Help Desk Software for Small Business: 7 Options, Priced

Most small businesses do not need help desk software until two things happen at once: more than one person answers customer email, and requests start slipping through or getting answered twice. Before that point, a shared inbox with labels does the job for free. After it, the cheapest real options are free plans from Help Scout (5 users), Zoho Desk (3 users), and HubSpot (2 users), and paid plans that start between $7 and $25 per agent per month.

If most requests are the same questions, InboxPilot (we make it) drafts the replies inside Gmail or Outlook, free for 25 conversations a month. Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on 2026-09-23.

Key takeaways

• Under three people on one address, you probably don't need a help desk yet. A shared address with labels, or an in-inbox tool, is enough.
• If the queue is mostly repeat questions, draft the replies instead. InboxPilot answers them from your documents inside Gmail or Outlook, priced by conversations rather than per agent.
• Three free plans cover most small teams: Help Scout (5 users, 1 inbox), Zoho Desk (3 users), and HubSpot (2 users).
• Paid entry plans cost $420 to $1,500 a year for five agents, depending on the tool and billing term.
• Check email intake before anything else. Every help desk here takes your existing address, but on Microsoft 365 an admin must allow outside forwarding first.

Do you need help desk software yet?

The test is not team size. It is whether you have a coordination problem.

Signs you need one:

• Two people answered the same customer this month, or one customer got no answer at all.
• You cannot say how many requests are open right now, or how long replies take.
• Someone outside the support team (a manager, a client) wants reports on response or resolution times.
• Customers ask for a portal, a knowledge base, or a way to check their request's status.

Signs you don't, yet:

• One or two people answer everything, and they sit next to each other or share a chat.
• The queue is mostly the same handful of questions, answered quickly.
• Everyone lives in Gmail or Outlook and nobody wants a second app.

If most of the second list is true, a shared address with labels, or one of the in-inbox tools in our email ticketing system guide, will do. The longer version of this decision, with costs for both paths, is in shared inbox vs help desk.

Before a help desk: draft the repeat replies

InboxPilot is not a help desk. It works on the Gmail or Outlook mailbox you already have, filing each incoming email into your labels or folders. It drafts a reply from your own sources, such as uploaded documents, a Google Sheet, Shopify orders, Notion, or Pipedrive, and by default a person approves each draft before it sends.

It fits when most requests are order status, pricing, availability, or policy questions that already have an answer somewhere in your business. Ownership runs through Slack: each email posts to a channel with its draft, a teammate takes it and marks it done, and anything nobody took gets chased (how the Slack flow works).

Pricing is by conversations handled, not seats. Free drafts up to 25 conversations a month, Starter is $39 for 300 and adds Slack, and Growth is $99 for 1,500 with up to 5 team members (pricing).

There are no ticket numbers, service-level targets, or customer portal. If you need those, pick a help desk below and keep InboxPilot in front of it for the repeat replies.

Help desk software for small business, compared

Sources, all checked 2026-09-23: Help Scout, Zoho Desk, HubSpot, Freshdesk, Zendesk, osTicket, FreeScout, Hiver.

The seven options

1. Help Scout

A help desk that still feels like email: conversations look like threads, not forms. The free plan covers up to 5 users, 1 inbox, and 1 knowledge base site. Paid plans are Standard at $25 per user per month and Plus at $45, both billed monthly, with a discount for annual billing (Help Scout pricing). Your support address forwards into Help Scout (Help Scout docs).

The catch: the free plan is one inbox. A second address, such as sales@ next to support@, means paying. AI answers are an add-on billed per resolution.

2. Zoho Desk

The cheapest paid entry point on this list. The free edition covers 3 users and includes email ticketing, and Express is $7 per user per month billed annually. Paid plans come with a 15-day trial (Zoho Desk pricing).

The catch: the interface carries more settings than a three-person team needs, and it fits best if you already use other Zoho apps.

3. HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot's free customer service tools cover 2 users with basic ticketing and a shared inbox that carries HubSpot branding (HubSpot pricing). Tickets sit next to your contacts and deals, which matters if sales and support talk to the same customers.

The catch: two free users is a small ceiling, and the paid tiers above Starter add one-time onboarding fees. It makes the most sense if HubSpot is already your CRM.

4. Freshdesk

A full help desk with room to add phone and chat later. There is no free plan on the current pricing page, only a 14-day trial. Growth is $19 per agent per month billed annually, Pro $55, and Enterprise $89 (Freshdesk pricing).

The catch: per-agent pricing climbs quickly once you move past Growth, and the product is built for dedicated support agents rather than a founder answering email between other jobs.

5. Zendesk

The help desk most large support teams end up on. Support Team is $19 per agent per month billed annually. Suite Team, the most popular tier, is $55 and adds AI agents and more channels. There is a 14-day trial and no free plan (Zendesk pricing).

The catch: a small business pays for scale it does not use yet, and the useful features sit in the Suite tiers rather than Support Team.

6. osTicket or FreeScout (open source)

osTicket and FreeScout are free to download and run on your own server. FreeScout works like a shared inbox; osTicket is a classic ticket system with forms and departments.

The catch: the subscription cost becomes someone's time. You host it, patch it, back it up, and fix it when email stops arriving.

7. Hiver (the help desk that stays in Gmail)

Hiver adds assignment, statuses, and reporting inside Gmail instead of a separate app. It is $25 per user per month billed annually, with a two-seat minimum and a 7-day trial (Hiver pricing). Hiver Omni extends it to Outlook and other channels.

The catch: it is priced like a help desk while living in Gmail. For a two-person team, Gmail labels may do the same job for nothing. Our shared inbox software comparison covers Hiver next to the other in-inbox tools.

What five agents pay in year one

Calculated from the list prices above (price × 5 agents × 12 months), before taxes, add-ons, and AI features. InboxPilot is one flat plan price rather than per agent. HubSpot is left out because its free plan stops at 2 users.

What to look for in small business help desk software

1. Email intake that fits your mailbox. Ask how your existing address gets in: forwarding, a connected mailbox, or an add-on. On Microsoft 365, automatic forwarding to outside addresses is blocked by default, so forwarding-based help desks need an admin to allow it (Help Scout docs).
2. The limit on the free plan that you will hit first. Help Scout's is one inbox, Zoho Desk's is three users, HubSpot's is two.
3. Per-agent pricing against how many people answer. If five people answer occasionally, per-seat pricing charges you for five full agents.
4. How AI is billed. Several help desks now charge AI answers per resolution on top of seats. Help Scout's AI Answers add-on, for example, is priced per resolution (Help Scout pricing).
5. Reporting you will actually read. Response time and open-ticket count are the two numbers most small teams need. Everything else is optional.

Which to choose

Whatever you choose, answer every new request quickly, even if the full reply takes longer. Our email acknowledgment templates cover what that first reply should say.

Related reading

• Customer service email automation: support replies drafted from your orders and policies, approved by a person.
• Email ticketing system for Gmail and Outlook: five ways to track customer email, from free labels to help desks.
• Shared inbox vs help desk: the signs you have outgrown shared email, and what each path costs.
• Best shared inbox software: ten tools compared on platform support and year-one cost.
• How to acknowledge an email: 15 templates for the first reply.

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Prices checked on each vendor's pricing page on 2026-09-23 and stated per user or agent per month unless noted. Vendors change plans often, so confirm before buying.