What your help desk really costs.
The seat price is only part of the bill: AI agents, copilots and credit packs are sold on top, and they can cost more than the seats. We price every help desk with its AI add-ons switched on, so you see the number that lands on the invoice.
See the ranking How we score- 9 help desks priced with AI switched on
- Every price linked to the vendor's own page
- Public rubric, no affiliate links
True-cost calculator live
seats and plan AI add-ons and AI resolutions
Estimates from vendors' published USD list prices with annual billing, verified on the date shown on this page. Taxes, discounts, onboarding fees and telephony usage are not included.
The right help desk for your team
Zoho Desk Free
Free for up to 3 users, with paid editions from $7 per user when you outgrow it.
Read the review →Help Scout Standard
A shared inbox at $25 per user, and its AI agent bills $0.75 only when it resolves a conversation.
Read the review →Gorgias Basic
Billed by ticket, not by agent: $50 a month covers 300 tickets, with order data from your store in the inbox.
Read the review →Jira Service Management
Free for 3 agents, requesters never need a seat, and Rovo agent assist is included on paid plans.
Read the review →Best help desk software in 2026
Scored on the public rubric below, with true cost measured with AI switched on. Prices come from the vendors' own pages.
| # | Product | Score | Price from | 10 agents · Mid tier · with AI on | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jira Service Management | 8.7 | $20 per agent per month | $514 | Internal IT, HR and operations service desks, especially at companies whose engineers already work in Jira | Read the review → |
| 2 | Help Scout | 8.3 | $25 per agent per month | $825 | Small teams that work mainly in email | Read the review → |
| 3 | Zoho Desk | 8.1 | $7 per agent per month | $230 | Small and mid-size teams that want a complete help desk at a low per-user price | Read the review → |
| 4 | Freshdesk | 8.0 | $19 per agent per month | $1,085 | Budget-conscious teams that want EU hosting and a cheap per-agent entry price | Read the review → |
| 5 | HubSpot Service Hub | 7.5 | $7 per agent per month | $1,120 | Teams already on HubSpot's CRM that want support tickets on the same customer records as sales and marketing | Read the review → |
| 6 | Gorgias | 7.4 | $10 per month | $930 | Shopify and other ecommerce brands with many agents and moderate ticket volume | Read the review → |
| 7 | Intercom | 6.9 | $29 per agent per month | $1,635 | Software and online businesses that want a customer-facing AI agent at the center of support | Read the review → |
| 8 | Front | 6.8 | $25 per agent per month | $1,295 | Small and mid-size operations and account teams that work mainly in email | Read the review → |
| 9 | Zendesk | 5.2 | $19 per agent per month | $2,250 | Mid-size and enterprise teams that need phone, messaging and email in one tool | Read the review → |
Prices verified September 18, 2026 · Estimates from vendors' published USD list prices with annual billing, verified on the date shown on this page. Taxes, discounts, onboarding fees and telephony usage are not included.
Pricing, explained
- Zendesk pricing explainedpricing
- Freshdesk pricing explainedpricing
- Zoho Desk pricing explainedpricing
- Help Scout pricing explainedpricing
- Front pricing explainedpricing
- Intercom pricing explainedpricing
Guides
Help desk reviews
Jira Service Management
8.7Atlassian's IT service desk, now sold only as part of Service Collection, with free unlimited requesters and per-agent prices that fall with volume.
Help Scout
8.3An email-first shared inbox with a free plan and AI billed only when it resolves.
Zoho Desk
8.1A low-cost help desk with a free plan, EU hosting on every edition and AI bundled from Professional.
Freshdesk
8.0A low-priced ticketing help desk whose AI agent is billed per session, resolved or not.
HubSpot Service Hub
7.5The help desk inside HubSpot's CRM, with an AI agent paid in credits and a required onboarding fee on the upper plans.
Gorgias
7.4A Shopify-first help desk priced by ticket volume, not by agent, with an AI agent that bills twice.
Intercom
6.9An AI-first help desk built around the Fin AI agent, billed per seat plus per outcome.
Front
6.8A shared inbox for email-heavy operations teams, with an AI agent priced by outcome.
Zendesk
5.2A full omnichannel help desk with native phone and EU hosting, and AI billing that is hard to pin down.
Head-to-head comparisons
Looking to switch?
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We price the whole stack, not the sticker
Each product is costed at three team sizes with the AI features a real team switches on, then scored on six criteria whose weights and rules are published. True cost carries the most weight, and it is arithmetic on list prices, not an opinion.
- Every price stored once, with its source and the date we read it
- The cost score is calculated, never assigned by hand
- No hands-on tests yet, and no page claims otherwise
Rubric v1.0 · Scores rate list prices and public documentation. We have not run hands-on tests yet, and no page here claims we did.
Read the full methodScore weights
Recently updated
- Site published with rubric v1.0: nine help desks, prices and figures verified against their sources, true-cost calculator, editions in US English, UK English, German and Spanish.
Spotted a stale price?
Vendors change prices without notice. If a figure here no longer matches the vendor's page, email us the link. We re-check it, fix the product database, which updates every page at once, and record material corrections in the changelog.
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