Help Scout vs Freshchat

Two customer support tools side by side. Prices are the starting plan a small business would pick, in USD.

Compare	Help ScoutHelp Scout	FreshchatFreshworks
In one line	Shared inbox that feels like email, plus a help center	Live chat, WhatsApp, and chatbots in one inbox
Starting price	From $25/person	From $19/person
Six-person team	$150/mo	$114/mo
Plans	Free (5 users, 100 contacts/mo); Standard $25/user/mo; Plus $45/user/mo; Pro $75/user/mo; 16% off annual	Free up to 10 agents; Growth $19/agent/mo; Pro $49/agent/mo; Enterprise $79/agent/mo, billed annually; extra bot sessions $49 per 100
Pricing model	Free tier	Free tier
Free trial	15 days	14 days
Users	Per user; 5 on free	Per agent
Integrations	Shopify, HubSpot, Slack, Jira, 100+	Freshdesk, Shopify, WhatsApp, Instagram, Slack
Team size	2–10 people · 11–50 people	2–10 people · 11–50 people
Available in	US · UK · CA · AU	US · UK · CA · AU
Phone support	None listed	Plans not stated
Live chat	None listed	None listed
Support hours	Not published	Not published
Incidents posted	6 incidents posted on Help Scout's status page in the 90 days to Oct 27, 2026; 0 marked major or critical by Help Scout. Status page	Freshworks has a public status page. Status page
Capterra score	4.6 / 5 from 226 reviews	4.2 / 5 from 178 reviews
Trustpilot score	3.0 / 5 from 40 reviews	Not listed
Fit: Retail shop	60	65
Fit: Restaurant or café	40	45
Fit: Service business	80	75
Fit: Agency or studio	75	65
Fit: Trades or contractor	55	50
Fit: Online store	90	88
Why people pick it	Simple for the team Docs site included	WhatsApp and social DMs in one place Free tier to start
Where it falls short	Per-user pricing adds up Light on automation	Bot sessions cost extra Needs Freshdesk for proper ticketing
	Visit Help Scout ↗	Visit Freshchat ↗

Six-person prices are what a team of six would pay on the published plans; "Not listed" means those plans don't cover six. How we calculate prices

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