom Standardsource |
| Workflow and admin | ||
| Collision detection | Every plansource | Every plansource |
| Custom fields | Some plansfrom Prosource | Some planssource |
| Public API | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Standardsource |
| Roles and permissions | Every plansource | Some planssource |
| Single sign-on | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Prosource |
| SLA management | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Standardsource |
| Reporting and quality | ||
| Custom reports and export | Some plansfrom Prosource | Some planssource |
| Reporting dashboards | Every plansource | Every plansource |
| Ecommerce | ||
| Order actions in the ticket | Every plansource | Some planssource |
| Security and reliability | ||
| EU data residency | Every plansource | Not availablesource |
AI agents: what each one answers and how it bills
Freshdesk handles this better for an email-heavy team, and Help Scout is easier to budget.
- On core Freshdesk, Freddy AI Agent works over email. A session is a 72-hour window from the customer's first email, and all AI replies inside it count as one session
- On Freshdesk Omni, Freshworks says the agent can process refunds, update orders, fetch shipping status and take exchange requests, naming Shopify, Stripe, PayPal and FedEx among its integrations
- Help Scout's agent, Scout (sold as Envoy; the pricing FAQ still says AI Answers), runs on your website and inside your app, with email marked coming soon. It answers from your help content and escalates the rest. Scout's connections to other apps, from payment processors to CRMs, are marked coming soon, and Help Scout says its MCP connections are read-only for now, so Scout can't change an order yet
- Help Scout counts a resolution when the customer doesn't escalate, search the knowledge base or say they need more help after Scout answers. A resolution is a single conversation, so one conversation bills once at most
- The 500 free Freshdesk sessions are a one-time allowance per account. At 400 sessions a month they run out during the second month, and every session after that is billed
In our view, a team that wants the AI doing order work should shortlist Freshdesk Omni. A team that mainly wants FAQs off the chat queue, on a bill with a hard ceiling, should pick Help Scout.
Chat, messaging and phone
Help Scout covers more channels for less money. Freshdesk is the one with its own phone product.
- Help Scout Standard includes live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, and its plan card lists SMS too, though the comparison table marks SMS "via integration" without naming a plan. Phone is listed as "via integration" on every paid plan, with preferred Aircall pricing on Pro
- Core Freshdesk is ticketing and a shared inbox. Omnichannel support comes with Freshdesk Omni at $29, $79 and $119 an agent a month billed annually, against $19, $55 and $89 for core Freshdesk
- Omni's voice add-on is $15 on Omni Growth, $39 on Omni Pro and $69 on Omni Enterprise, an agent a month billed annually ($18, $47 and $83 billed monthly)
If your store already runs chat on its site, we would price Omni from day one rather than buy core Freshdesk and move later. Between Pro and Omni Pro the gap is $24 an agent a month billed annually.
Where your data lives and who controls access
Freshdesk handles this better, and it's the clearest win on its side.
- Freshdesk runs data centres in the US, EEA, UAE, India and Australia. You choose at signup, and moving later means contacting Freshdesk support
- Help Scout is hosted on AWS servers in the United States, and its security page offers no other region
- Freshdesk Enterprise adds a sandbox, audit logs, allowed domains and IP whitelisting. Help Scout's pricing page lists IP restrictions as an add-on and shows no sandbox or audit log
- Freshdesk includes SAML SSO on every plan. Help Scout includes SSO on Pro, at $75 a user billed annually with a 10-user minimum (at least $750 a month), and lists it as an add-on below Pro
How we checked this
- Checked 2026-10-29.
Sources
- freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing
- freshworks.com/freshdesk/omni/pricing
- freshworks.com/freshdesk/omni/freddy-ai-agent
- support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/50000011515-manage-…
- support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/50000013867
- support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/235810-where-is-you…
- support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/195382-the-shopify-…
- helpscout.com/pricing
- helpscout.com/agent
- helpscout.com/industry/ecommerce
- docs.helpscout.com/article/1263-security-at-help-scout
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