What one seat costs, cheapest first
Per seat, per month, on annual billing, which is the basis the vendors themselves lead with. Quoting their monthly rate against a flat price would be putting a thumb on the scale. Verified 2026-09-27.
| Tool | From | Plan | What the entry tier leaves out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moorline | $9 | Monthly | Teams. There is no shared inbox, no assignment and no roles. |
| Gmail | Free | Included with your mail hosting | It has no idea a customer is still owed a reply. An archived thread and a finished job look identical. |
| Zoho Desk | $7 | Express | Express caps you at 5 users and a single workflow rule, and leaves out the knowledge base, live chat and extra channels that the Standard plan at $14 adds. Multi-department routing starts at Professional, $23. |
| Missive | $14 | Starter | Starter caps you at 5 users and leaves out rules, integrations and API access, which is most of what people upgrade for. |
| Zendesk | $19 | Support Team | Support Team is ticketing only. The suite most people mean by "Zendesk" starts at $55 per agent per month. |
| Freshdesk | $19 | Growth | The free program now covers 1 to 2 agents for the first 6 months rather than the open-ended free plan it used to be. |
| Help Scout | $25 | Standard | Priced per user, so the features you are paying for are the ones that coordinate a team you do not have. |
| Front | $25 | Starter | Starter caps the team at 10 seats and one channel type, and leaves out macros, advanced analytics and SSO. The plan most reviews describe is $65 per seat. |
| Intercom | $29 | Essential | The seat price is the floor, not the bill. Fin resolutions are charged per outcome on top of it. |
The row that matters is not the cheapest one. It is that every price except Moorline’s and Gmail’s is per seat, and a seat count of one is the case none of these products is designed around.
The comparisons
- Help Scout alternative for one personHelp Scout starts at $25 per user a month for a shared inbox built for teams. Moorline is $9 a month, native to the Mac, and built for one person with no seats to share.
- Zendesk alternative for solo foundersZendesk is a ticketing platform for support departments. If you are one person answering your own customers, here is what you actually need instead, and what it costs.
- Front alternative for one personFront is a collaborative inbox priced per seat, and collaboration is the part a solo founder never uses. Moorline keeps the Mac app and drops the team.
- Intercom alternative without per-resolution pricingIntercom bills per seat and per AI resolution, which turns every answered customer into a line item. Moorline is one flat price for one person on a Mac.
- Freshdesk alternative for one support personFreshdesk has a free tier that stops being free the moment you want automation or a second mailbox. Here is the tradeoff, measured against a flat $9 a month.
- Missive alternative for solo Mac supportMissive is a shared inbox built around collaborative drafting. Moorline is the opposite bet: no team, no seats, and a native Mac app that tracks who is still owed a reply.
- Zoho Desk alternative for one personZoho Desk is the cheapest serious ticketing help desk and it has a free tier for three agents. Here is the honest tradeoff against a flat $9 native Mac app for one.
- using Gmail for customer supportGmail is where every founder starts, and it works until the day you fix something and forget to say so. The three failures, and the smallest thing that fixes them.
What each of them actually costs
Every tier of each help desk on annual and monthly billing, the add-ons that are billed on top, and the yearly total for one, three and ten people.
- help desk cost calculatorPick a team size and billing period and see what a year of Help Scout, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Front, Missive, Intercom, Zoho Desk and Hiver costs, plan by plan, cheapest first.
- Help Scout pricingEvery Help Scout plan on annual and monthly billing, what the free plan really covers, what AI Answers costs per resolution, and the yearly bill for 1, 3 and 10 users.
- Zendesk pricingZendesk Support Team and Suite prices per agent on annual and monthly billing, the Copilot add-on, what AI resolutions cost past the included ones, and yearly totals.
- Freshdesk pricingFreshdesk Growth, Pro and Enterprise prices after the 2026 increase, the 6-month free program most articles get wrong, Copilot and AI session costs, and yearly totals.
- Front pricingFront Starter, Professional and Enterprise per seat, the seat and channel limits that decide your plan, Copilot and Autopilot costs, and what a year costs.
- Missive pricingMissive Starter, Productive and Business per user on annual and monthly billing, the 5-user cap on Starter, how AI credits are billed, and yearly totals.
- Intercom pricingIntercom Essential, Advanced and Expert per seat, what Fin charges per outcome, Copilot, the price test running in 2026, and worked monthly bills at different volumes.
- Zoho Desk pricingZoho Desk Free, Express, Standard, Professional and Enterprise per agent, the user and workflow limits on each, and what a year costs for 1, 3 and 10 agents.
Head to head
Choosing between two of them for a team? These put both side by side, plan by plan, and say which fits which kind of team.
- Help Scout vs ZendeskHelp Scout and Zendesk side by side: every plan on yearly and monthly billing, the yearly cost for 1, 3 and 10 people, AI charges, free plans, and which one fits which team.
- Help Scout vs IntercomHelp Scout and Intercom side by side: every plan on yearly and monthly billing, the yearly cost for 1, 3 and 10 people, AI charges, free plans, and which one fits which team.
- Help Scout vs FreshdeskHelp Scout and Freshdesk side by side: every plan on yearly and monthly billing, the yearly cost for 1, 3 and 10 people, AI charges, free plans, and which one fits which team.
- Help Scout vs FrontHelp Scout and Front side by side: every plan on yearly and monthly billing, the yearly cost for 1, 3 and 10 people, AI charges, free plans, and which one fits which team.
- Zendesk vs FreshdeskZendesk and Freshdesk side by side: every plan on yearly and monthly billing, the yearly cost for 1, 3 and 10 people, AI charges, free plans, and which one fits which team.
- Zendesk vs IntercomZendesk and Intercom side by side: every plan on yearly and monthly billing, the yearly cost for 1, 3 and 10 people, AI charges, free plans, and which one fits which team.
- Missive vs FrontMissive and Front side by side: every plan on yearly and monthly billing, the yearly cost for 1, 3 and 10 people, AI charges, free plans, and which one fits which team.
- Zendesk vs Zoho DeskZendesk and Zoho Desk side by side: every plan on yearly and monthly billing, the yearly cost for 1, 3 and 10 people, AI charges, free plans, and which one fits which team.
How these pages are written
Every price is read from the vendor’s own pricing page and recorded in one config file with the date it was checked, so it can be verified and so it can be found when it goes stale. Every comparison links to the competitor. Where another tool is the better answer, the page says so, because a comparison that only ever concludes “buy mine” is one that nobody, human or machine, keeps citing.