Last Updated: April 2024
There is no doubt that Help Scout is a robust customer support solution with features including a shared inbox, knowledge base, live chat, and much more. But, what about Help Scout’s pricing scheme? Is it affordable for businesses of all types? Are the features of all plans worthy enough?
Well, this post is jam-packed with the answers to all these questions!
Through this post, we will be sharing with you the following details:
A Quick Overview of Help Scout’s Pricing Structure
Initially, Help Scout provides a 15 -day free trial. After that, you can opt for their pricing plans, categorized into three. The pricing structure of all the plans is calculated per user per month. Even though you have the flexibility to bill either monthly or annually, don’t miss out on the point that, by billing annually, you can save up to 20%!
In addition to this, they also have a plan named “Help Scout For Good” for companies working on environmental sustainability or human rights. If you are such an organization, you can get a 100% discount. For non-profit organizations, they also give an assured lifetime discount of 10%.
They also have a separate pricing structure for startups under the plan “Help Scout For Startups”.
Detailed Breakdown of Help Scout’s Pricing Plans
1) Standard Plan
Features Offered:
- Mailboxes and Docs site – This plan provides you with 2 mailboxes and 1 Docs site. Docs site can be used to add articles. For each additional mailbox, you will have to pay $10/month and for each Docs site, $20/month.
- Number of Users – The maximum number of users you can add to this plan is limited to 25.
- Live Chat – You can provide customer support through the live chat feature and hence leverage your conversion rates.
- In-app Messaging – Through this feature, you can send targeted messages to your leads and customers via your website or app. You can avail of this facility at zero cost for up to 2000 unique visitors per month. With increased visitors, you will have to pay accordingly.
- Beacon Help Widget – The beacon will help customers with FAQs, chat, and email contact all set up in one place within the website.
- Custom Reports – Helps you to get an idea about how each channel is yielding results. You can also create customized views of your key metrics in this report.
- Automated Workflows – Assists your team to save time from repetitive tasks and set up rules to filter emails.
- Customer Properties – Lets you enrich customer profiles with custom attributes.
- API and 50+ integrations – Provides you with API and integrates well with more than 50 apps for analytics, e-commerce, CRM, marketing, etc.
Standard Plan Is Good For:
This plan is ideal for small teams that offer customer service solutions. The productivity of such teams can be leveraged through the shared inbox and knowledge base features offered in this plan.
Limitations Of Standard Plan:
- The number of users is capped at 25.
- Only a basic reporting feature is provided.
- Provides restricted API access.
2) Plus Plan
Features Offered:
- All features in the Standard plan are included.
- Mailboxes and Docs site – This plan comes with 5 mailboxes and 2 Docs sites. For extra mailboxes and docs sites, you have to afford additional costs as said in the Standard plan.
- Number Of Users – From this plan onwards, you can add an unlimited number of users.
- Custom Fields – Helps you to set or add custom data to categorize and prioritize each conversation on workflows, reports, and the API.
- Teams – This feature lets you create custom teams to collaborate more effectively by assigning conversations and getting reports on their activity.
- Advanced Permissions – Lets you grant special access to the company, users, and teams.
- Unlimited Reporting History
- Advanced API access – Enables you to handle 400 API calls per minute.
- Integrations – Supports Salesforce, Jira, and Hubspot apps.
- Add-ons – You can get access to HIPAA compliance and Enterprise security as add-ons.
Plus Plan Is Good For:
This plan is good for you if you are already a large company with multiple products and are planning to leverage the productivity of your team through robust collaboration features.
Limitations Of Plus Plan:
- There are limits on the number of mailboxes and docs sites.
- Onboarding support is not provided.
- A dedicated account manager is not available for support.
3) Company Plan
Features Offered:
- All features in the Plus plan are included.
- Unlimited Mailboxes and Docs Sites – This plan does not come with any limit on the number of mailboxes and docs sites you could use.
- Number Of Users – You can add an unlimited number of users to this plan.
- Enterprise Security – This plan comes with in-built enterprise security rather than as an add-on. The security is maintained using SAML authentication and IP restrictions.
- HIPAA compliance
- Advanced API Access – This plan offers 800 API calls per minute.
- Concierge Onboarding Service
- Dedicated Account Manager – The account manager will assist you in planning and setting up an efficient customer service system for your company.
Company Plan Is Good For:
This plan is ideal for you if you are an enterprise-level company. Through this plan, you can provide more personalized customer service to your customers without compromising the security of your company.
Limitations Of Company Plan:
- Customer management options are limited.
- The mobile app does not have a chat feature.
- Overall, it is a bit pricey compared to its competitors.
4) Help Scout For Start-Ups
Features Offered:
- Eligibility – To qualify, you must be a new customer with your business started in the past two years. You should also have earned $1 million or less.
- Number Of Users – For $50 per month, you can add 10 users. For each additional user, you have to pay $5 per user.
- Managing Conversations – This plan lets you manage every conversation with customers in a single place.
- Knowledge Base – Enables you to create a knowledge base that can assist in solving customer queries 24×7.
- In-app Messages – Through this feature, you can easily onboard customers and notify them about new features.
- Customer Data – Provides you with customer data, previous conversations, and app activity to provide personalized customer service.
Help Scout for Start-Up Plan is Good For:
This plan is good if you are a company new to the market and is planning to provide customer support without sacrificing both quality and budget.
Limitations Of Help Scout For Start-Up Plan:
- This pricing plan is applicable only for one year.
Help Scout Comparison In A Nutshell
So far, we have analyzed each of Help Scout’s pricing plans in detail. For a quick pricing comparison, take a look at the following illustration:
Why Is Saufter Better Than Help Scout?
Saufter is definitely a better option than Help Scout – the pricing and features being the main reasons.
Even though Help Scout base pricing starts at $20/user/month, it does not have unlimited ticket options. However, Saufter offers custom pricing and comes with unlimited ticket options.
Additionally, in Help Scout’s base plan, the number of users is capped at a maximum of 25, whereas for Saufter it is 50.
Here are some of the reasons why e-commerce and online brands love Saufter:
- It is a perfect ticketing system for your customer service team since unlimited tickets can be resolved on all its plans.
- Lets you engage with your customers in real-time using the live chat feature.
- It offers native SMS and phone call integration.
- The e-commerce store owners love this CRM tool due to its native integration with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento.
- Saufter offers order and returns management solutions.
- This is the only help desk that focuses on turning your customer service into a new marketing pipeline. It automatically identifies happy customers and messages them to collect reviews.
- Gives you a hand in influencer marketing by turning your existing customers into advocates of your brand.
- Saufter offers AI-suggested responses based on previous tickets handled and thereby significantly reduces handle time.
- Compared to Help Scout, it provides the additional feature of hiring the best agents for you and automating their training.
To wrap things up:
You have the final say when it comes to deciding between Help Scout and Saufter.
Despite the fact that each software has its own distinct features, Saufter is tailored for e-commerce businesses and has a much simpler and more user-friendly interface.
To make your customer service team excel in their work with increased productivity, equip them with Saufter. This platform is adequate enough to offer automated workflows reducing the workload of your team. We offer customized pricing also.
So, what are you waiting for?
