Best helpdesk software
Billing bases differ — some charge per seat, some per conversation — so the cheapest row is not automatically the cheapest for your volume. Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on the date beside it. The ordering is cheapest entry price first — a basis you can check rather than a ranking you have to trust.
What “best” means on this page
“Best” is not a mood — it is whichever axis you actually care about, measured. Our record can say which tool is cheapest to start, whose free plan is real, who bills local currency and whose prices just moved; it cannot say which tool fits your work, which is what the full comparisons are for. Cheapest never means best — it means cheapest. Each verdict below names its axis, and every tool links to its own site so you can check us against the source. No vendor paid for any position.
Entry at $39/mo — the lowest published paid plan in this set. Cheap is a fact, not a verdict; the profile below says what you get for it.
site ↗pricing ↗Showed us different money in different countries on the same day — measured, not assumed. The profiles carry the figures.
A change only counts once a second clean read agrees. The change log →
Tool by tool
Intercomsite ↗pricing ↗
A customer messaging and support platform combining live chat, AI answers and product tours. Paid plans start at $39/mo (Essential (per Fin outcome)); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 5 paid tiers, topping out at $139/mo (Expert (per Fin outcome)). Its published prices moved on 2026-10-11 — the change log holds the rows.
Crispsite ↗pricing ↗
A customer messaging tool bundling chat, shared inbox and a knowledge base at a flat price. Paid plans start at $45/mo (Mini); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at $295/mo (Plus). We read the same $45/mo in every market we check, so this vendor does not price by country.
Zendesksite ↗pricing ↗
A customer service platform built around ticketing, aimed at larger support operations. Paid plans start at $55/mo (Suite Team); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 2 paid tiers, topping out at $115/mo (Suite Professional). It bills by country — entry £45/mo to a UK reader, from our same-day reads. Its published prices moved on 2026-10-12 — the change log holds the rows.
Side by side
| Tool | Paid from | Free plan | Currency | Read | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intercom | $39/mo | — | USD | 2026-09-07 | page |
| Crisp | $45/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-13 | page |
| Zendesk | $55/mo | — | USD | 2026-10-13 | page |
How to choose in this category
- A per-conversation plan can beat a per-seat one for a small team and lose badly as ticket counts grow.
- Free rows are common here; read whether they cap seats, conversations or channels.
- Count your monthly conversations before comparing — the two billing bases only meet at one volume.
Questions the record can answer
How much do helpdesk tools cost?
Between $39/mo and $55/mo. The lowest entry price we hold for any of the 3 helpdesk tools we track is Intercom, at $39/mo; the highest is Zendesk, at $55/mo. Both are the vendor's own published list price, read on 2026-10-13. Cheapest is not best; it is cheapest, and it is the one axis a price record can settle on its own.
Which helpdesk tools publish a plan priced at zero?
None of the 3 we track. Not one of them publishes an entry at zero on its own pricing page. Free trials exist and are not counted: a trial is a deadline, not a price.
Do helpdesk tools charge in my own currency?
Some do. We read every pricing page from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany on the same day, and 1 of the 3 helpdesk tools we track showed us a different currency in at least two of those three markets: Zendesk. The rest billed the same money to all three.
Have any helpdesk tools changed their prices recently?
Yes — 2 confirmed changes in this category, most recently Zendesk on 2026-10-12. A change is confirmed only when the vendor's own page showed us one set of figures and then another; the old reading stays in the record rather than being overwritten.
How many helpdesk tools does Wicketry track?
5 in this category, last read on 2026-10-13. 3 of them publish a plan ladder we can put in the table; we also track Freshdesk and Help Scout, but hold no named ladder for them in US dollars yet, so they are absent rather than converted or guessed.