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Help Scout Review

Email-based help desk and shared inbox for customer support teams.

Visit Help Scout
Starting price
$30/agent/mo
Tier
challenger
Founded
2011
HQ
Boston, MA, USA

Our verdict

Help Scout is the one to shortlist when you want a shared inbox that never makes your customer feel like a ticket number, and you would rather pay per person on your team than per conversation. It is email-first and deliberately plain: no ticket IDs in replies, no portal your customer has to log into, and an AI that is billed per problem actually solved rather than per seat. Look elsewhere if phone is a real channel for you, if you need your data somewhere other than the United States, or if you want to leave later without writing code — its export story is the weakest part of the product.

Help Scout has spent fourteen years making a help desk that does not look like one. There are no ticket numbers in the reply, no "Case #48213" subject line, no portal the customer has to log into to find out what happened. Your customer gets an email from a person. That design choice runs through the whole product, and it is the main thing that separates Help Scout from the desks it competes with.

What it does

  • Shared inbox that pulls conversations from email, chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger
  • Assigns, tags, and routes replies through named humans
  • Includes Docs (knowledge base + self-service site + AI source)
  • Beacon widget adds chat and help center to your site
  • Collision detection pauses a colliding reply into a Needs Attention folder, on every plan, always on
  • Missing: No native phone channel (integration required)

Pricing at a glance

  • Per user, per month. Standard $30, Plus $54, Pro $90 billed monthly; $25, $45 and $75 billed annually
  • The pricing page opens on the annual toggle, so the figure you see first is the discounted one
  • Pro minimum: 10 users = $900/month floor
  • Seat caps: Standard (25 users), Plus (50 users)
  • Extra inboxes: $12/mo each, or $10/mo each if you pay annually
  • Free plan: 5 users, 1 inbox, 100 contacts/month, then it halts rather than degrades

AI pricing (the honest kind)

  • $0.75 per resolution - pay only when AI completes a task without handoff
  • Greetings, clarifying questions and escalations are not billed
  • Monthly spending cap available (rare feature)
  • AI Assist (rewrites/translates) on paid plans; AI Drafts/Summarize on Plus/Pro only
  • What it can't do: No order cancellations, refunds, or system writes - only answers questions

Before you commit

  • Data export: Conversation history requires API access - budget developer time for migrations
  • Data location: US-hosted (AWS) only, GDPR/UK-GDPR available but not negotiable
  • Support is 24x6, not 24/7, on every plan
  • Migration brings conversations, customers and tags; macros, automations, custom fields and settings are rebuilt by hand

Who should buy

  • Mostly written support channels
  • Want personal-looking replies
  • Prefer predictable per-user pricing

Who should skip it

  • Heavy phone volume
  • Need EU data residency
  • Want AI that takes actions (not just answers)
  • Need easy exit without developer help

How we checked this

Every figure here was read from Help Scout's own pages, with both pricing toggle states confirmed by screenshot on 2026-09-21; the rest was checked against Help Scout's documentation, security pages and status API on 2026-09-18. Where Help Scout's own pages contradicted each other, on SMS and social channels, HIPAA and SSO, we recorded the conflict rather than the more flattering reading. No review-site text was used.

Strengths

  • Priced per user, so a busy month costs the same as a quiet one. The opposite trade-off to per-ticket desks like Gorgias, and easier to forecast.
  • AI Answers is billed at $0.75 per resolution with a published definition of what counts, and a spending cap you set that switches it off rather than letting the bill run.
  • Greetings, clarifying questions and escalations are explicitly not billed, so you only pay when the AI actually finished the job.
  • Collision detection is on every plan, always on, and it pauses the colliding reply into a Needs Attention folder instead of just warning you.
  • A genuine free plan: 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site, 100 contacts a month.
  • 30-day money-back guarantee on the first payment, a 10% non-profit discount, and up to 100% off through Help Scout for Good.

Trade-offs

  • No native phone channel. "Phone/voice" reads "Via integration" on every paid plan, so calls happen in Aircall or similar and voicemail arrives as a forwarded email.
  • Getting your data out means writing code. In-app export covers four reports and excludes the conversation contents; Help Scout says the API "is currently the only means of obtaining data" for everything else.
  • US-only hosting on AWS with no regional option, while offering GDPR and UK-GDPR terms under a non-negotiable DPA.
  • Support is 24x6, not 24/7. That is stated under what every plan includes.
  • Migration brings conversations, customers and tags, but users, inbox settings, knowledge-base articles, macros, automations, custom fields and statuses all get rebuilt by hand.
  • The free plan stops working rather than degrading: hit 100 contacts in a month and replies stop until the cycle resets.