# Help Scout vs Freshdesk: Seat Prices, AI Meters and Fit

> Help Scout vs Freshdesk: per-user vs per-agent prices, live chat on Omni, Scout per resolution vs Freddy sessions, trials, refunds and migration.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/help-scout-vs-freshdesk — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_

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Help Scout and Freshdesk both charge per seat, but they put different things behind that seat. For an email-only team, Freshdesk costs less: Freshdesk Growth is $19 per agent per month billed annually, while Help Scout Standard is $25 per user per month billed annually. Once you need live chat, Help Scout costs less, because plain Freshdesk has no live chat and chat starts on Freshdesk Omni Growth at $29 per agent per month billed annually. The same pattern repeats a tier up. Help Scout Plus includes round-robin routing and AI Drafts at $45 per user per month billed annually, while Freshdesk needs Freshdesk Pro at $55 per agent per month billed annually plus a Copilot add-on. Our verdict is short. **Choose by channel mix, not sticker price.**


**$25 vs $29** — Live chat seat, per month billed annually: Help Scout Standard (per user) vs Freshdesk Omni Growth (per agent).



- **$0.75** — Help Scout Envoy add-on, per Scout resolution
- **$49** — Freshdesk, per pack of 100 Freddy AI Agent sessions after 500 free once; unused packs expire each billing cycle
- **15 vs 14 days** — Free trial, no card: Help Scout vs Freshdesk


## What a seat costs on each side


> **About these prices:** Prices shown are what Help Scout 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 — Help Scout: https://api.colosus.site/go/help-scout?to=pricing



Both vendors price per seat per month, and both publish a lower annual rate. Help Scout Standard is $25 per user per month billed annually or $30 billed monthly, Help Scout Plus is $45 or $54, and Help Scout Pro is $75 or $90 with a 10-user minimum [1]. Freshdesk Growth is $19 per agent per month billed annually or $23 billed monthly, Freshdesk Pro is $55 or $66, and Freshdesk Enterprise is $89 or $107 [2]. On both, annual billing comes out about 17% cheaper over a year.

Who counts as a seat differs. At Help Scout every person with a login is billable, the Account Owner included, and Standard caps at 25 users while Plus caps at 50. Help Scout's answer for occasional staff is the light user on Plus and Pro, who can view conversations and collaborate but cannot reply to customers. Freshdesk puts every full-time agent on the same plan and sells day passes for occasional agents, with 3 free passes on every plan.

Now the totals, by our arithmetic and billed annually. Five seats cost $125 a month on Help Scout Standard and $95 on Freshdesk Growth, a $30 gap that buys Help Scout's live chat, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. If those five Freshdesk agents need chat as well, Freshdesk Omni Growth raises their bill to $145 a month, $20 above Help Scout Standard. At ten seats on the tiers with automatic routing, Help Scout Plus costs $450 a month and Freshdesk Pro costs $550.

The per-seat edge holds until a cap forces a jump. Help Scout Standard stops at 25 users, so a 26-person chat team moves to Help Scout Plus at $1,170 a month billed annually, while 26 seats of Freshdesk Omni Growth come to $754. That is the threshold. **From 26 chat users, Freshdesk is cheaper.** Headcount drives the bill on both sides, and our [Help Scout pricing guide](/articles/help-scout-pricing) covers add-ons, renewals and refunds in full.

## Channels, phone and routing, plan by plan

| Need | Help Scout (lowest plan) | Freshdesk (lowest plan) |
|---|---|---|
| Live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram | Standard | Omni Growth (not plain Freshdesk) |
| Native SMS, your own Twilio account | Plus (Standard via an SMS integration) | Omni Growth |
| Phone | Integrations only | Freshcaller, or the Voice add-on on Omni |
| Automatic assignment | Plus (round robin); Pro adds load balanced | Pro (round robin and load balanced) |
| Agent-side drafting AI | AI Drafts included on Plus | Freddy AI Copilot add-on on Pro |
| Customer-facing AI agent | Scout on Standard, per resolution | Freddy AI Agent on Growth; chat agent on Omni only |

Phone is the clearest split. Help Scout has no native phone system, so calls arrive through integrations such as Aircall, which is a paid add-on on Standard and Plus with no published price. Freshdesk sells its own phone product, Freshcaller, and inside Omni it becomes the Voice add-on at $15 per seat per month billed annually on Omni Growth, with 2,000 included incoming minutes per account a month. A phone-heavy team keeps calls and tickets with one vendor on Freshdesk.

Round-robin routing costs less at Help Scout; load-balanced routing costs less at Freshdesk. Round robin arrives on Help Scout Plus at $45 per user per month billed annually, and only Help Scout Pro, at $75 per user per month billed annually with a 10-user minimum, adds load-balanced routing that hands each conversation to whoever has the fewest active ones. Freshdesk starts automatic assignment on Freshdesk Pro at $55 per agent per month billed annually, where round robin gives each ticket to the available agent who has gone longest without one and Omniroute weighs live workload.

The working model differs too. Help Scout treats each request as a conversation that reads like normal email, with no ticket numbers by default, three statuses (Active, Pending, Closed) and no custom statuses or ticket types. Freshdesk turns every query into a ticket. Teams built around ticket types will feel that change on day one.

## AI: per resolution against per session

Scout (formerly AI Answers) is Help Scout's customer-facing agent on Standard, Plus and Pro, billed through the Envoy add-on at $0.75 per resolution on top of the per-user price. A resolution is one conversation Scout closes without human help, however many questions it took. New accounts get three months of free resolutions, and a monthly cap stops the meter. Scout answers in Beacon chat and email, not on social channels or SMS, and it takes no actions such as refunds.

Freddy AI Agent runs on Freshdesk Growth, Pro and Enterprise, with 500 sessions included once per account for new customers, then $49 per pack of 100 sessions added to the current billing cycle. Unused purchased sessions do not carry over, and at zero the agent stops answering. Plain Freshdesk gets the email agent only. The chat agent needs Omni.

The two meters count different things. A session is not a resolution. Per unit, Freddy's pack works out to $0.49 a session against $0.75 per Scout resolution, yet Help Scout bills only when Scout finishes the job. For 400 AI conversations a month after the free allowances, Help Scout would bill at most $300 if every one ended as a resolution, and Freshdesk would bill $196 for four packs. No single cheaper verdict holds; it depends on how often your AI actually closes conversations.


> 💡 **Price the channel, not the seat:** If you need live chat, compare Help Scout Standard with Freshdesk Omni Growth, not with plain Freshdesk Growth, which has no live chat.


Agent-side AI is where Help Scout pulls ahead on price. Help Scout Plus includes AI Drafts and AI Summarize with no usage fee, and Help Scout Standard includes AI Assist for rewriting replies. Freshdesk sells Freddy AI Copilot at $29 per agent per month billed annually or $35 billed monthly, only on Freshdesk Pro and Enterprise. Ten agents with drafting help cost $450 a month on Help Scout Plus and $840 on Freshdesk Pro with Copilot, both billed annually.

## Free plans, trials and the fine print

Help Scout has a real Free plan at $0: up to 5 users, 1 Inbox, 1 Docs site with 10 articles and 100 contacts a month. At that limit the team cannot reply until the next cycle, and Free has no live chat, social channels, workflows or API. Freshdesk has no self-serve free plan. Freshdesk can move a small account into its Free program, up to 2 agents, through Customer Success, and Freshworks can end or charge for free programs at any time.

Trials differ in shape. Help Scout gives 15 days on Standard or Plus with every feature of that plan and no credit card, while Help Scout Pro trials go through sales. Freshdesk gives 14 days with Enterprise features, no card, and room to invite up to 2 team members. Test carefully there. A Freshdesk trial shows Enterprise features you may not buy, and when it ends you pay or the account is suspended, with trial data deleted unless exported.

Refunds favor Help Scout. Its Terms give a 30-day money-back guarantee on the first payment, monthly or annual, and no refunds for partial months or annual payments after that [3]. Freshdesk's Terms make payments non-refundable except in the cases the agreement lists, and cancellations take effect at the end of the term. Both renew automatically unless written notice arrives at least 30 days before expiry, and neither lets you reduce the plan mid-term. Freshworks may also raise fees at renewal with 30 days' notice. Export before you leave either one: Help Scout can restore a cancelled account only on written request within 14 days, and Freshdesk allows 14 days after closure to export. Set renewal reminders 45 to 60 days ahead.


> ⚠ **Ticket types and statuses stay behind:** Help Scout's import does not bring Freshdesk ticket types, custom statuses, workflows or macros, and Help Scout has no custom statuses to receive them.


## Moving from Freshdesk to Help Scout

Freshdesk is a named source in Help Scout's import tool, built with partner Import2 and open to Account Owners and Administrators on Standard, Plus and Pro [4]. Imports of up to 500,000 records are free; larger ones cost $500 per 500,000 records, counting the first. A sample import of 100 conversations runs before the full one, and Help Scout says most migrations take a few hours to a couple of days.

The import carries conversations, customer profiles and tags. It does not bring users, Inbox settings, knowledge-base articles, saved replies or macros, workflows, custom fields, ticket types or custom statuses. Plan a rebuild week. Map ticket types to tags, or to custom fields on Plus (up to 10 per Inbox), and move help-center content through the Docs API with a custom migration. Help Scout can also advance its next conversation number to stay in step with your old numbering.


> 💡 **Check the 100-conversation sample:** Help Scout's Import2 tool runs a sample of 100 conversations before the full Freshdesk import, so verify tags and customer profiles there first.


## Which one fits your team

Pick Help Scout when the team answers by email and chat under the 25-user Standard cap, or needs round-robin routing or AI drafting under the 50-user Plus cap. Pick Freshdesk when email is nearly the whole job and the lowest seat price rules, when phone sits at the center, when you want load-balanced routing, or when a chat team grows past 25 users without needing routing or drafting. By our arithmetic, billed annually, 26 chat seats cost $754 a month on Freshdesk Omni Growth against $1,170 on Help Scout Plus. Thirty users who need round robin and AI drafting cost $1,350 a month on Help Scout Plus against $2,520 on Freshdesk Pro with Copilot.

Freshworks positions Freshdesk for teams in businesses of about 50 to 500 employees. For regulated work, Help Scout includes HIPAA on Pro and sells it as an add-on on Plus with no published price, always with a signed BAA. Its AI features stay off until you also sign the AI Feature Healthcare Addendum, and Docs falls outside HIPAA coverage, so help articles should carry only non-sensitive content. Freshdesk offers no HIPAA below Enterprise.


**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._


Read Help Scout's review-site scores with two filters. The App Store and Google Play ratings judge the mobile agent app, not the web help desk. Trustpilot works as a map of complaint themes, not a trend. Buyers weighing other options can start with our [Help Scout alternatives](/articles/help-scout-alternatives) and the [Freshdesk pricing guide](/articles/freshdesk-pricing).


## FAQ

**Does Help Scout charge for the customers we help?**

Not for contacts: on paid Help Scout plans contacts are unlimited and only people with a login are billed users; the 100-contacts-a-month limit applies to the Free plan only. Usage meters apply if you turn them on: Scout at $0.75 per resolution and Messages above 2,000 unique viewers a month.

**How do the API rate limits compare?**

Help Scout allows 200, 400 or 800 requests a minute per account on Standard, Plus and Pro, with no API on Free. Freshdesk allows 100, 400 or 700 calls a minute per account on Growth, Pro and Enterprise.

**Is there a discount for non-profits?**

Help Scout for Good gives non-profits and B Corporations a 10% lifetime discount with proof of status. Freshdesk publishes no non-profit discount.

**Can I pay with PayPal?**

Neither vendor lists PayPal. Help Scout takes Visa, American Express, Mastercard and Discover, plus wire or ACH for annual prepayments over $2,500; Freshdesk takes the same four cards and offline payments in USD.


## The bottom line

Help Scout and Freshdesk split on where the money goes. Freshdesk wins on the cheapest email seat, on native phone, on load-balanced routing and on chat teams past 25 users that need neither routing nor drafting; Help Scout wins for chat teams up to 25 users and for round-robin routing or AI drafting up to its 50-user Plus cap, and it adds a real Free plan and a 30-day money-back guarantee on the first payment. Price your channel mix on both, check the AI meter against how often your bot truly resolves, and budget a week to rebuild workflows and fields if you switch.



## Sources

[1] Help Scout Pricing: Affordable Customer Support Software — https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/ (2026-11)
[2] Freshdesk Customer Support Software Pricing & Plans — https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/ (2026-11)
[3] Terms of Service — https://www.helpscout.com/company/legal/terms-of-service/ (2026-11)
[4] Import Emails or Tickets Into Help Scout — https://docs.helpscout.com/article/1495-import-emails-or-tickets-into-help-scout (2026-11)
[5] Help Scout help center — https://docs.helpscout.com/
[6] Help Scout developer documentation — https://developer.helpscout.com/