What a year costs at 1, 3 and 10 people
The cheapest published plan that can be bought for that many people, on yearly billing, with the plan named under the price. Where the cheapest plan caps below the team, the next plan up is shown; where a vendor has a seat minimum, the minimum is what you pay.
| Tool | 1 person | 3 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Desk | $84Express | $252Express | $1,680Standard |
| Help Scout | $300Standard | $900Standard | $3,000Standard |
| Missive | $168Starter | $504Starter | $2,880Productive |
| Moorline | $108 | One person only | One person only |
| Freshdesk | $228Growth | $684Growth | $2,280Growth |
| Intercom | $348Essential | $1,044Essential | $3,480Essential |
| Hiver | $600Growth, 2-user minimum | $900Growth | $3,000Growth |
| Front | $300Starter | $900Starter | $3,000Starter |
| Zendesk | $228Support Team | $684Support Team | $2,280Support Team |
At three people the spread runs from $252 a year (Zoho Desk Express) to $1,044 (Intercom Essential), before any AI charges. For a headcount this table does not show, the help desk cost calculator runs the same arithmetic for any number of seats.
The free plans: two that stay free, one that ends
“Free” means three different things on these pricing pages: a plan with no end date, a program with a clock on it, and a trial. Only the first is free.
| Tool | Free plan | Trial |
|---|---|---|
| Zoho Desk | Free for up to 3 users on one email channel. | 15 days of any plan, no card needed; the account drops to the free plan afterwards. |
| Help Scout | Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools. | 15 days on Standard or Plus, no card needed. |
| Missive | None | 30 days of Productive, no card needed. No free plan. |
| Freshdesk | A free program for up to 2 agents for the first 6 months. It is not on the pricing page; you switch to it from inside an account, under plans and billing. | 14 days of Enterprise. |
| Intercom | None | 14 days, no card needed. No free plan. |
| Hiver | None | 7 days of Elite, no card needed. No free plan. |
| Front | None | 14 days with Professional features, no card needed. No free plan. |
| Zendesk | None | 14 days of Suite Professional with Copilot. No free plan. |
| Moorline | None | No trial. A 30-day refund on any payment instead. |
- Help Scout and Zoho Desk are genuinely free. Neither plan has an end date, and Zoho Desk drops an expired trial back onto its free plan rather than locking you out. What ends them is growth: a seat cap, a channel cap or, for Help Scout, a monthly cap on contacts helped.
- Freshdesk’s is a program, not a plan. The permanent free plan ended on 9 June 2025, replaced by the 6-month free program. Plan for the day it ends on the day you start. The Freshdesk pricing page has the whole ladder it hands you over to.
- Everyone else is a trial, Hiver now included. Hiver replaced its earlier plan line-up with Growth, Pro and Elite, and the free plan left its pricing page in September 2026.
For the free options alone, with the exact limit that ends each one, see the best free help desk software guide.
The plan you will actually need in a year
Entry plans are priced to be easy to start on, and each leaves out something a growing team reaches for. What the cheapest paid plan is missing, for the three picks at the top of this page:
- Zoho Desk: Express caps you at 5 users and a single workflow rule, with no knowledge base and no live chat.
- Help Scout: Standard has no AI drafts or summaries, basic workflows only, no round robin and no Salesforce, Jira or HubSpot integration.
- Missive: Starter caps you at 5 users and has no rules, integrations or API access.
| Plan, per year | 1 person | 3 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Desk Express | $84 | $252 | Not offered |
| Zoho Desk Standard | $168 | $504 | $1,680 |
| Missive Starter | $168 | $504 | Not offered |
| Zoho Desk Professional | $276 | $828 | $2,760 |
| Missive Productive | $288 | $864 | $2,880 |
| Help Scout Standard | $300 | $900 | $3,000 |
| Missive Business | $432 | $1,296 | $4,320 |
| Zoho Desk Enterprise | $480 | $1,440 | $4,800 |
| Help Scout Plus | $540 | $1,620 | $5,400 |
| Help Scout Pro | Not offered | Not offered | $9,000 |
So at three people, a year of Zoho Desk goes from $252 on Express to $504 on Standard, Help Scout from $900 on Standard to $1,620 on Plus, and Missive from $504 on Starter to $864 on Productive. Budget for the second number.
Each option, ranked for a startup of one to ten people
1. Zoho Desk: cheapest, and free to start
A conventional ticketing help desk, priced well below its rivals and bundled into an unusually wide suite of business software. Free for up to 3 agents on one email channel, then $7 an agent on Express.
The catch: 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. Your address is forwarded into it, and it is web only.
Pick it when cost decides, and a ticket queue suits how you work.
2. Help Scout: a free plan that stays free, and email that looks like email
A shared inbox for support teams who want their replies to look like ordinary email rather than tickets. Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools.
The catch: the paid entry is $25 a user, among the dearest here, and AI is extra. AI Answers: $0.75 per resolution, with a monthly spending cap available.
Pick it when you fit the free plan today and would rather customers never saw a ticket number.
3. Missive: the cheapest shared inbox on your own mailbox
A shared inbox and team chat in one app, built around drafting replies collaboratively. It connects the mailbox you already have instead of asking you to forward it. Trial: 30 days of Productive, no card needed. No free plan.
The catch: Starter caps you at 5 users and leaves out rules, integrations and API access, which is most of what people upgrade for.
Pick it when a few of you share support and you want to keep the mailbox you have.
4. Moorline: the founder answering alone
A native Mac app for one person. It reads the mailbox you already have (Gmail and Google Workspace, iCloud, Fastmail, Zoho or other IMAP), replies from your own address, and keeps each customer on a list until the work is handled and they have been told. It has snippets, and optional read-only Stripe context beside each customer.
The catch: it is one person only, with no seats, no shared inbox and no assignment, so it is the wrong buy the moment a second person answers support. Mac only, macOS 15 or later, no Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com, no chat widget. No free plan and no trial; a 30-day refund instead.
Pick it when you are the support team and expect to stay that way for a while. For that case the best help desk for solo founders list goes further.
5. Freshdesk: full ticketing, free for a while
A conventional ticketing help desk with a generous entry price and a deep feature list above it.
The catch: 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. Prices rose in 2026: Growth from $15 to $19, Pro from $49 to $55 and Enterprise from $79 to $89 on annual billing. Freshworks’ own page description still says "starts at $15".
Pick it when you want to run a conventional help desk properly before paying $19 an agent for it.
6. Intercom: support inside your product
A messaging-first support platform built around an in-app chat widget and the Fin AI agent.
The catch: The seat price is the floor, not the bill. Fin resolutions are charged per outcome on top of it. Fin AI agent: $0.99 per outcome, which counts a resolution, a completed procedure or a handoff.
Pick it when an in-app messenger is a channel you know you need.
7. Hiver: a shared inbox that stays inside Gmail
It works inside Gmail through a Chrome extension, or in its own web app. Growth is $25 a user, with a minimum of 2, so a year starts at $600.
The catch: Growth has no customer portal, no SLAs, no CSAT and no API access. Trial: 7 days of Elite, no card needed. No free plan.
Pick it when the team already lives in Gmail and does not want another app.
8. Front: a collaborative inbox for a team that drafts together
A collaborative inbox where a team drafts, comments on and assigns replies together in real time.
The catch: 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.
Pick it when several of you genuinely work the same conversations and the collaboration is worth $65 a seat.
9. Zendesk: when support becomes a department
A full customer-service platform: ticketing, routing, SLAs, reporting, voice, and a workforce to run it.
The catch: Support Team is ticketing only. The suite most people mean by "Zendesk" starts at $55 per agent per month.
Pick it when you are hiring support staff and need chat, phone and SLAs, which is rarely true at ten people.
Questions people actually ask
What is the best help desk for a startup?
On cost, Zoho Desk: free for a small team and $7 an agent after that. For replies that look like ordinary email, Help Scout, which also has a free plan with no end date. For the cheapest shared inbox that keeps your own mailbox, Missive at $14 a user. If the founder is the whole support team, a team tool is priced for coordination nobody needs; Moorline is $9 a month for that case.
Is there a free help desk for startups?
Two with no end date. Help Scout: Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools. Zoho Desk: Free for up to 3 users on one email channel. Freshdesk's offer has a clock on it: A free program for up to 2 agents for the first 6 months. It is not on the pricing page; you switch to it from inside an account, under plans and billing.
How much does a help desk cost for a small team?
At three people on yearly billing, the cheapest paid plan in this list is Zoho Desk Express at $252 a year and the dearest entry plan is Intercom Essential at $1,044, before any AI charges. The plan above the entry one is where most of what a growing team wants lives, so price the second plan as well as the first.
Is Freshdesk free for startups?
For a while, not for good. A free program for up to 2 agents for the first 6 months. It is not on the pricing page; you switch to it from inside an account, under plans and billing. The permanent free plan ended on 9 June 2025, replaced by the 6-month free program. After that, Growth is $19 an agent a month on yearly billing.
What customer support tools does an early startup need?
Fewer than it is sold. A support address, the mailbox you already have, a handful of saved replies, and a reliable way to see which customers are still waiting on you. A help desk starts paying for itself when a second person answers support, because that is when assignment and collision detection have something to do.
Prices are US dollars per seat on yearly billing, read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 27 September 2026. Free plans change more often than paid ones, so check the one you pick before you build on it.