Help Scout
Help Scout is a help desk built around a shared inbox: email, live chat, SMS and social messages land in one place for your team, with a knowledge base, a widget for your site or app, and an AI agent, Scout, that answers routine questions.
It suits founders and small teams who want support that still reads like a personal email, and a free plan to start on.
The free plan covers 5 users, 1 inbox and 1 help site; paid plans start at $30 a user a month billed monthly, or $25 billed yearly, and AI resolutions are $0.75 each, as checked on 30 October 2026.
Reviewed by the IndieHacked team
- What it does
- A shared inbox for email, chat and social messages, with a help site, a widget for your site or app and an AI agent that answers first, free for up to 5 users.
- Our take
- Founders and small teams who answer customers themselves and want it to stay personal as volume grows. Start free with up to 5 users, move to Standard at $30 a user a month for up to 25 users and 2 help sites, and let Scout answer routine questions at $0.75 a resolution, under a monthly cap you set.
- Pricing
- FreemiumMid priceFree for up to 5 users, with 1 inbox, 1 Docs site, 10 help articles and replies to 100 contacts a month. Billed monthly, Standard is $30 a user a month for up to 25 users, with live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, and Plus is $54 for up to 50 users; billed yearly they are $25 and $45, as checked on 30 October 2026. Pro, $90 a user a month or $75 yearly with 10 users at least, is sold through a demo. The AI agent costs $0.75 per resolution on paid plans, with unlimited free resolutions for the first 3 months from the day you create the account and a monthly cap you set. Extra inboxes are $12 a month and extra Docs sites $24, billed monthly. Standard and Plus have a 15-day trial with no card.
The IndieHacked breakdown
What it does
Help Scout gives your team a shared inbox for email, live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, with assignments, saved replies, tags, workflows and a customer profile beside each conversation. Docs is its knowledge base, and Beacon is the widget you embed on your site or in your app for chat, a contact form and help articles. Phone runs through integrations such as Aircall.
Envoy is its AI layer. Its agent, Scout, answers from your help sites, web pages, Google Docs and the past conversations you select, and hands the rest to your team with the context attached; you name the topics it leaves alone. Copilot drafts replies inside the inbox, and Help Scout's read-only MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor search conversations, customers and Docs on Standard and above.
Who it suits
Founders and small teams who answer customers themselves and want to keep doing it as volume grows. The free plan covers 5 users and an inbox, and Help Scout's own comparison with Zendesk calls it best for companies with 500 or fewer employees that depend on retention and ongoing relationships.
It also fits a young startup on a tight budget. Help Scout's startup program gives new customers 6 months free when they are an incorporated tech startup less than two years old with under $1M in annual recurring revenue; it asks about revenue and age, not funding.
Not the right fit for
Teams that need phone support or community forums inside the help desk. Help Scout connects phone through integrations and has no forums, and its own comparison sends teams that must have either to Zendesk, reviewed here.
Founders who want AI to run most of the support operation. Help Scout's own comparison concedes "Intercom has a lot of additional AI features you won't find in Help Scout"; Intercom, reviewed here, builds its help desk around its Fin agent.
Also on the shortlist
- IntercomSupportBuilt around Fin, its AI agent, at $0.99 per outcome, with no free plan and seats from $39 a month.14-day free trial, then from $39 a seat a month plus $0.99 per AI resolution, as checked on 30 October 2026
- ZendeskSupportTickets first, from $25 an agent a month for email, growing into phone, skills-based routing and community forums.14-day free trial, then from $25 an agent a month, as checked on 30 October 2026
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