Tell us about your support team, contact volume where a provider limits it, and the features you need. We’ll show the lowest-cost option that fits and explain how each provider’s billing terms are being compared.
Help desk software We’ll compare Zoho Desk, Help Scout, Crisp, and Freshdesk using your support team, contact volume where relevant, and must-have support features. Your result We’ll show the lowest-cost option that fits, other suitable choices, and any prices that need checking.Find the lowest-cost plan that fits
Tell us what you need to see your matches.
Providers in this comparison
We currently compare Zoho Desk, Help Scout, Crisp, and Freshdesk for US pricing.
What you tell us
The calculator uses your number of full support users, monthly contacts where a provider publishes that limit, and whether you need a public knowledge base, automatic balanced ticket routing, or a multilingual public knowledge base.
How prices are shown
To make the subscription costs easier to compare, we show monthly figures even when the underlying commitment differs:
- Zoho Desk and Freshdesk use published annual-billing rates.
- Help Scout uses a monthly equivalent based on its published 16% annual-prepayment saving.
- Crisp uses its current published per-workspace monthly price because we cannot confirm a reproducible public annual discount.
We compare ordinary recurring subscriptions for human-operated support. AI resolution or session charges, agent-assist add-ons, telephony, SMS or WhatsApp usage, workforce-management and QA add-ons, other consumption-priced extras, and custom enterprise agreements are excluded.
Freshdesk’s current free offer is time-limited, so we do not treat it as a permanent $0 subscription. Contact volume only affects a provider when that provider publishes a comparable contact limit.
We do not score subjective factors such as support quality, interface preference, or AI quality.
Before you buy
Help desk providers can change prices, seat allowances, feature gates, and add-on packaging. Confirm the final plan and terms on the provider’s website before purchasing. See how ChoiceSpec works.
Sources & verification
Pricing, limits, and feature rules are checked against official provider pages. Verification dates show our last manual check.
- Zoho Desk PricingVerified 2026-08-18 · Official comparison used for current USD annual plan prices and objective plan feature gates. Main pricing surfaces can localize, so USD prices should be rechecked at refresh time.
- Zoho Desk ExpressVerified 2026-08-18 · Express is currently $7/user/month billed annually and supports up to 5 users.
- Help Scout PricingVerified 2026-08-18 · Free supports up to 5 users and 100 contacts/month. Paid list prices are $25/$45/$75 per user monthly; Help Scout publishes 16% savings for annual prepayment, modeled as $21/$37.80/$63 monthly-equivalent. AI Answers consumption is excluded.
- Crisp PricingVerified 2026-08-18 · Crisp prices per workspace. Mini $45/month with 4 seats; Essentials $95/month with 10 seats; Plus $295/month with 20 included seats. V1 does not infer an annual discount amount.
- Crisp EssentialsVerified 2026-08-18 · Used to confirm Essentials support features and included operator allowance.
- Crisp RoutingVerified 2026-08-18 · Official routing documentation confirms automatic distribution/routing across eligible operators.
- Crisp Knowledge BaseVerified 2026-08-18 · Official knowledge-base documentation confirms public knowledge-base capability and multiple-language support.
- Freshdesk PricingVerified 2026-08-18 · Growth $19/agent/month billed annually; Pro $55; Enterprise $89. Pro exposes the routing and multilingual helpdesk gates used in V1. AI/Copilot/session and other consumption add-ons are excluded.
- Freshdesk TrialVerified 2026-08-18 · Current free offer is a time-limited trial rather than an ordinary permanent recurring free plan, so it is not ranked as $0 ongoing cost.