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What is a knowledge base?
A knowledge base is an organised, searchable library of written answers about a business or product: how-tos, policies, troubleshooting and FAQs. An internal knowledge base serves the team; an external one, usually called a help center, serves customers. It's also what AI assistants read when they need to answer the way your business would.
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What's the difference between an internal and an external knowledge base?
The difference is who reads it. An internal knowledge base is for the team and can hold anything the business knows; an external one is for customers and holds only what they should see.
| Internal knowledge base | External knowledge base (help center) | |
|---|---|---|
| Readers | Your team, and the AI working for them | Customers and prospects, and search engines |
| Typical content | Procedures, policies, price lists, client notes, who to ask | How-tos, delivery and returns, account help, FAQs |
| Who can see it | People signed in, often by team or role | Anyone with the link |
| Tone | Short and practical | Friendly, written in the customer's words |
| Main payoff | Fewer "quick questions", faster onboarding | Fewer support emails, answers at 2am |
Many businesses keep one library with two doors: everything is written once, and the customer-facing pages are published as a help center while the rest stays private.
What goes in a knowledge base?
A knowledge base holds anything someone has had to ask twice. The common article types:
- How-tos: step-by-step instructions, such as "How to change your delivery address".
- Policies: the rules and the reasons, such as refunds, cancellations and data handling.
- Troubleshooting: "If you see this, do that", for the problems that keep coming back.
- Reference: price lists, product specs, opening hours, supplier contacts.
- FAQs: short answers to the questions that don't need a full article.
- Onboarding: what a new customer or new hire needs in their first week.
Internal procedures written as numbered steps are SOPs; the SOP explainer covers how to write them.
What makes a knowledge base good?
A good knowledge base answers the question in the first lines, in the reader's own words, and stays current. The habits that make the difference:
- One question per page, with the question as the title, so search finds it.
- The answer first, then the detail.
- A clear structure: a handful of collections, such as Orders, Billing and Account, each with its pages.
- An owner and a review date on every page, so nothing quietly goes out of date.
- A visible status, draft or approved, so readers know what they can rely on.
- Links between pages rather than the same answer copied into three places.
- Search that shows what people look for and don't find, which is the list of pages to write next.
How is a knowledge base different from a wiki, a help center or an FAQ page?
They overlap, and the words are used loosely. The useful distinctions:
| Term | What it is | Who usually writes it |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge base | The whole library of answers, internal, external or both | Anyone responsible for a topic |
| Wiki | A style of internal knowledge base where anyone can edit and link pages | The whole team |
| Help center | The published, customer-facing part of a knowledge base | Support |
| FAQ page | A single page of short answers | Marketing or support |
| SOP | One procedure, written as steps | The person who does the work |
How much does knowledge base software cost?
Knowledge base software ranges from free plans for small teams to roughly $7 to $25 per user a month for the first paid tier. These are prices from each company's own pricing page, checked on 7 November 2026:
| Tool | Free plan | Lowest paid plan |
|---|---|---|
| Confluence | Free for up to 10 users | Standard, $7.15 per user a month billed monthly, depending on team size |
| Notion | Free, with limits on pages and blocks for 2 or more members | Plus, $10 per member a month billed yearly ($12 monthly) |
| Help Scout | Free for up to 5 users, with 1 inbox and 1 Docs knowledge base site | Standard, $25 per user a month billed yearly |
| Intercom | None listed | Essential, $19 per seat a month billed yearly for new customers, with a public help center |
Help desk tools such as Help Scout and Intercom include an external knowledge base because it reduces their customers' support load; general workspaces such as Confluence and Notion are stronger for the internal side.
Why does AI need a knowledge base?
AI needs a knowledge base because it can only answer the way your business would if your business's answers are written down. A general AI model knows nothing about your refund window, your prices or how you onboard a client; given your knowledge base, it can quote them. This is how most AI support agents work: they search your articles for each question and write the answer from what they find. Help Scout, for example, describes its Envoy chatbot as answering customers from your knowledge base content.
It cuts both ways. A stale page that a person would recognise as out of date, the AI repeats with confidence. Owners, review dates and a status on each page matter more once AI reads them.
How does Mojobase handle a knowledge base?
In Mojobase, the knowledge base is the Handbook: collections of nested pages, each with a status (Draft or Approved), an owner, a review-by date and its sources. Ask a question in Quick actions (⌘K) and the answer cites the page and section, labelled Approved, Draft or Changed by AI since approval; when no page covers it, it says so instead of guessing.
A collection can be published as a public help center at a free address (yourcompany.mojobase.page/docs) or on your own domain with one CNAME record, with search, a sitemap and an llms.txt. Only approved pages go out, and a person presses Publish. The support AI in Customers answers only from those published pages, and hands the conversation to a person when they don't cover the question. More on the Handbook page.
Further reading
Questions people ask
What is an example of a knowledge base?
A shop's help center with articles such as "How long does delivery take?" and "How do I return an item?" is an external knowledge base. A team's collection of pages on onboarding a client, the refund policy and the price list is an internal one.
What is the difference between a knowledge base and a wiki?
A wiki is a way of writing: anyone can edit any page, and pages link freely. A knowledge base is a purpose: a curated set of answers people search. Many internal knowledge bases are built as wikis; most customer-facing ones are edited by a few people and published.
What is knowledge base software?
Tools for writing, organising, searching and publishing those answers, such as Confluence, Notion, or the knowledge base built into a help desk like Help Scout or Intercom. Most add page history, permissions, templates and, increasingly, AI search.
How many articles should a knowledge base have?
Start with the 15 to 20 questions you answer most, which usually cover most of what people ask. Add an article whenever the same question comes in three times. A short, current knowledge base beats a long, stale one.
How do I keep a knowledge base up to date?
Give every page an owner and a review date, update pages when the policy or product changes rather than later, and watch for searches that find nothing. Remove pages for things you no longer do, so neither people nor AI find old answers.