Category — 3 tools tracked daily

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.

Cheapest way inTidio

Entry at $24.17/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 ↗

Real free plansTidio

A plan priced at zero on the vendor’s own page — trials not counted. What each one caps differs; the profiles say.

Bills local currencyTidio, Zendesk

Showed us different money in different countries on the same day — measured, not assumed. The profiles carry the figures.

Tool by tool

Tidiosite ↗pricing ↗

A live chat and chatbot tool for online shops and small businesses, with AI answering common questions. Paid plans start at $24.17/mo (Starter); a free plan exists. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at $300/mo (Plus).

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).

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.

Side by side

Tool	Paid from	Free plan	Currency	Read	Source
Tidio	$24.17/mo	Yes	USD	2026-08-29	page
Crisp	$45/mo	—	USD	2026-08-29	page
Zendesk	$55/mo	—	USD	2026-08-29	page

How this page is ordered: by lowest published paid plan shown to a United States reader on the dates given, so every row is comparable. No vendor paid for placement and no ordering here is influenced by commission. We also track Freshdesk, Help Scout, Intercom here but hold no named plan ladder for them in US dollars yet, so they are absent rather than converted or guessed. The method →