# Freshdesk Alternatives and Competitors: 9 Help Desks Compared > Nine Freshdesk alternatives compared, from Zendesk and Help Scout to Intercom and Gorgias: pricing units, free plans, live chat, AI billing and trials. _Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/freshdesk-alternatives — The Professional's Toolkit · updated October 2026_ --- The best Freshdesk alternative depends on what you want to escape. **Zendesk is the closest like-for-like swap**: per-agent pricing, a similar plan ladder, and AI agents billed per automated resolution. Help Scout, Zoho Desk, HubSpot Service Hub and Tidio still offer free plans, which Freshdesk no longer sells to new buyers. Intercom and Tidio lead with live chat, a channel standalone Freshdesk no longer offers new accounts. Gorgias bills by tickets, not agents, and is built for Shopify stores. Freshdesk's pricing page lists Growth at $19 per agent per month billed annually, the figure every rival here is weighed against. Stay if email ticketing is your core. Switch if chat, a free tier or ticket-based pricing matters more. **$19** — Freshdesk Growth per agent per month billed annually ($23 billed monthly): the price each alternative is weighed against. - **4 of 9** — alternatives here with a free plan or free edition - **14 days** — Freshdesk trial with Enterprise features, no card - **$49 per 100** — Freddy AI Agent sessions per pack after 500 free once per account; unused purchased sessions lapse each billing cycle ## What you would be leaving behind Freshdesk is the email-first help desk from Freshworks: every message from email, the customer portal, web forms or Facebook becomes a ticket in a shared inbox. Freshworks positions it for teams in businesses of about 50 to 500 employees. Standalone Freshdesk has no live chat for new accounts, because its help widget carries only knowledge base articles and web forms.[1] Live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and SMS sit in Freshdesk Omni, a separate product with its own prices. That split sends chat teams shopping. Freshdesk's pricing page lists Growth at $23 per agent per month billed monthly or $19 billed annually ($228 per agent a year), Pro at $66 or $55 ($660), and Enterprise at $107 or $89 ($1,068).[2] Billing is per agent, and every agent on an account sits on the same plan; our [Freshdesk pricing guide](/articles/freshdesk-pricing) covers the add-ons. Growth leaves out automatic round-robin assignment, multiple SLA policies, custom roles and collaborators, which all start on Pro. The Freddy AI Agent includes 500 sessions once per account, then costs $49 per pack of 100 sessions, added to the current billing cycle; unused purchased sessions do not carry over. New buyers get a 14-day trial of Enterprise features without a card and no self-serve free plan; Freshdesk can move a small account into its Free program, up to 2 agents, through Customer Success. Cancellation and downgrades take effect only at the end of the paid term, and payments are non-refundable. Those terms shape any exit plan, so time a switch to your renewal date rather than to the day you decide. **What users rate it, by platform** | Platform | Rating | Reviews | As of | |---|---|---|---| _Rendered from our current record; these are other platforms' user scores, separate from our own Toolkit Score._ Ratings tell a split story. The business-software review sites, where reviewers describe daily work, lean favorable. Trustpilot gathers mostly unhappy customers, so we read it as a map of complaints, not a trend: support responsiveness, billing and charges, cancellation that lands only at term end, price increases, forced moves off legacy plans and the free plan going away. Those themes are what the alternatives below answer. | Alternative | Billed by | Trial | Stands out for | |---|---|---|---| | Freshdesk | Agent, per month | 14 days, Enterprise features, no card | Email-first ticketing | | Zendesk | Agent, per month | 14 days, Suite Professional | AI agents on every plan | | Help Scout | User, per month | 15 days, no card | Free plan for 5 users | | Zoho Desk | User, per month | 15 days, then Free edition | Free edition, 3 users | | HubSpot Service Hub | Seat, per month | 14 days | Free plan on a CRM | | Intercom | Seat, per month | 14 days, no card | Live chat on every plan | | Tidio | Billable conversations | 7 days, no card | Free plan, up to 10 seats | | Gorgias | Tickets a month | No card to start | Built for Shopify | | Front | Seat, billed annually | 14 days, no card | Shared inbox, guest accounts | | HelpDesk.com | User, per month | 14 days, no card | Unlimited tickets | Read the billing column first. A per-agent price grows with headcount, a per-ticket price with volume, and a per-conversation price with chat traffic. A large team handling a modest queue pays very differently under each model, so the cheapest option depends on your ratio of tickets to people, not on the sticker price of the entry plan. > 💡 **Count tickets before counting seats:** Per-agent, per-ticket and per-conversation prices diverge fast. Put your monthly ticket count and your agent count side by side before comparing any two quotes. ## Zendesk: the closest like-for-like swap Zendesk also sells per agent per month, which makes it the easiest comparison. Zendesk's pricing page lists Support Team at $19 per agent per month billed annually or $25 billed monthly, Suite Team at $55 or $69, and Suite Professional at $115 or $149. Suite Enterprise is sold through sales. SLAs, skills-based routing and multiple ticket forms sit above Support Team, yet automatic assignment by availability and workload is on every Zendesk plan. Freshdesk's automatic assignment starts on Pro. The bigger difference is how AI is billed. Zendesk includes AI agents on every plan and charges per automated resolution: 5 per agent a month on Support Team and Suite Team, 10 on Suite Professional, then $1.50 each committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. Its Copilot add-on is $50 per agent per month paid yearly, on Professional and up. Freddy AI Copilot is $29 per agent per month billed annually or $35 billed monthly, on Pro and Enterprise only. By our arithmetic, once both included allowances are used up, 1,000 extra Freshdesk AI Agent sessions cost $490, while 1,000 committed Zendesk resolutions cost $1,500. The units differ, though. A resolution counts only when no human steps in. Terms run close. Both auto-renew unless you give 30 days' notice, and neither allows a downgrade mid-term. Zendesk accepts PayPal, which Freshdesk does not, and keeps data exportable for 30 days after the term, against Freshdesk's 14. Basic Zendesk support runs weekdays 10am to 4pm ET, with round-the-clock coverage in paid Premier plans; Freshdesk includes 24/5 support on every paid plan. A Zendesk customer story says the move from Freshdesk took about three weeks. Our [Freshdesk vs Zendesk](/articles/freshdesk-vs-zendesk) comparison goes plan by plan. ## Free plans Freshdesk no longer sells ### Help Scout Help Scout's Free plan covers 5 users, 1 inbox and 1 Docs site, with 100 contacts a month. Its paid plans are listed at $25 per user a month for Standard, $45 for Plus and $75 for Pro, and the page toggle shows a discount for annual billing. Round robin routing and two advanced SLA policies arrive on Plus, while HIPAA and SSO are add-ons below Pro. AI answers cost $0.75 per resolution after a new account's first 3 months of free unlimited use, and an optional monthly spending cap switches them off when reached. The 15-day trial needs no card. ### Zoho Desk Zoho Desk keeps a no-cost Free edition with three user licenses, which Zoho presents as permanent, and its 15-day trial falls back to that edition instead of suspending the account. Paid editions run Express, Standard, Professional and Enterprise per user; the page we read showed rupees, so we quote no dollar figure. Standard adds WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Telegram plus a community and knowledge base. Professional adds telephony, Zia AI, round-robin assignment and a help center in 40+ languages; Enterprise adds skill-based assignment, a multi-brand help center and a sandbox. Zoho accepts PayPal and offers a full refund under its refund policy. ### HubSpot Service Hub HubSpot's Free plan has ticketing and team email with no card required. Starter, Professional and Enterprise are priced per seat. Professional adds a help desk workspace, a customer success workspace, the AI Customer Agent and a knowledge base, and Enterprise adds skill-based routing and conditional SLAs. The reason to pick it is the CRM underneath: tickets sit beside the contact records sales and marketing already use, and HubSpot lists 2,000+ integrations. A 14-day trial covers the service tools. Our [HubSpot review](/articles/hubspot-review) covers the wider platform. ## Live chat and AI first: Intercom and Tidio ### Intercom Intercom prices per seat, with Essential at $29 per seat a month billed monthly, and Advanced and Expert listed at $85 and $132 per seat a month. Every plan includes live chat, support email and in-app chat, the channels standalone Freshdesk leaves to Omni. Advanced adds round robin assignment and a workflow builder; Expert adds SSO, HIPAA support and SLAs. Its Fin AI agent costs $0.99 per outcome, charged once per conversation. Intercom's Copilot is $29 per agent per month billed annually or $35 monthly, the same list figures as Freddy AI Copilot. The 14-day trial needs no card, and downgrades usually take effect at renewal. ### Tidio Tidio prices by billable conversations, meaning ones that include a message from a human agent; replies from its Lyro AI do not count. The Free plan allows 50 billable conversations and up to 10 seats. Starter is $24.17 and Growth from $49.17 a month, both billed annually, and Plus starts at $300 a month plus usage. The Lyro AI Agent add-on starts at $32.50 a month. Check the seat cap. Self-serve plans stop at 10 agents, so a growing team moves to Plus through sales. The 7-day trial downgrades to the Free plan rather than locking the account. > 💡 **Match AI units before comparing:** Freshdesk counts AI Agent sessions, Zendesk automated resolutions, Intercom outcomes and Tidio Lyro conversations. Estimate your monthly volume in each unit, then compare. ## Other pricing units: Gorgias, Front and HelpDesk.com > **About these prices:** Prices shown are what Freshdesk lists for visitors in the United States, in US dollars. Your price can differ by country, currency and local taxes such as VAT. Check your current price — Freshdesk: https://api.colosus.site/go/freshdesk?to=pricing ### Gorgias Gorgias charges by tickets a month, never per agent, and targets Shopify stores. Its Starter plan is $10 a month for 50 tickets and 3 user seats, monthly only. Basic is $60 a month billed monthly or $50 a month billed annually for 300 tickets, Pro is $360 or $300 for 2,000 tickets, and Advanced is $900 or $750 for 5,000. Its AI Agent runs on every plan and is charged per automated interaction. Volume, not headcount, drives the bill. By our arithmetic, five Freshdesk Growth agents billed annually cost $1,140 a year, while Gorgias Basic billed annually costs $600 a year if the queue stays under 300 tickets a month. At 2,000 tickets a month, Gorgias Pro's $3,600 a year undercuts Freshdesk Growth only from 16 agents up. ### Front Front's page shows annual billing only, per seat per month: Starter at $25 for up to 10 seats and one channel type, Professional at $65 with omnichannel and SSO, and Enterprise at $105. Its Copilot is a $20 per seat per month add-on, included on Enterprise, and Autopilot AI starts at $0.05 a conversation. WhatsApp is billed as Meta costs plus a 20% admin fee, the same markup model Freshworks uses on Omni. Guest accounts let colleagues comment without a license. The 14-day trial gives Professional features with no card. ### HelpDesk.com HelpDesk.com lists Essential at $19 per user per month billed annually or $25 monthly, Growth at $79 or $99, and Enterprise on custom pricing. Every plan has unlimited tickets. AI resolutions are 10 a month on Essential and 200 on Growth, with extra 50-packs at $49.50. SSO and audit logs are Enterprise only, and refunds are reviewed case by case. Support runs 24/7 by chat on all plans, and the 14-day trial needs no card. > ⚠ **Freshdesk renewal needs 30 days' notice:** Freshdesk plans auto-renew for the same term unless written notice arrives at least 30 days before expiry, and payments are non-refundable. Set a reminder 45 to 60 days before renewal and time the switch to it. ## FAQ **What is the difference between Freshdesk and Freshservice?** Freshdesk handles customer-facing support, while Freshservice is Freshworks' IT service management and employee service desk for internal requests. The two integrate: a Freshdesk agent can raise a Freshservice incident or service request from a ticket, and Freshservice agents can add private notes but cannot reply to the customer. Freshservice lists Starter at $19 per agent per month billed annually ($29 monthly) and Enterprise at $139 billed annually ($167 monthly). **Does Freshdesk have a CRM?** No. Freshdesk keeps contacts and companies for support, and CRM data comes from integrations: the Freshsales app (Growth and up) shows a customer's five most recent deals beside the ticket, Salesforce connects through a Connector app that runs on paid connector tasks, and Zoho CRM and SugarCRM have native apps. HubSpot connects through AI Agent Studio workflows. **Is Freshdesk Omni an alternative to switching vendors?** For chat-heavy teams it can be. Freshdesk Omni adds web chat, WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS through your own Twilio account and the Chat AI Agent to Freshdesk ticketing, at its own per-agent prices. Freshworks itself says teams that run almost entirely on email may be better served by plain Freshdesk. **How do I leave Freshdesk without losing data?** After closure, Freshdesk keeps your data exportable for 14 days, and full exports arrive as XML and can take up to 10 business days. Start the export before your term ends. ## The bottom line Freshdesk stays a sound pick for teams whose support lives in email, with a clear plan ladder and an AI meter that starts with 500 free sessions. The alternatives win on specific gaps rather than across the board. Zendesk matches the per-agent model with AI billed by resolution, Help Scout, Zoho Desk, HubSpot and Tidio keep a free entry point, Intercom and Tidio put live chat on every plan, and Gorgias rewards large teams with modest ticket volume. Name the gap first, then run real tickets through two trials before your renewal notice date. ## Sources [1] Freshdesk Support: overview of web chat channel — https://support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/50000011769-overview-of-web-chat-channel (2026-10) [2] Freshdesk Customer Support Software Pricing & Plans — https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/ (2026-10) [3] Freshdesk Support (help center) — https://support.freshdesk.com/support/home [4] Freshworks Terms of Service — https://www.freshworks.com/terms/ [5] App Store (US), Freshdesk listing — https://apps.apple.com/us/app/freshdesk/id849713306