Kayako Alternatives

Freshdesk is the closest match to what Kayako One does, with a price you can read before you talk to anyone. It is a ticketing help desk: customer emails become tickets in a shared inbox, with threads and tasks, roles and permissions, a customer portal, a knowledge base and ready-made reports on every plan. Growth costs $19 per agent a month billed annually, or $23 billed monthly. Pro, at $55 annually or $66 monthly, adds multiple SLA policies and external collaborators. Enterprise, at $89 annually or $107 monthly, adds audit logs and IP whitelisting for teams with security reviews.

On AI, every plan comes with the first 500 sessions of Freddy AI Agent, the bot that answers customers. That allowance is a one-time offer per account, not a monthly one: once it is spent, extra sessions cost $49 per 100, so $0.49 a session. Freddy AI Copilot, the assistant that drafts replies for agents, is listed as an add-on on Pro and Enterprise at $29 per agent a month on annual billing or $35 monthly, and day passes do not cover it. Day passes ($2 on Growth, $7 on Pro, $12 on Enterprise) let occasional agents log in during a peak without a full seat. There is no cancellation fee, but a cancellation only takes effect at the end of the term you paid for.

The trade-off is the add-on menu. The headline seat is low, but a 10-agent team on Pro with Copilot pays ($55 + $29) x 10 = $840 a month on annual billing. Put the add-ons you will really use in the quote before you compare it with Kayako, check the Freshdesk Zapier integrations for the apps you connect today, and read our guide to switching away from Freshdesk to see what pushes its own customers out.

Help Scout is the alternative for teams that found Kayako heavier than they needed. Conversations look like email threads rather than numbered tickets. Behind that simple face sit shared inboxes, saved replies, workflows, a Docs knowledge base, a Beacon chat widget and reporting. The free plan covers up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts a month, enough to see whether the way it works suits you.

Paid plans cost $25 per user a month for Standard, $45 for Plus and $75 for Pro, on annual billing, which saves 16% against monthly. Standard includes 2 inboxes, Plus 5 and Pro 10; each extra inbox costs $10 a month on annual billing or $12 monthly, and each extra Docs site $20. Plus adds round-robin routing, two advanced SLA policies, a secure customer portal, internal teams and conversations grouped by company; Pro adds unlimited workflows and SLA policies, SSO and HIPAA compliance. The AI agent, Envoy, is billed per resolution at $0.75, at most once per conversation, and every new account gets 3 months of free, unlimited Envoy resolutions. You can set a monthly cap: when it is reached, Envoy switches off until the next cycle, so the AI bill never surprises you.

The limit is the user cap on each plan. Standard stops at 25 users and one basic SLA policy, Plus at 50 users; unlimited users need Pro, which you buy through a demo with a 10-user minimum. A 30-agent team therefore starts on Plus, at 30 x $45 = $1,350 a month on annual billing, not on Standard. Our Help Scout alternatives page covers the tools teams move to when they outgrow it, and the Help Scout Zapier integrations show what it connects to.

Intercom is the Kayako alternative for teams that bought into the idea behind Kay and want it inside a full messaging platform. Its Fin AI Agent answers customers in chat, email and other channels, takes actions through your systems and hands off to the inbox when it cannot finish. Fin costs $0.99 per outcome, just under Kay's $1 per resolved ticket, charged at most once per conversation and refunded if the conversation is reopened, and it can also run on an existing help desk such as Salesforce, HubSpot or Freshdesk, with a minimum monthly commitment of about 50 outcomes.

Seats are billed on top. Essential is listed at $29 per seat a month, with new customers paying $19 on annual billing, a 35% saving. Advanced, at $85 per seat on annual billing, adds multiple team inboxes and workflow automation; Expert, at $132, adds SSO, identity management and HIPAA support. Copilot, the assistant inside the inbox, is free for 10 conversations per agent a month, then costs $29 per agent a month billed annually or $35 monthly. Intercom states there are no setup, integration or platform fees, and Essential and Advanced can be bought monthly or yearly without a contract. Startups with under $10M raised and 15 employees or fewer can apply to Early Stage, which takes up to 93% off.

The catch is the double meter. A 5-seat team on Advanced with 1,000 Fin outcomes a month pays 5 x $85 + 1,000 x $0.99 = $1,415 a month. Model your resolution volume before you sign; our guide to leaving Intercom lists the options teams pick when that bill climbs.

Zoho Desk gives you a real ticketing help desk for the price of a sandwich per agent, and a free edition with three user licenses for email ticketing. Express costs $7 per user a month on annual billing, or $9 monthly, and covers email, social and web-form tickets, workflows, multi-level escalations and contact management. Standard, at $14 annually or $20 monthly, adds the knowledge base, a community forum, an answer bot, instant messaging and custom reports and dashboards. Professional, the most popular plan, costs $23 annually or $35 monthly and adds telephony, Zia AI, round-robin assignment, custom actions and webhooks. Enterprise, at $40 annually or $50 monthly, adds live chat through Zoho SalesIQ, skill-based assignment and a multi-brand help center. Zoho advertises savings of up to 34% on yearly billing.

The strongest argument is the Zoho ecosystem. If your sales team already lives in Zoho CRM, tickets, deals and contacts share the same records. Watch the plan line: Express has no knowledge base, so a team that publishes help articles starts on Standard, and phone or webhooks need Professional.

The trade-off is polish. The interface packs many settings into many menus, and support quality depends on your plan. A 10-agent team on Professional pays $230 a month on annual billing; put an afternoon aside to configure it properly. Our Zoho review covers the wider suite, our Zoho Desk alternatives page compares it with its rivals, and the Zoho Desk Zapier integrations show what you can connect.

HappyFox is a ticketing help desk with one feature none of the other six offers: plans with unlimited agents for a flat fee. That matters to teams leaving Kayako after a seat count grew faster than the budget. Agent-based plans start with Basic at $24 per agent a month on annual billing, $29 monthly or $21 on a two-year term, capped at 5 agents. Team costs $49 annually or $69 monthly and Pro $99 annually or $119 monthly, with no agent cap.

The unlimited-agent plans are billed annually or on a two-year term. Growth costs $1,999 a month on annual billing with 20,000 tickets a year, Scale $3,999 with 150,000 tickets, and extra tickets cost $0.01 to $0.03 each depending on the plan. HappyFox points these plans at teams above about 20 to 25 agents. Every annual Help Desk subscription includes free white-glove migration, with no minimum agent count, which removes the most painful part of leaving Kayako. Web messaging, AI, workflows and BI are separate products with their own pricing, and the 14-day trial is requested through the demo form.

The catch is Basic's cap: a sixth agent pushes you to Team, so a 6-agent team pays 6 x $49 = $294 a month on annual billing, not 6 x $24. Size the plan for next year's headcount, and check the HappyFox Help Desk automations on Make if you connect it to other tools.

LiveAgent is the cheapest way on this page to put email, live chat, phone and social messages in one ticketing inbox. Starter, for up to 5 agents answering email and chat, costs $11 per agent a month on annual billing at its current, time-limited offer price, against a regular $15; monthly, it is $15. It has no social channels, call center or reporting. Team, for up to 15 agents on every channel with phone included, costs $22 on annual billing (regular $29) or $26 monthly. Business, for any team size with more AI agents and MCP, costs $38 annually (regular $49) or $44 monthly. Enterprise is a flat $3,199 a month on annual billing with 80 agents included.

Its AI model is different from Kayako's. LiveAgent lets you plug in the AI provider you choose and pay that provider directly, at its prices; LiveAgent adds no fee on top. It puts a typical AI chat at about $0.11 at the provider, against $1 per resolved ticket for Kay; that $0.11 is its median, and its own estimate for 300 chats runs from $33 at the median to $81 at the average. LiveAgent also states that a plan keeps its price, offer included, for as long as you keep it, and that there is no setup fee and no long-term commitment.

The trade-off is the interface, which feels older than Help Scout or Intercom. Phone calls are not billed by LiveAgent: the call center runs on your own phone provider, which bills numbers and minutes. A 10-agent team on Team pays $220 a month on annual billing. The LiveAgent Zapier integrations fill most gaps.

Zendesk is the reference help desk, and the one most guides list first when someone asks what to replace Kayako with. Its strengths are depth and scale: automations and triggers, skills-based routing, a marketplace of 1,800+ apps, partners and integrations, and messaging, live chat and telephony in one workspace. Support Team costs $19 per agent a month billed annually and covers the email ticketing system. Suite Team, at $55, adds AI agents, an AI knowledge base, omnichannel routing, messaging, live chat and telephony; Suite Professional, at $115, adds skills-based routing, an IVR phone tree and AI quick reports.

AI is billed by automated resolution, drawn from a dollar allowance included in the plan: $2 per agent seat a month on Support Team and Suite Team, $5 on Suite Professional, $10 on Enterprise, capped at $5,000 a year. Only resolutions an AI check verifies draw on it; resolutions bought ahead cost less than overage, which is billed monthly whatever your contract term. Its plan comparison lists automated resolutions at $1.50 each when committed ahead and $2.00 pay-as-you-go, against Kay's $1; that table counts the included allowance as 5 resolutions per agent a month (10 on Suite Professional), while the help center gives it in dollars, so ask which model your contract uses. Copilot, the agent assistant, is an add-on at $50 per agent a month billed annually, and Zendesk lists add-ons such as Workforce Engagement at $50 and Contact Center at $83 per agent a month paid yearly.

That is why it ranks last here despite its depth: the features large teams want sit on Suite Professional at $115, and Copilot adds $50. A 20-agent team on Suite Professional with Copilot pays 20 x ($115 + $50) = $3,300 a month on annual billing, before extra resolutions. Qualified startups can get up to 2 years of Zendesk free. Our full Zendesk review details each plan, and our Zendesk alternatives page lists the other options.