Help Scout plans and prices
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $25 | $30 | Up to 25 users, 2 inboxes, basic workflows. |
| Plus | $45 | $54 | Up to 50 users, 5 inboxes, AI drafts and summaries, advanced workflows, round robin, Salesforce, Jira and HubSpot. |
| Pro | $75 | $90 | Unlimited users with a minimum of 10, sold through a demo. |
Prices are in US dollars per user per month, read from Help Scout’s pricing page on 27 September 2026. Yearly billing saves about 16% against monthly. Trial: 15 days on Standard or Plus, no card needed.
What Help Scout costs per year
| Plan, per year | 1 person | 3 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| Help Scout Standard | $300 | $900 | $3,000 |
| Help Scout Plus | $540 | $1,620 | $5,400 |
| Help Scout Pro | Not offered | Not offered | $9,000 |
| Moorline | $108 | One person only | One person only |
The jump that catches people is Standard to Plus. It is where the AI drafting, the advanced workflows and round-robin assignment live, and it nearly doubles the seat. For a team of three, that is the difference between $900 and $1620 a year.
What the free plan covers
Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools.
The limit that matters is 100 contacts helped a month. It counts the people you reply to, not the emails, so a customer who writes five times is one contact. A product with a few hundred active users can live inside it; one that is growing will find the edge within a launch or two.
Add-ons and AI costs
- AI Answers: $0.75 per resolution, with a monthly spending cap available.
- Extra inbox: $10 a month on annual billing, $12 monthly.
- Extra Docs site: $20 a month on annual billing, $24 monthly.
- HIPAA and SSO: $100 a month each.
A worked example. Say 200 conversations a month, and AI Answers resolves 40% of them on its own. That is 80 resolutions at $0.75, or $60 a month on top of the seats. The cost grows with your support volume, which is fair for a team and a surprise for a product that just had a good month.
What Standard leaves out
Standard has no AI drafts or summaries, basic workflows only, no round robin and no Salesforce, Jira or HubSpot integration.
None of that is a flaw. Round robin, advanced workflows and CRM integrations are how a support team shares work, and they are what the Plus price pays for. The question is whether you have a team to share it with.
If an older article quotes different numbers: Help Scout moved to billing by contacts helped in late 2024, then returned to per-user pricing for new accounts. Some older accounts are still on contact-based plans.
Is Help Scout worth it for one person?
For a team, Help Scout is one of the best-liked support tools there is, and the per-user price buys real coordination. For one person answering their own customers, most of what the seat pays for is coordination with nobody. The free plan is the honest first answer if you fit inside 100 contacts a month.
If you do not, and you would rather keep your own mailbox than forward it into a help desk, that is the case Moorline is built for: $9 a month, one person, a native Mac app. The full side-by-side is in Moorline as a Help Scout alternative.
Questions people ask about Help Scout pricing
How much does Help Scout cost per month?
Standard is $25 per user per month billed yearly or $30 billed monthly. Plus is $45 or $54, and Pro is $75 or $90 with a minimum of 10 users. AI Answers is billed on top at $0.75 per resolution.
Does Help Scout have a free plan?
Yes. It covers up to 5 users, 1 inbox and 1 Docs site, but only 100 contacts helped a month and none of the AI tools. It is a real option for a very small product; the contact limit is the one to watch, because it counts people you reply to, not emails.
Is Help Scout cheaper than Zendesk?
At the entry level, no: Zendesk Support Team is $19 per agent against Help Scout Standard at $25. But Support Team is email ticketing only, and the Zendesk Suite most comparisons describe starts at $55. Against that, Help Scout Standard and Plus are the cheaper way to get a full shared inbox.
How much does Help Scout AI cost?
AI Answers, the feature that replies to customers on its own, is $0.75 per resolution, and you can set a monthly spending cap. AI drafts and summaries for your own replies are included from the Plus plan up rather than billed separately.
Is there a Help Scout app for Mac?
No. Help Scout runs in the browser, and its mobile apps are for iPhone and Android. If a native Mac app matters to you, Moorline is written in Swift for macOS, though it is built for one person rather than a team.