Comparison
FyneDesk vs Help Scout
Help Scout's free plan limits you to 50 contacts per month. FyneDesk gives your team a complete customer support platform with AI, SLA tracking, knowledge base, and customer portal — no contact limits, no credit card, forever free.
The short version
Help Scout has a free tier, but it caps you at 50 contacts per month — meaning if more than 50 unique customers email you in a month, new conversations get blocked. Their first paid plan is $50/month flat for up to 3 users. Help Scout also has no native SLA tracking, and AI features are billed per resolution at $0.75 each.
FyneDesk includes ticket management, AI-powered summaries and suggestions, knowledge base, customer portal, email-to-ticket, SLA tracking, dashboard analytics, asset management, and role-based access — all free for up to 5 agents with no contact limits, forever.
Create Free Account →Help Scout's contact limits, explained
Help Scout uses a contact-based billing model rather than pure per-agent pricing. A "contact" is a unique customer who sends you a message in a given month. The free plan allows 50 contacts per month. The Standard plan ($50/month) allows 100 contacts. The Plus plan ($75/month) allows 500 contacts.
This model sounds reasonable until you hit a busy week. A small e-commerce team handling post-holiday support, a software company during a product launch, or a service business during peak season can easily exceed their monthly contact limit — forcing an immediate upgrade mid-cycle or blocking new customer conversations entirely.
FyneDesk has no contact limits on any plan. Your team can handle any volume of unique customers without worrying about billing surprises.
Pricing at a glance
- No contact limits
- AI assistant included
- No credit card required
- No trial, no time limit
What does a 5-agent team actually pay?
| Setup | FyneDesk | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Basic ticketing (limited) | $0/month | $0/month 50 contacts cap |
| Unlimited contacts + reporting | $0/month | $75/month Plus plan, 5 users |
| + AI-assisted resolutions (100/mo) | $0/month | $150/month Plus + AI |
| + SLA tracking | $0/month | Not available |
| Annual cost (full setup) | $0/year | $900 – $1,800+/year |
Feature-by-feature comparison
| Feature | FyneDesk | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, forever | Yes, but 50 contacts/month |
| Agents on free plan | Up to 5 | 1 inbox, 50 contacts limit |
| Cheapest paid plan | $0 | $50/month flat (up to 3 users) |
| Billing model | Per agent (free up to 5) | Per contact / flat monthly |
| Unlimited tickets | Yes, free | Limited on free, unlimited on paid |
| Customer portal | Yes, free | Beacon widget (all plans) |
| Knowledge base | Yes, free | 1 Docs site (all paid plans) |
| Email-to-ticket | Yes, free | Yes, all paid plans |
| AI ticket summaries | Yes, free | $0.75/AI resolution |
| AI suggested replies | Yes, free | $0.75/AI resolution |
| SLA tracking | Yes, free | No native SLA support |
| Dashboard analytics | Yes, free | Standard plan ($50/mo) |
| Custom reports | Yes, free | Standard plan ($50/mo) |
| Teams & assignment | Yes, free | Yes, all paid plans |
| Role-based access | Yes, free | Plus plan ($75/mo) |
| Asset management | Yes, free | Not included |
| Contact/customer CRM | Yes, free | Contact profiles (all plans) |
| Audit trail | Yes, free | Pro plan (custom pricing) |
| Multi-tenant data isolation | Yes, row-level security | Yes |
| File attachments | Yes, free | Yes, all plans |
| Themes & branding | 5 themes + logo, free | Beacon customization on paid |
Where Help Scout is stronger
This is an honest comparison. Help Scout has been building customer communication tools since 2011 and has features and polish that FyneDesk doesn't match in every area.
- Conversational UI: Help Scout is designed around an email-like thread interface that feels natural to agents without training. FyneDesk uses a structured ticket workflow model, which suits teams that want more explicit status tracking.
- Beacon live chat widget: Help Scout's Beacon embeds a live chat and knowledge base widget directly in your product or website. FyneDesk offers a customer portal but not an embeddable live chat widget.
- Proactive messaging: Help Scout can send outbound in-app messages to users based on behavioral triggers. FyneDesk does not currently have outbound messaging capabilities.
- Integrations: Help Scout integrates natively with Shopify, HubSpot, Stripe, Salesforce, Jira, and Slack. FyneDesk offers webhooks and REST API on Pro plans.
- Shared inbox model: Help Scout is optimized for teams that prefer a collaborative shared inbox view rather than discrete ticket ownership. FyneDesk is built around explicit ticket assignment and ownership.
If your team relies on live chat, needs proactive in-app messaging, or deeply values the conversational inbox experience — Help Scout's paid plans may be worth the cost. But if you need SLA tracking, structured ticket workflows, AI assistance, and no contact limits for free, FyneDesk covers all of it.
Who switches from Help Scout to FyneDesk?
Teams that make the switch typically share a few things in common:
- They hit Help Scout's contact limits during a busy month and got blocked
- They need SLA tracking and can't find it in Help Scout at any plan level
- They want AI summaries and suggestions without paying $0.75 per resolved conversation
- They want structured ticket statuses and explicit ownership rather than a shared inbox
- They need role-based access controls without upgrading to the Plus plan
- They want asset management and contact CRM alongside ticketing in one free tool
Frequently asked questions
Yes, but it's very limited. Help Scout's free plan allows 1 shared inbox and caps contacts (customers) at 50 per month. Once you exceed 50 contacts in a month, new conversations are blocked until the next billing period or you upgrade. This makes it impractical for most real support workloads. FyneDesk's free plan has no contact limits — just a 5-agent cap.
Help Scout uses a contact-based billing model, not a strict per-agent model. Their Standard plan is $50/month and includes up to 3 users and 100 contacts/month. The Plus plan is $75/month for up to 5 users and 500 contacts/month. The Pro plan is custom-priced for larger teams. Users above the included count cost extra. The contact limits catch many teams off guard when support volume grows.
In Help Scout's billing, a contact is a unique customer who sends a message in a given month. If a customer sends 10 emails in a month, they count as 1 contact. But if 60 different customers email you in a month on the free plan, the 51st and onward are blocked. Growing teams can hit contact limits quickly during busy periods, forcing unplanned upgrades.
No. Help Scout does not include native SLA (Service Level Agreement) management or SLA reporting. You can set reply time goals in some configurations, but there is no dedicated SLA policy system, breach tracking, or SLA reporting dashboard. FyneDesk includes full SLA tracking on the free plan.
Yes. FyneDesk's free plan includes up to 5 agents with unlimited tickets, unlimited contacts, knowledge base, customer portal, email-to-ticket, AI assistant, dashboard analytics, SLA tracking, role-based access, asset management, and audit trails. There is no trial period, no credit card required, and no contact limits.
Help Scout is known for its clean, email-like interface that feels natural to agents without training. They have a polished customer-facing Beacon widget for live chat, proactive messaging, and in-app support. Their conversation management (tagging, sorting, snoozing) is highly refined. Help Scout also has strong integrations with Shopify, HubSpot, Stripe, Jira, and Slack. FyneDesk focuses on structured ticket workflows rather than the conversational-thread approach.
Ready to try FyneDesk?
Create a free account in under a minute. No credit card, no time limit, no contact limits.