Help desks, customer messaging tools and ITSM service desks get their own score, because the CRM score prices a plan with a deal pipeline, and a support team never buys one. The structure is the same: 100 points, seven checks, every point from a fact with a source and a check date. Support tools are ranked only against each other, never against CRMs.
No vendor pays for a score. Sponsors and referral links don't change it; a vendor can send us a source that shows we got a fact wrong.
The seven checks
| Check | Points | What we measure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price for 10 agents | 20 | Monthly cost of the cheapest plan with a shared email queue, an automation rule and reports, for 10 agents, billed annually | The vendor's pricing page |
| Integrations | 20 | How many of 20 apps a support team uses connect, out of the box or through a marketplace | The vendor's and the app's marketplaces |
| Ease of use | 20 | Ease-of-use ratings on Capterra and G2, plus the App Store rating of the agent app | Capterra, G2 and the App Store |
| Release pace | 15 | Product releases in the last 180 days | The vendor's changelog and release notes |
| Openness | 15 | Public API documentation, a public changelog, self-serve data export | The vendor's docs |
| Price transparency | 5 | Whether every plan has a public price | The vendor's pricing page |
| Free entry | 5 | Free plan, free trial, or demo only | The vendor's pricing page |
Price for 10 agents: 20 points
We take the cheapest plan where agents work email conversations from one shared queue (tickets or a shared inbox), with at least one automation rule (a trigger, routing or an SLA reminder) and built-in reports. For an ITSM service desk, the plan must also handle incidents. We multiply its annual-billing agent price by 10 and add any fee the plan requires.
| Monthly cost for 10 agents | Points |
|---|---|
| up to $200 | 20 |
| $201–$400 | 16 |
| $401–$700 | 11 |
| $701–$1,000 | 6 |
| over $1,000 | 2 |
| no public price | 0 |
Usage-based charges (AI resolutions, conversation or contact tiers, add-ons) don't count here. They can double a support bill, so the vendor page lists them next to the score.
Integrations: 20 points
We check 20 apps a support team uses most: Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zapier, Make, Jira, GitHub, Linear, Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Shopify, Stripe, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Aircall, Zoom and Okta. One point per app with a native integration or a listing in either side's marketplace. A connection only through Zapier or the API doesn't count. Every confirmed pair is a record in our integrations database with its source.
Ease of use: 20 points
The same rule as for CRMs. We take the ease-of-use rating on Capterra (out of 5) and on G2 (out of 10), bring both to a 10-point scale and average them, weighting each site by its number of reviews. A site with fewer than 30 reviews for the product doesn't count. When the vendor's own iPhone app has 100 or more ratings, it counts for a quarter of the result.
| Average ease of use, out of 10 | Points |
|---|---|
| 9.0 or higher | 20 |
| 8.5–8.9 | 16 |
| 8.0–8.4 | 12 |
| 7.5–7.9 | 8 |
| below 7.5 | 4 |
Release pace: 15 points
Dated entries on the vendor's own changelog, release notes or product-updates page in the last 180 days. A monthly release-notes post counts once.
| Releases in 180 days | Points |
|---|---|
| 12 or more | 15 |
| 6–11 | 11 |
| 3–5 | 7 |
| 1–2 | 3 |
| none | 0 |
Price transparency, free entry and openness
The same as for CRMs. Every plan has a public price: 5; some plans are "contact sales": 3; none: 0. A free plan with no time limit: 5; a free trial: 3; demo only: 0. Public REST API documentation readable without signing up: 7; a public changelog: 4; self-serve export of all tickets and contacts: 4.
What the score doesn't tell you
- Support quality of the vendor itself. We don't measure it.
- AI resolution quality. Every vendor now sells an AI agent; we report its price, not how well it answers.
- Fit. A 90-point help desk can be wrong for a team that lives in Slack or in Jira. Use the score to shortlist, then test.
How we keep it current
Prices and plans are rechecked when our news desk reports a change and at least every 90 days. Each vendor page shows the score, the points per check and the date of the last check. If you see a wrong fact, write to us with the source and we will recount within a week.