Overview

Inbox brings email, SMS, social, chat, and voice into one workspace, alongside Docs for searchable, branded help centers. Ticket automation, SLA management, a customer portal, and API access round out the toolkit. A mobile app supports work away from a desk, and more than 100 integrations give teams options for connecting it to other tools.

Founded in 2011, Help Scout is a sensible fit for customer-focused teams seeking a common place for service conversations and self-service content. HIPAA and SOC 2 Type II compliance, SSO, and permissions configurable by company, team, or user make it relevant to organizations with more involved access requirements. Those attributes do not remove the need to check whether the plan’s capacity and pricing fit the operation.

Key features

Multichannel Inbox: Consolidating five conversation channels can help teams manage support in one place. Inbox counts vary by plan, from one on Free to unlimited on Pro, so teams with multiple queues should weigh that ceiling before committing.
Docs and customer portal: Searchable, branded help centers give customers a self-service route. Free includes one Docs site and the listed publishing audience is customers; its 10-article limit makes it better for a focused starter collection than a broad documentation library.
Workflows and SLAs: Automation and SLA management are available, but allowances rise with price: Standard has 150 basic workflows and one basic SLA policy, while Plus offers 500 advanced workflows and two advanced policies. Pro removes the SLA-policy cap, a meaningful distinction for teams with more complex service commitments.
Access and integrations: Advanced permissions control visibility at company, team, or user level, while API access and connections to over 100 tools help it fit an existing stack. This breadth is useful where support cannot operate as a silo.
AI Answers: New accounts receive three months of unlimited resolutions; afterward, the add-on is $0.75 per resolution, billed monthly, with prepaid discounts available. Per-resolution pricing makes usage a cost to monitor if the team adopts it broadly.

Pricing

Help Scout is freemium, with paid plans starting at $25 per user per month. Annual pricing is shown as 16% lower than monthly pricing. Standard and Plus have 15-day trials without a credit card, and paid plans include priority support; the support offering also includes email, onboarding, and customer success management.

Plan	Price	Included capacity and notable limits
Free	$0.00 USD per free	5 users, 1 Inbox, 1 Docs site, 100 contacts per month, 10 saved replies, 10 tags
Standard	$25.00 USD per month; billed $25 per user/mo	Up to 25 users, 2 Inboxes, 2 Docs sites, 1 basic SLA policy, 150 basic workflows, 30-day report history
Plus	$45.00 USD per month; billed $45 per user/mo	Up to 50 users, 5 Inboxes, 3 Docs sites, 2 advanced SLA policies, 500 advanced workflows, 2-year report history; 25 light users
Pro	$75.00 USD per month; billed $75 per user/mo	Minimum 10 users, unlimited users, 10 Inboxes, 5 Docs sites, unlimited SLA policies, all-time report history; 50 light users
AI Answers add-on	$0.75 USD per once; billed $0.75 per resolution	Pay per resolution monthly; three-month free trial and prepaid discounts available

Free is unusually capable for a compact team because five users can share an Inbox and publish a Docs site, but the single Inbox, 100 monthly contacts, and 10-article ceiling constrain growth. Standard is the practical step up for a growing team needing two queues, more workflow capacity, and basic SLA management. Plus costs more per user but raises user, Inbox, workflow, and reporting limits and adds advanced SLA policies. Pro targets larger operations that need broader scale and uncapped SLA policies, though its 10-user minimum means it is an expensive mismatch for a small team. Per-user billing makes seat growth a direct budget consideration.

Platforms

API access and a mobile app are available. The mobile app is useful for support away from a desk, while API access can support integration into a team’s existing stack.

Who it's for

Help Scout suits customer-support teams that want multichannel conversations, customer-facing knowledge publishing, and workflow controls together. Small teams can begin on Free; growing teams should compare Inbox and workflow allowances against their queue structure. Organizations that need several queues, longer report history, or advanced SLA policies will likely need Plus or Pro, and should account for the per-user cost and Pro minimum.

Pros and cons

Pro: Email, SMS, social, chat, and voice share an Inbox, reducing the need to split support across channel-specific tools.
Pro: Free covers five users and includes Inbox and Docs, giving a small team a usable starting point without a paid seat commitment.
Pro: API access, over 100 integrations, and granular permissions support teams fitting support into a broader software stack.
Con: Free is capped at one Inbox, 100 contacts monthly, and 10 articles, limiting its usefulness as queues and self-service content expand.
Con: Standard and Plus charge per user, so adding agents increases the bill; Pro also requires at least 10 users.
Con: AI Answers moves to per-resolution billing after its three-month trial, so teams should account for resolution volume when evaluating ongoing use.

Alternatives

For a broader category comparison, browse Shared Inbox Software, Customer Self-Service Software, Help desk software, and Knowledge base software.

Cerb is a freemium API option with a Community plan offering unlimited workers and seats, alongside a licensed self-hosted plan.
Drag is a paid alternative with broad desktop and mobile platform support and a Starter plan centered on shared Gmail inboxes and board views.
Hiver is a freemium API alternative; its annual Growth plan includes two shared inboxes, 10 users, and 10 automations per inbox.
Sortd is a paid option with a Starter plan billed annually, capped at 10 users and five shared boards.
Front is a paid API alternative whose annual Starter plan is capped at 10 seats and includes one workspace and 10 automation rules.
SupportBee is a paid API option with a Startup plan at $17.00 USD per month, billed as $204 per seat annually, including a knowledge base and unlimited email inboxes and tickets.
Helpwise is a paid alternative with Android, iOS, and web support; its annually billed Standard plan supports two to 10 users and three shared inboxes.
Loop Email is a paid alternative with Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows support.

Verdict

Choose Help Scout if your team wants email, messaging, voice, help-center publishing, and service workflows under one roof, with a free entry point and API access. Look elsewhere if the free tier’s contact and content caps are too tight, per-seat growth is hard to budget, or Pro’s 10-user minimum exceeds your needs.

	Help Scout	ZapMail
Free plan	Yes	No
Free trial	Yes	No
Paid from	$25/mo	—
Open source	No	No
Platforms	api	Web
Free plan	Yes	No
Paid from	25 /user/mo	—
Internal comments	—	Yes
Assignment automation	—	Yes
Mail platforms	—	standalone

Help Scout vs ZapMail

Help Scout

ZapMail