# The best Help Scout alternatives for a small business (2026)

The best Help Scout alternatives are Front for shared email across many channels, Hiver for support inside Gmail, Missive for a small team's shared inbox and chat, Re:amaze for unlimited inboxes, Zoho Desk for a low price, Freshdesk for full ticketing, and Mojobase if support should sit beside sales, invoices and the rest of the business.

Updated 7 November 2026. Prices and features checked on each company's own site

## Why do people look for alternatives to Help Scout?

- Standard includes two inboxes; each extra inbox is $10 a month billed yearly, and extra Docs sites $20.
- Unlimited AI Drafts and round-robin routing start on Plus, at $45 a user a month billed yearly.
- Envoy, the AI chatbot, is billed per resolution at $0.75, on top of seats.
- Pro, with unlimited workflows and SSO, needs a minimum of ten users.

## What are the best Help Scout alternatives?

| Tool | Best for |
| --- | --- |
| Front | Shared email across many channels and teams |
| Hiver | A help desk that stays inside Gmail |
| Missive | A small team's shared inbox with chat and tasks |
| Re:amaze | Unlimited inboxes and social channels on every plan |
| Zoho Desk | Live chat, messaging and an answer bot at a low price |
| Freshdesk | Full ticketing with a portal on the entry plan |
| Mojobase | Support beside sales, invoices and the rest of the business |

### 1. Front: best for shared email across many channels and teams

Front adds shared inboxes, ticketing and collaboration on top of Gmail, Office 365 or any email, and Professional brings SMS through Twilio or Dialpad, WhatsApp, social and Slack into the same view. Copilot surfaces account signals and drafts replies. It suits teams where support, sales and operations share customer email.

- **Professional:** $65 per seat per month, up to 50 seats, billed annually (page shows 'Billed Annually, Save 24%'); $85 billed monthly[1]
- **Feature:** Omnichannel email (Gmail, Office 365, custom), SMS via Twilio or Dialpad, Slack, social, WhatsApp from Professional[2]
- **AI:** Copilot: surfaces account signals, plans next steps, drafts replies; $20 per seat per month below Enterprise[3]

### 2. Hiver: best for a help desk that stays inside Gmail

Hiver in Gmail costs the same per user as its standalone help desk and runs entirely in Gmail. Pro adds a customer portal, SLAs, CSAT surveys and advanced analytics. AI Copilot and Skills, procedures that teach the AI to resolve repeat issues, come with every plan.

- **Add-on:** Hiver in Gmail plans show the same $25 / $55 / $85 per user per month (annual toggle) as Hiver Omni, without the Voice add-on or Slack channel[4]
- **Pro:** $55 per user per month, billed annually (page 'Annual' toggle); $65 billed monthly[5]
- **AI:** AI Copilot, Skills (procedures for AI to resolve repetitive issues) and AI Knowledge Builder on every plan[6]

### 3. Missive: best for a small team's shared inbox with chat and tasks

Missive Starter covers up to five users with shared and personal inboxes, team spaces, conversations and tasks, and SMS and social accounts. Its AI assistant needs Productive or Business and runs on Missive credits or your own API key. It suits teams that want an email client more than a help desk.

- **Starter:** $14 per user per month, up to 5 users, billed yearly (20% off); $18 billed monthly[7]
- **Starter includes:** Email, SMS and social accounts; Team spaces and inboxes; Conversations and tasks; SOC 2 Type II compliance; Up to 1,000 rules[8]
- **AI:** Requires Productive or Business plan; use Missive AI credits (25% markup) or bring your own key[9]

### 4. Re:amaze: best for unlimited inboxes and social channels on every plan

Re:amaze includes unlimited email inboxes and social channels on every plan, with live chat, chatbots, a public and internal FAQ and macros on Basic. Help Scout charges for each inbox past two. It suits businesses that run several brands or addresses from one desk.

- **Basic:** $26.1 per team member per month, billed annually (Save 10%); $29 billed monthly[10]
- **Basic includes:** Unlimited email inboxes and social channels; Live chat, chatbots, Cues (proactive messages); Public and internal FAQ; Workflow automation (macros), response templates; Basic reporting; 1 brand; Re:amaze AI Agent: 5 resolutions per month per user included[11]
- **Feature:** Unlimited email inboxes and social channels on every plan[12]

### 5. Zoho Desk: best for live chat, messaging and an answer bot at a low price

Zoho Desk Standard adds a live chat widget, WhatsApp, Instagram and other messaging apps, a community forum and an Answer bot that replies from your knowledge base, at a lower price per user than Help Scout Standard. It suits cost-conscious teams that want many channels.

- **Standard:** $14 per user per month, billed annually; $20 billed monthly[13]
- **Standard includes:** Everything in Express, plus business messaging (live chat widget); Instant messaging: WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, WeChat, Line; Answer bot; Community forum, knowledge base, ASAP self-service widget; Custom reports and dashboards; Customer happiness ratings[14]
- **AI:** Answer bot: replies to customers from knowledge base articles (Standard and up)[15]

### 6. Freshdesk: best for full ticketing with a portal on the entry plan

Freshdesk Growth includes ticketing, a customer portal, a knowledge base, reporting, and internal threads and tasks on each ticket. Occasional helpers can use day passes instead of full seats. It suits teams moving from a shared inbox to structured ticketing.

- **Growth includes:** Freddy AI Agent (first 500 sessions included, once per account); Ticketing and shared inbox; Customer portal and knowledge base; Out-of-the-box analytics and reporting; Threads and tasks; Roles and permissions[16]
- **Feature:** Threads and tasks: internal conversations and tasks linked to a ticket, on every plan[17]
- **Day passes (occasional agent access):** $2 per pass on Growth, $7 on Pro, $12 on Enterprise[18]

### 7. Mojobase: best for support beside sales, invoices and the rest of the business

Mojobase keeps support as a shared Inbox in Customers, next to the CRM, invoices, store orders, calendar and tasks. AI drafts come from your published Handbook and the customer's whole history, and the Handbook doubles as your help center. No SMS, WhatsApp or phone channel.

- **Price:** $39 a month for the first person and $25 for each after; the first 10 companies pay $29 and $19, for life
- **AI:** included, with your choice of model, or bring your own

## How should a small team choose a Help Scout alternative?

Ask why Help Scout stopped fitting. If it's the per-inbox and per-seat costs, Re:amaze and Zoho Desk include more for less. If you want support to stay inside email, Hiver runs in Gmail and Missive is an email client built for teams. If several teams share customer email, Front handles the routing. If you've outgrown a shared inbox, Freshdesk adds proper ticketing.

And if the problem is that support answers depend on information Help Scout can't see, such as an unpaid invoice, an order or last week's call, the fix is putting support where that information already lives.

## How do Help Scout alternatives compare on price?

Prices are per user a month, billed yearly, from each company's own pricing page.

| Tool | Free plan | Entry plan | Inboxes | AI drafts for your team |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Help Scout | 5 users, 1 inbox | $25 (Standard) | 2 on Standard, then $10 each | Unlimited on Plus, $45 |
| Front | None | $25 a seat (Starter, up to 10 seats) | One channel type on Starter | Copilot add-on below Enterprise |
| Hiver | None; 7-day trial | $25 (Growth) | Shared inbox and ticketing | AI Copilot on every plan |
| Missive | None; 30-day trial | $14 (Starter, up to 5 users) | Shared and personal inboxes | From Productive, $24 |
| Re:amaze | None; 14-day trial | $59 a month flat, unlimited members (Starter) | Unlimited on every plan | AI agent resolutions included per user |
| Zoho Desk | 3 users | $7 (Express) | Email, social and web forms | Bring your own AI key |
| Freshdesk | None; 14-day trial | $19 (Growth) | Ticketing and shared inbox | Copilot add-on, $29 |
| Mojobase | None | $39 a month for the first person, $25 each after | Any connected or hosted mailbox switched to Support | Included in the monthly AI allowance |

Hiver Growth is $25 per user per month billed annually; seats start at two, then five, then increments of five. Successful AI resolutions add $0.80 each, separate from seats; handoffs and assumed resolutions are not charged.

Mojobase's price includes email, team chat, calendar, documents, tasks, the CRM, Numbers and the Handbook. For five people it's $139 a month.

## What does Mojobase do differently from Help Scout?

Help Scout and Mojobase agree that support should feel like email. The difference is what sits next to it. In Mojobase, support is one part of Customers, so the page beside each conversation shows the customer's recent mail with anyone on the team, past and next meetings, open tasks, files, and, through Numbers and Stripe, their orders and what they owe.

That changes the AI drafts. Asked "where's my refund?", the AI reads the refund policy in your published Handbook, the order in Numbers and the thread itself, and drafts the real answer for a person to send. Topics you trust it with can be set to Auto; it hands anything it's unsure about to a person, and every reply goes in Activity.

What Mojobase doesn't have: SMS, WhatsApp, social or phone channels, SLA policies or CSAT surveys. It's built for 1 to 25 people, and it works well for teams up to 100.

## What do you lose by leaving Help Scout?

You lose a support tool that people genuinely enjoy using. Help Scout's free plan for five users, its shared inbox with saved replies, snooze, send later and customer profiles, Docs knowledge bases, live chat and messaging channels from Standard, and AI Summarize make it a strong default for small teams. Its Envoy chatbot charges only for resolutions, and Help Scout states a 73% average resolution rate.

If your support is email-first and self-contained, Help Scout remains one of the best choices, and leaving makes sense mainly for cost or context.

## How do you move from Help Scout?

Keep your support address and point it at the new tool, then recreate your saved replies and the help articles customers actually open. Leave Help Scout running for a week so open conversations can finish there.

In Mojobase, connect the support mailbox in Email and switch it to Support, so its mail moves into Customers' Inbox and replies keep coming from the same address. Publish your help articles as a Handbook collection, and the AI starts drafting from them right away.

## Questions people ask

### What is the best alternative to Help Scout for a small team?

Missive for a small team that wants a friendly shared inbox with chat and tasks, Hiver if you won't leave Gmail, and Front if several teams share customer email. Mojobase fits when the people answering support also sell and invoice, and the answers depend on that context.

### Which Help Scout alternative is cheapest?

Zoho Desk is free for three users and its Express plan is $7 a user a month billed yearly. Missive Starter is $14 a user for up to five users. Help Scout's own free plan covers five users with one inbox.

### Does Mojobase have AI drafts like Help Scout?

Yes. Every support conversation gets an AI draft from your published Handbook pages and the customer's history, including their email, orders and invoices. The AI replies on its own only for topics you set to Auto, and is part of Mojobase's monthly AI allowance, not billed per resolution.

### Can I keep my help center when I leave Help Scout?

You'll need to move the articles. Most help desks here include a knowledge base or FAQ. In Mojobase, a Handbook collection is published as your help center, and the support AI answers from exactly those pages, so updating an article updates the answers.

### Which Help Scout alternative works with WhatsApp and SMS?

Front from Professional, Re:amaze from Pro for SMS, Zoho Desk from Standard for WhatsApp, and Missive for SMS and WhatsApp. Help Scout itself offers live chat, SMS and WhatsApp from Standard. Mojobase has no SMS, WhatsApp or phone channel.

## Related

- [Support](https://mojobase.ai/support)
- [Mojobase vs Help Scout](https://mojobase.ai/compare/mojobase-vs-help-scout)
- [Help Scout vs Zendesk: which is right for a small business?](https://mojobase.ai/compare/help-scout-vs-zendesk)
- [The best Zendesk alternatives for a small business (2026)](https://mojobase.ai/alternatives/zendesk)
- [The best Freshdesk alternatives for a small business (2026)](https://mojobase.ai/alternatives/freshdesk)
- [Mojobase and Gmail](https://mojobase.ai/integrations/gmail)
- [Answer customer support with AI, safely](https://mojobase.ai/use-cases/answer-support-with-ai)
- [Mojobase for startups](https://mojobase.ai/for/startups)

## Sources

1. Front: Professional. [front.com/pricing](https://front.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
2. Front: Feature. [front.com/pricing](https://front.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
3. Front: AI. [front.com/pricing](https://front.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
4. Hiver: Add-on. [hiverhq.com/pricing/hiver-in-gmail](https://hiverhq.com/pricing/hiver-in-gmail), checked 7 Nov 2026.
5. Hiver: Pro. [hiverhq.com/pricing/hiver-omni](https://hiverhq.com/pricing/hiver-omni), checked 7 Nov 2026.
6. Hiver: AI. [hiverhq.com/pricing/hiver-omni](https://hiverhq.com/pricing/hiver-omni), checked 7 Nov 2026.
7. Missive: Starter. [missiveapp.com/pricing](https://missiveapp.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
8. Missive: Starter includes. [missiveapp.com/pricing](https://missiveapp.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
9. Missive: AI. [missiveapp.com/docs/ai/overview](https://missiveapp.com/docs/ai/overview), checked 7 Nov 2026.
10. Re:amaze: Basic. [reamaze.com/pricing](https://www.reamaze.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
11. Re:amaze: Basic includes. [reamaze.com/pricing](https://www.reamaze.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
12. Re:amaze: Feature. [reamaze.com/pricing](https://www.reamaze.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
13. Zoho Desk: Standard. [zoho.com/desk/pricing.html](https://www.zoho.com/desk/pricing.html), checked 7 Nov 2026.
14. Zoho Desk: Standard includes. [zoho.com/desk/pricing.html](https://www.zoho.com/desk/pricing.html), checked 7 Nov 2026.
15. Zoho Desk: AI. [zoho.com/desk/pricing.html](https://www.zoho.com/desk/pricing.html), checked 7 Nov 2026.
16. Freshdesk: Growth includes. [freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/), checked 7 Nov 2026.
17. Freshdesk: Feature. [freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/), checked 7 Nov 2026.
18. Freshdesk: Day passes (occasional agent access). [freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/), checked 7 Nov 2026.
19. Hiver: About the pricing. [hiverhq.com/pricing/hiver-omni](https://hiverhq.com/pricing/hiver-omni), checked 7 Nov 2026.
20. Hiver: AI resolutions. [hiverhq.com/blog/live-chat-software-pricing](https://hiverhq.com/blog/live-chat-software-pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
21. Help Scout: Plus. [helpscout.com/pricing/](https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/), checked 7 Nov 2026.
22. Help Scout: Standard includes. [helpscout.com/pricing/](https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/), checked 7 Nov 2026.
23. Help Scout: Envoy (AI chatbot / 'AI Answers') add-on. [helpscout.com/pricing/](https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/), checked 7 Nov 2026.
24. Missive: Productive. [missiveapp.com/pricing](https://missiveapp.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.
25. Re:amaze: Starter. [reamaze.com/pricing](https://www.reamaze.com/pricing), checked 7 Nov 2026.

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Source: https://mojobase.ai/alternatives/help-scout · Updated 7 November 2026