Every option, priced at 1, 3 and 10 people
Each price is the cheapest published plan that can be bought for that many people, on yearly billing, with the plan named under it. A plan whose seat cap is below the team is skipped for the next one up, and a seat minimum is charged in full.
| Tool | 1 person | 3 people | 10 people | Free plan | Your email address |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail (baseline) | $0 extra | $0 extra | $0 extra | Free, or included in Google Workspace | It is your mailbox |
| Help Scout | $300Standard | $900Standard | $3,000Standard | Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox and 100 contacts a month, with no AI | Forwards your address into their inbox |
| Zoho Desk | $84Express | $252Express | $1,680Standard | Free for up to 3 agents on one email channel | Forwards your address into their inbox |
| Missive | $168Starter | $504Starter | $2,880Productive | None | Connects your mailbox over IMAP, syncs to their cloud |
| Freshdesk | $228Growth | $684Growth | $2,280Growth | Free for up to 2 agents for the first 6 months, switched on from inside an account | Forwards your address into their inbox |
| Hiver | $600Growth, 2-user minimum | $900Growth | $3,000Growth | None | Stays in Gmail. Hiver works inside it |
| Front | $300Starter | $900Starter | $3,000Starter | None | Connects your mailbox, syncs it to their cloud |
| Moorline | $108 | One person only | One person only | None. 30-day refund | Reads your own mailbox, replies from your address |
| Intercom | $348Essential | $1,044Essential | $3,480Essential | None | Chat-first. Email is a secondary channel routed through them |
| Zendesk | $228Support Team | $684Support Team | $2,280Support Team | None | Forwards your address into their inbox |
Gmail’s row assumes you already pay for your mail. For a headcount the table does not show, the help desk cost calculator runs the same arithmetic for any number of seats, on yearly or monthly billing.
The three questions the table answers
- How many people will answer customers a year from now? Every tool except Gmail and Moorline charges per seat, so read the column for the team you will have, not the one you have today. At ten people the gap between the cheapest and the dearest help desk in the table is $1,800 a year.
- Is the free plan a plan or a countdown? Help Scout’s and Zoho Desk’s have no end date. Freshdesk’s is a program for the first months of an account. Everything else is a trial.
- What happens to your email address? Forwarded into a vendor’s inbox gives a team one shared record and an export to do if you leave. Connected or read in place leaves the mail where it is. If what you want is several people on one address with replies that still look like email, the best shared inbox for a small business list goes deeper on that shape of tool.
The baseline: Gmail
Where every founder starts, and the honest baseline any support tool has to beat. It handles delivery, search and spam, it costs nothing extra, and everyone already knows it. For a small business with a few customer emails a day, it is a legitimate answer rather than a stopgap.
Where it breaks: It has no idea a customer is still owed a reply. An archived thread and a finished job look identical. With more than one person on a plain Gmail inbox there is a second gap: nothing in it assigns a conversation to anyone. If you want to share it before buying anything, Gmail’s own delegation and a Google Group can both do it, and how to set up a shared inbox in Gmail walks through each.
What AI costs on top of the seats
The table is seats only. Most of these also sell AI that answers customers by itself, and several charge each time it does.
- Help Scout: AI Answers: $0.75 per resolution, with a monthly spending cap available.
- Zoho Desk: Generative AI uses your own OpenAI key. No per-resolution fee.
- Missive: AI runs on Missive credits (the model provider’s price plus 25%) or on your own API key. Productive and Business start with $5 of credits.
- Freshdesk: Extra AI Agent sessions: $49 per 100. An email session is a 72-hour window. Freddy AI Copilot: $29 per agent a month on annual billing, $35 monthly, Pro and Enterprise only.
- Hiver: AI agents and copilot come with the Growth plan, and it prices one add-on separately. Voice: $30 per voice seat a month, with 1,000 pooled minutes and $0.03 a minute after that.
- Front: Autopilot, charged per conversation: $0.05 to triage, $0.39 per handoff, $0.89 per resolution. Copilot $20 per seat a month; Smart QA $20; Smart CSAT $10.
- Intercom: Fin AI agent: $0.99 per outcome, which counts a resolution, a completed procedure or a handoff.
- Zendesk: AI resolutions past the included ones: $1.50 each committed, $2.00 pay as you go. Copilot: $50 per agent a month on annual billing, Suite Professional and up only.
- Moorline: no per-resolution charge. The $9 a month is the whole bill.
Each option, ranked for a small business
1. Help Scout: best overall for email support
A shared inbox for support teams who want their replies to look like ordinary email rather than tickets.
The catch: it wants your support address forwarded into its inbox, and the paid entry at $25 a user is among the dearest here. Standard has no AI drafts or summaries, basic workflows only, no round robin and no Salesforce, Jira or HubSpot integration.
Pick it when you sell to people who should feel they are emailing a person, and you can start on the free plan or budget for Plus at $45.
2. Zoho Desk: best value
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.
Pick it when price decides and a ticket queue suits you. If Zendesk is the other name on your list, Zendesk vs Zoho Desk puts every plan side by side.
3. Missive: best shared inbox on your own mailbox
A shared inbox and team chat in one app, built around drafting replies collaboratively. It connects your existing mailbox over IMAP rather than asking you to forward it.
The catch: Starter caps you at 5 users and leaves out rules, integrations and API access, which is most of what people upgrade for. Productive, which adds them, is $24.
Pick it when a few of you share one address and want to keep the mailbox you already have.
4. Freshdesk: full ticketing, free to try properly
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 a conventional help desk and the free program as a long trial, with $19 an agent budgeted for afterwards.
5. Hiver: best for a team that works in 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, and includes rules and basic integrations.
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 works in Google Workspace and would rather not learn another app.
6. Front: best 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 people genuinely work the same conversations and the collaboration is worth $65 a seat.
7. Moorline: best for a one-person business on a Mac
A native Mac app for the business where one person answers every customer. 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.
The catch: one person only: no seats, no shared inbox, no assignment, no chat widget. Mac only, macOS 15 or later, and no Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com. No free plan and no trial; a 30-day refund instead.
Pick it when the business is you, and the thing that keeps going wrong is a customer who never heard back after you sorted out their problem.
8. Intercom: best when chat is the main channel
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. In September 2026 Intercom was testing a lower Essential price ($19 on annual billing) with some visitors, so the price you see may differ from the list price here.
Pick it when customers reach you through a chat widget more than by email.
9. Zendesk: best for building a support 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, routing and SLAs in one place.
Questions people actually ask
What is the best help desk software for a small business?
For most small businesses answering customers by email, Help Scout: replies look like ordinary email, the free plan covers the smallest teams, and Standard is $25 a user on yearly billing. Zoho Desk is the best value at $7 an agent, Missive is the cheapest shared inbox that keeps your own mailbox, and Hiver suits a team that works in Gmail. A business that is one person on a Mac needs none of the team features; Moorline is $9 a month for that case.
What is the best free customer service software for a small business?
Zoho Desk or Help Scout, whose free plans have no end date. Zoho Desk: Free for up to 3 users on one email channel. Help Scout: Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools. Freshdesk's free program is time-limited. And Gmail itself, which costs nothing extra and is enough until a customer slips through it.
How much does help desk software cost for a small business?
On yearly billing, the cheapest plan that fits three people runs from $252 a year (Zoho Desk Express) to $1,044 (Intercom Essential). At ten people it runs from $1,680 (Zoho Desk Standard) to $3,480 (Intercom Essential). AI charges come on top for several of them.
Is Gmail enough for customer service?
For a while, and longer than most help desk vendors will tell you. It handles delivery, search and spam, and it is free or already paid for. Its one structural gap: It has no idea a customer is still owed a reply. An archived thread and a finished job look identical. When a second person answers, or when you can name a customer who never heard back about something you fixed, it is time for a tool.
Can I keep my own email address with a help desk?
Always. Your address belongs to your mail host, not to the support tool. What changes is how the tool gets the mail: Help Scout, Zendesk, Freshdesk and Zoho Desk want it forwarded into their inbox, Missive and Front connect to your mailbox and sync it to their cloud, Hiver works inside Gmail, and Moorline reads your mailbox directly and replies from your address.
Prices are US dollars on yearly billing, read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 27 September 2026. AI and usage charges are quoted as the vendors publish them.