Best Help Desk Software in 2026

Service Hub is the customer-service product of HubSpot, a company founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It provides a ticketing inbox, help desk, knowledge base and customer portal built on the same CRM records used by HubSpot's marketing and sales products, so support agents see a contact's full history. HubSpot reports 306,000 customers across all of its products. A free tier is available for up to two users with HubSpot-branded live chat and email. The Professional plan is listed at US$90 per seat per month with an annual commitment, and requires a one-time onboarding fee of US$1,500; Enterprise is US$150 per seat per month with a US$3,500 onboarding fee. Each paid tier includes an allowance of HubSpot Credits used by AI features.

Zendesk was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in San Francisco. It is one of the longest-established vendors in the category and states that more than 80,000 companies use its software. On 22 November 2022 a consortium led by Hellman & Friedman and Permira completed an all-cash acquisition of the company for approximately US$10.2 billion, taking it private. Its products cover email, chat, messaging, voice and a help centre in one agent workspace. The entry-level Support Team plan costs US$19 per agent per month billed annually or US$25 billed monthly; the Suite Team and Suite Professional bundles cost US$55 and US$115 per agent per month on annual billing. Suite Enterprise is sold through sales. A 14-day trial gives access to Suite Professional features.

Freshdesk is the help desk product of Freshworks, a company that reports more than 74,000 customers in over 120 countries across its product range. Freshdesk handles email, portal and social tickets with automation rules, service-level management and a knowledge base, and includes the Freddy AI assistant. Published prices are US$19 per agent per month for Growth, US$55 for Pro and US$89 for Enterprise, all billed annually; the pricing page advertises a 20% saving for annual over monthly billing. Each paid plan includes 500 free sessions of the Freddy AI Agent, granted once per account. The pricing page offers a 14-day trial of the Enterprise plan and did not list a permanent free plan at the time of review.

Intercom is a customer-messaging and help desk vendor. In 2026 the company renamed itself Fin after its AI agent, and Salesforce described it as "Fin, formerly Intercom" when announcing on 15 June 2026 an agreement to acquire it for approximately US$3.6 billion. Salesforce completed the acquisition on 10 September 2026, and the business now sits within Salesforce. At announcement, Fin had more than 30,000 customer companies. The help desk continues to be sold under the Intercom name. Seats are priced at US$29 per month for Essential (US$19 under an annual new-customer discount), US$85 for Advanced and US$132 for Expert, and every AI-resolved conversation is billed at US$0.99 per Fin outcome.

Help Scout was founded in 2011 and has worked as a fully remote company since then, with staff in more than 115 cities. It reports more than 12,000 customer-facing teams as customers. The product presents tickets as conversations in shared inboxes, with a Docs knowledge base, a Beacon chat and help widget, and customer profiles. A free plan covers five users, one inbox and one Docs site. Paid plans are listed at US$25 (Standard), US$45 (Plus) and US$75 (Pro) per user per month, with a 16% discount for annual billing. Its AI agent, Envoy, is an add-on billed at US$0.75 per AI resolution.

Hiver began as a help desk that runs inside Gmail and now offers two products: Hiver in Gmail, for managing shared inboxes directly in Google's mail client, and Hiver Omni, a web platform covering email, chat, voice, SMS, WhatsApp and Slack. The company states that more than 10,000 teams use Hiver. Hiver Omni is priced at US$25 per user per month for Growth, US$55 for Pro and US$85 for Elite on annual billing, with monthly billing at US$35, US$65 and US$95 respectively. There is no permanent free plan; a seven-day trial of the Elite plan is offered without a credit card.

Front was founded in 2013 by Mathilde Collin and reports more than 9,300 business customers. It combines email, chat, SMS and social messages into shared inboxes with assignment, internal comments and analytics, and positions itself for account-based B2B service rather than high-volume consumer support. Pricing is per seat per month on annual billing: Starter at US$25 for teams of up to 10 seats, Professional at US$65 for up to 50 seats, and Enterprise at US$105 with no stated seat cap. The pricing page indicates a 24% saving for annual over monthly billing.

Gorgias is a help desk built for online retailers. Unlike most vendors in this list, it does not charge per agent: plans are priced by the number of tickets handled each month rather than by the number of agents. The Starter plan costs US$10 per month for 50 tickets and is billed monthly only; higher tiers (Basic, Pro, Advanced) raise the ticket allowance, and an Enterprise tier for more than 5,000 conversations a month is quote-based. Extra tickets above the allowance are billed individually. The Gorgias AI Agent is available on every plan and is charged per automated interaction, with each AI interaction also counted as a help desk ticket.

Jira Service Management is Atlassian's service-desk product, built on the Jira issue tracker and widely used for IT service management: incident, problem and change workflows, request portals and asset tracking. Atlassian now sells it as part of the Service Collection, which also includes Customer Service Management and Assets; existing customers moving to the collection retain their configuration. A free tier covers up to three agents with 2 GB of storage and community support, and customers raising requests do not need a licence. Paid plans are billed per agent, monthly on the maximum number of seats assigned during the cycle or annually by quote, with volume discounts as seat counts grow.

LiveAgent is a help desk combining email ticketing, live chat, call-centre telephony, social media messages and a knowledge base. It is developed by Quality Unit, which has offices in Bratislava, Slovakia and the United States. Plans are priced per agent per month: the regular rates are US$15 for Starter (up to five agents), US$29 for Team (up to 15) and US$49 for Business (any team size) on annual billing, with lower promotional prices advertised for sign-ups made before 22 November 2026. Enterprise is a flat monthly fee that includes 80 agents. Prices exclude VAT, and EU customers are invoiced in euros. Every plan has a 30-day trial without a credit card.

Zoho Desk is the customer-support application of Zoho Corporation. Desk provides multichannel ticketing, workflow automation and a help centre, and integrates with other Zoho applications. Zoho publishes a Free edition for up to three users and four paid editions: Express, Standard, Professional and Enterprise, each priced per user per month and discounted for annual billing. The pricing page displays amounts in the visitor's local currency, and each paid edition has a 15-day trial without a credit card, after which the account reverts to the Free edition unless a plan is purchased. Enterprise can also be bought through a price quote.