Seven helpdesks for 2027 with list prices checked on 11 November 2026: what ten agents cost on each, which plans have a free tier and where the bill grows.
Customer service platform with ticketing, messaging, live chat, voice, help center and AI agents. Sold per agent to support teams from startups to enterprises.
Visit Zendesk →
Intercom is a customer service platform with a shared inbox, ticketing, messenger and Fin, an AI agent billed per resolved conversation. Priced per seat for support teams.
Visit Intercom →
Shared inbox and help desk that looks like email, with a knowledge base, live chat and the Compass AI agent. Built for support teams of 2 to 50 agents.
Visit Help Scout →
Help desk from Freshworks that turns email, WhatsApp, social and chat messages into tickets, with AI agents and a knowledge base. Built for support teams of 5 to several hundred agents.
Try Freshdesk →Try Freshdesk: weekcrm.com/go/freshdesk (affiliate link)
HubSpot's help desk product, built on its CRM. It covers ticketing, a knowledge base, a customer portal and an AI Customer Agent. Built for support teams from 2 users up.
Visit HubSpot Service Hub →
Shared inbox and help desk for email, SMS, chat and social conversations, with AI add-ons for drafting and auto-resolving. Built for customer-facing teams that share work across departments.
Visit Front →
Help desk and AI agent for ecommerce stores, with order data from Shopify and other platforms shown next to each ticket. Priced by ticket volume.
Visit Gorgias →We compared list prices, plan limits and AI pricing on each vendor's own pricing page on 11 November 2026. The order is not a ranking.
We have not run the seven side by side, so this page does not claim hands-on test results.
Narrower lists: best free helpdesk, best open-source helpdesk, best helpdesk for small business.
List prices on annual billing, checked on 11 November 2026. Each row uses the plan a team with several channels and basic automation is likely to need.
| Helpdesk | Plan | 10 agents, per month | Arithmetic | One-time fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Help Scout | Standard | $210 | 10 x $21 | none |
| Gorgias | Pro | $300 | flat, 2,000 tickets | none |
| Zendesk | Suite Team | $550 | 10 x $55 | none |
| Freshdesk | Pro | $550 | 10 x $55 | none |
| Front | Professional | $650 | 10 x $65 | none |
| Intercom | Advanced | $850 | 10 x $85 | none |
| HubSpot Service Hub | Professional | $900 | 10 x $90 | $1,500 |
Entry plans cost less: ten agents cost $190 on Freshdesk Growth, $290 on Intercom Essential and $190 on Zendesk Support Team, which has no messaging or voice.
AI resolutions. Every vendor except HubSpot lists a per-outcome or per-session AI price on top of seats. At 1,000 AI outcomes a month, Intercom Fin costs $990 and Help Scout AI Answers $750. On Zendesk Suite Team, ten agents include 50 resolutions; the other 950 cost $1,425 at $1.50. Freshdesk sells 100 extra AI sessions for $49. HubSpot meters AI in credits at $0.01 each.
Add-ons. Zendesk Copilot costs $50 an agent a month, Intercom Copilot $29 and Freshdesk Freddy AI Copilot $29. On Front, Copilot and Smart QA cost $20 a seat each and Smart CSAT $10.
Plan caps. Front Starter stops at 10 seats and Professional at 50. Gorgias Starter stops at 50 tickets, and each extra ticket costs $0.36 to $0.40.
Onboarding. HubSpot charges $1,500 on Professional and $3,500 on Enterprise. The other six list no mandatory onboarding fee.
Pick two finalists. Forward one week of real tickets into each trial. Count how many tickets the AI resolved and what the vendor would have billed for them. The invoice in month six follows that number more closely than the seat price.