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As your business and customer base expand, having a help desk ticketing system becomes increasingly necessary for your customer support operation to run successfully. Without one, your team simply cannot swiftly and efficiently handle customer queries, requests, and incident reports that continue to pile up on different channels.
While help desk software is not in the HR space, we find that many of our readers are asking us about these solutions and so wanted to provide some research so they can find and buy the right ticketing system :)
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Vendors Reviewed
Our criteria: How we chose the best vendors
We take our research seriously and want to make sure we are presenting our readers with the very best solutions in a given software category. Here's how we select vendors to be in our buyer guides:
- Product: We want to have a deep understanding of a vendor's product before recommending it. This usually means getting a demo by a senior executive (their CEO, head of product, etc), and/or using the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best in class offering.
- User feedback: We do our best to understand what users say when they experience this product. User input allows us to accomplish a more thorough due diligence of products, put new vendors on our radar, and generally make sure we are presenting the right products to our readers.
- Financial metrics: We are very much finance nerds and so use a product's retention rates, growth, profitability, and scale to understand whether or not it is truly best in class.
- Best for a use case: Sometimes the best solution is the cheapest, the best tool for international companies, or the best for startups. We try to include a diversity of solutions so that our readers can find the tool that is best for what they need.
Here's more detail if you want to read further on how we research vendors.
In this guide you'll find
Featured in
Top 12 IT Help Desk Ticketing Systems
There are several IT help desk solutions on the market today, each with different selling features and price points. In this article, we’ve listed the best help desk software solutions available for businesses of all sizes to help you make an informed decision:
Why we love it
:
Freshdesk is a scalable solution for companies of any size. It packs strong features, including one for gamification to encourage agents to improve their output.
Freshdesk
Review:
Freshdesk is a highly scalable, cloud-based help desk system for businesses of all sizes. It features a shared inbox where all customer support tickets from several channels are collated, customizable workflows, automated pop-ups that help deflect common customer queries, and comprehensive dashboards to monitor quality metrics. Freshdesk also offers a team huddle feature that allows you to bring in experts to resolve complex tickets, as well as a gamification feature to motivate agents and improve their performance.
Freshdesk
Customers:
Fiverr, HP, Decathlon, Panasonic, NYU, Henkel, Pearson, Thai Union, American Express.
Freshdesk
Stats:
- Trusted by over 40,000 customers around the world
- Freshworks is among the Top 25 cloud companies to work for
Freshdesk
Pricing:
Freshdesk offers four plans: Free, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. The free plan is ideal for small businesses to get started with help desk software. The Growth, Pro, and Enterprise plans range from $15-18 to $79-95 per agent per month, depending on if you go with monthly or annual billing. All Freshdesk plans can be trialed for free for a 21-day period. Also, the enterprise plan offers 5000 bot sessions per month.
Best For:
Companies of all sizes looking for a comprehensive customer support solution.
Worth Checking Out:
Freshdesk isn’t classified as an IT service management (ITSM) solution. The company, Freshworks, offers another tool for that called Freshservice, which is more suitable for enterprise-level businesses. Visit Freshwork’s website for more information about their offerings.
Why we love it
:
Like most products within the Freshworks Inc. family, Freshservice is a robust, comprehensive, and easy-to-use product with a very intuitive interface.
Freshservice
Review:
Freshservice is a cloud-based IT service management (ITSM) solution with a modern and user-friendly interface. Made specifically with enterprises in mind, Freshservice is ideal for companies looking for an ITIL-compliant solution with features for change management, incident management, release management, and much more.
Freshservice
Customers:
NHS, M&C Saatchi, TeamViewer, Honda, Judson University
Freshservice
Stats:
- Freshservice customers see a 308% ROI
- Over 40,000 customers use Freshservice
Freshservice
Pricing:
- Starter: This plan costs $19 per agent per month and is billed annually.
- Growth: This plan costs $49 per agent per month and is billed annually.
- Pro: This plan costs $89 per agent per month and is billed annually.
- Enterprise: This plan costs $109 per agent per month and is billed annually.
Best For:
Freshservice can be used by companies of all sizes due to their tiered pricing but it is mainly geared towards enterprises. Small and medium-sized companies with less complex needs are recommended to use Freshdesk, Freshworks’ help desk solution.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
LiveAgent is a simple customer support solution. Their native live chat is easily accessible via a widget that integrates smoothly with your websites and apps, allowing you to connect with customers instantaneously.
LiveAgent
Review:
LiveAgent is a customer service solution with a clean and user-friendly interface. It features a unified inbox where all customer support tickets are collected from different channels then assigned and prioritized according to your predefined workflows. Its native live chat is easily accessible via a widget that integrates smoothly with your websites and apps, allowing you to connect with customers instantaneously. LiveAgent also offers a knowledge base that empowers customers to self-serve, a built-in call center with IVR and unlimited call recording storage, and over 40 third-party integrations with popular solutions.
LiveAgent
Customers:
Huawei, BMW, Yamaha, O2, Slido, Forbes, AirBus.
LiveAgent
Stats:
- 3,000+ reviews on top comparison websites
- LiveAgent integrates with multiple communication channels and offers nearly 200 features.
LiveAgent
Pricing:
LiveAgent offers a free plan with some limitations on the features that can be accessed and three paid plans with feature increases, competitively priced as follows:
- Ticket: $15 per agent per month for LiveAgent’s ticketing solution.
- Ticket+Chat: $29 per agent per month for access to LiveAgent’s ticketing solution and live chat.
- All-inclusive: $39 per agent per month for all of LiveAgent’s features without any limits.
Best For:
Companies of all sizes looking for an affordable and easy to use customer support solution.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
ServiceDesk Plus is a very comprehensive ITSM solution that’s trusted by some of the thousands of businesses, including 9/10 of Fortune 100 companies.
ServiceDesk Plus
Review:
ServiceDesk Plus is a full-stack service management platform with both cloud and on-premise deployment options. With features for incident management, problem management, change management, and much more, ServiceDesk Plus provides midsize and large companies with great visibility and control over their IT issues to ensure that they suffer no downtime.
ServiceDesk Plus
Customers:
Disney, Honda, ABC, Etihad Airways, RBS, Dell, Siemens
ServiceDesk Plus
Stats:
- Used by over 180,000 companies around the world, including 9/10 of Fortune 100 companies
- 3,000,000+admins
ServiceDesk Plus
Pricing:
ServiceDesk Plus has 3 plans: Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. The pricing of those plans isn’t disclosed upfront. Contact ServiceDesk Plus’ sales team to get a custom quote.
Best For
ServiceDesk Plus is best for midsize and large companies.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
ProProf covers most of what you’d expect from a help desk at a price point that’s quite competitive. Not only that, but their fixed plans can be tried for free for up to 15 days - no credit card required, with a 15-day money-back guarantee upon signup.
ProProfs
Review:
ProProfs’ Help Desk helps companies provide support to their customers in a timely and efficient manner. It features shared inboxes that centralize support tickets in a single location and enable collaboration. It can also enhance agent and manager productivity by automating certain processes such as ticket assignment and response sending. Other notable features include ticket labeling, internal notes, custom fields and filters, and reporting and analytics.
ProProfs
Customers:
ProProfs customer list includes several well-known brands such as Dell, Sony, Cisco, DHL, and Yale Univesity.
ProProfs
Stats:
ProProfs
Pricing:
ProProfs Help Desk is offered in three pricing tiers. When billed annually, these tiers cost as follows:
- Essentials: This plan costs $10 per user per month and allows for unlimited tickets, up to 3 inboxes, 3 teams/departments, and 1 year of trackable ticket history. This plan also offers access to crucial ticketing features such as canned responses, internal ticket labels and notes, and basic reporting.
- Premium: This plan costs $15 per user per month and packs everything in the Essential plan, along with automatic ticket routing, white-labeled responses, advanced reporting, custom fields, and more.
- Enterprise: This plan has custom pricing and provides access to all features in the Premium plan, topping them with dedicated customer success, unlimited inboxes, teams, and trackable ticket history.
Note: ProProfs has other pricing schemes for customers who wish to combine the help desk solution with ProProf’s live chat. Visit the pricing page to learn more.
Best For
While companies of all sizes can derive value from ProProfs offering, we feel that it is best suited for SMBs.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Created by Atlassian, Jira Service Management is a fantastic customer service solution with thousands of integrations, ensuring it can fit well in any tech stack.
Jira Service Desk
Review:
Created by Atlassian, Jira Service Management is a collaborative IT service management (ITSM) solution that enables your support team to create multiple projects to track and handle customer support requests and incidents.
Jira Service Desk
Customers:
Dominos, Square, Puppet, Twitter, Airbnb, Square, Sotheby’s, The Telegraph.
Jira Service Desk
Stats:
Jira Service Desk
Pricing:
Jira Service Management offers a three-tiered pricing structure with its Free, Standard, and Premium plans. The Free plan offers access to a good number of the platform’s features and is capped at three agent accounts. The Standard and Premium plans start at $10 and $40 per agent per month and can be trialed for up to 7 days for free. Visiting Jira Service Management’s pricing page for more information.
Best For
Companies of all sizes looking for a robust customer service and project management system.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Zendesk is arguably the most well-known customer support software available today. Among its features are integrated surveys to measure customer satisfaction and analytics dashboards to monitor your team’s performance.
Zendesk
Review:
Zendesk is a cloud-based customer support solution that allows you to receive, prioritize, and handle customer support requests from different channels including email, chat, and social media, all in one centralized and shared location.
With the help of triggers, you’re able to automatically assign and escalate tickets to specific groups, send automated responses and follow-ups, notify customers and agents of certain updates and tag certain tickets for easy reporting and information retrieval. Among Zendesk’s features are also integrated surveys to measure customer satisfaction and analytics dashboards to monitor your team’s performance.
Zendesk
Customers:
Mailchimp, Uber, Khan Academy
Zendesk
Stats:
Zendesk
Pricing:
Zendesk offers five paid plans: Essential, Team, Professional, Enterprise, and Elite. These plans cater to different business sizes and range from $5 to $199 per agent per month, billed annually.
To find out which plan suits your business, visit Zendesk’s pricing page. You can sign up for a free 14-day trial or contact Zendesk’s team for a demo.
Best For
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
JitBit is a provider of both self-hosted and cloud-based help desk ticketing solutions that are feature-rich, easy to use and very friendly to third-party integrations.
JitBit
Review:
JitBit is a customer service software with a clean user-interface that’s very easy to navigate; it has an inbox for all incoming tickets, a knowledge base for customers and agents to self-serve, and a reporting section with detailed dashboards, providing insights into all of your activities. Amongst JitBit’s features are automation rules and categories that allow you to stay organized and optimize a good number of tedious processes.
JitBit
Customers:
Microsoft, VMware, Adobe, Xerox, General Electric, HP, ESPN, Dell, Vodafone.
JitBit
Stats:
- Over 63,000,000 tickets have been managed through JitBit
- JitBit integrates with 500+ applications
JitBit
Pricing:
When billed annually, JitBit’s cloud-based software plans cost as follows:
- Freelancer: costs $24.92 and is capped at 1 agent only.
- Startup: costs $58.25 for up to 4 agents.
- Company: costs $108.25 for up to 7 agents.
- Enterprise: costs $208.25 for up to 9 agents, with $29 per extra agent.
JitBit’s self-hosted version is a single-time purchase starting at $1699 for small companies, $3499 for medium-sized businesses (up to 20 agents), and $4999 for enterprises with an unlimited number of agent accounts. This on-premise solution can be trialed with a 30-day moneyback guarantee.
Best For
Medium to large sized companies looking for a self-hosted customer service solution.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Vision Helpdesk’s support solutions are offered over several pricing tiers and different deployment option, covering the diverse needs of companies large and small.
Vision Helpdesk
Review:
Vision Helpdesk is an affordable ticketing solution that companies of all sizes can derive value from. It collects customer queries and incident reports from multiple sources and pools them - in the form of tickets - into a shared inbox that your support agents can respond to and solve. Among Vision Helpdesk’s features are task management, gamification, workflow automation, SLA and escalation rules, knowledge base creation, community forums, and surveys. It also features a collaboration tool called Blabby, for agents to communicate, share knowledge, files, presentations, and collaborate on ticket issues.
Vision Helpdesk
Customers:
Vision Helpdesk has been used by over 20,000 companies, including Thomas Cook, Invest India, Baroda Mutual Fund, Quick Heal, AxisRooms, and more.
Vision Helpdesk
Stats:
Vision Helpdesk
Pricing:
Vision Helpdesk has four products: Help Desk Software (a multi-channel help desk), Satellite Help Desk (a multi-brand help desk), Service Desk (an IT service management solution), and Live Chat Software (an online chat solution). The pricing of those products depends on how you choose to deploy them. For the cloud-based version, the 4 products are priced as follows:
1- Help Desk Software:
- Starter: $12 per agent per month billed annually / $15 per agent billed month to month
- Pro: $ 20 per agent per month billed annually / $25 per agent billed month to month
2- Satellite Help Desk Software:
- $24 per agent per month billed annually / $30 per agent billed month to month
3- Service Desk Software:
- Pro: $32 per agent per month billed annually / $40 per agent billed month to month
- Ent: $48 per agent per month billed annually / $60 per agent billed month to month
4- Live Chat Software:
Visit Vision Helpdesk’s pricing page to learn how much the above products cost if you opt for the self-hosted (on-premise) version, available on a per-agent per month bases or single license per agent (one-time purchase).
Best For
Vision Helpdesk can be used by companies of all sizes.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Spiceworks is perhaps the only vendor in this space to offer both cloud-based and on-premise versions of their help desk ticketing system, completely free of charge.
Spiceworks
Review:
Spiceworks is a free of charge ticketing system with cloud-based and on-premise deployment options and mobile apps for Android and iOS devices. Spiceworks packs all the features you’d expect from a help desk ticketing system, like omnichannel support, automatic ticket assignment and management, a self-service portal, and more - all without any limitations on the number of agent accounts, customers tickets, data storage, etc.
Spiceworks
Customers:
Spiceworks
Stats:
Spiceworks
Pricing:
As far as pricing goes, Spiceworks stands out from competitors by offering all of its products for free. The company makes its profit from ads that appear in the backend and are sponsored by numerous IT vendors.
Best For
Small and medium sized companies looking for a FREE customer support solution with cloud-based and on-premise versions.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
With standout features such as customer journeys and collaboration, Kayako is a great choice for companies of all sizes to gain better context about customers.
Kayako
Review:
Kayako is a user-friendly customer support solution with cloud-based and on-premise deployment options. It packs many of the common features of ticketing systems such as omnichannel support for incident logging, live chat, a help center for self-service, an analytics dashboard, integrations with social media channels, and popular third-party tools, customizable business logic rules for workflow creation, process automations and more.
Kayako also offers some standout features such as customer journeys, a detailed record of everything the customer has been up to before logging a support ticket, which allows you to provide context-driven customer service. Another notable feature is the ability to add collaborators, i.e. other employees besides your customer support agents and managers that can access customer data.
Kayako
Customers:
GeneralElectric, Warner Bros, Toshiba, FedEx, Sega, Peugeut, MTV.
Kayako
Stats:
Over 131,000 agents provide support using Kayako.
Kayako
Pricing:
Kayako offers three plans: Inbox, Growth, and Scale. The Inbox plan starts at $15 per agent per month, while the Growth and Scale plans cost $30 and $60 respectively per agent per month.
Kayako also offers free 14-day trials for all of its plans as well as demos upon request. Check out Kayako’s pricing page for more information on their available plans and features.
Best For
Companies of all sizes looking for an easy to use customer support solution.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Geared mostly towards medium and large companies, HappyFox is a customer support solution that's highly customizable, easy to use and quick to set.
HappyFox
Review:
HappyFox is a web-based help desk that’s most notable for its easy and quick set-up. It integrates with several points of contact to collect tickets and organize them neatly on its Ticket List page. Tickets can be automatically assigned to available agents or specific groups and escalated to experts as needed.
HappyFox offers users customizability options to create workflows, views, canned actions, tasks, reports, and more. It also offers a self-service portal that’s connected to your knowledge base and an AI-powered Chatbot that helps customers with common questions, taking a considerable weight off your support agents’ workload.
HappyFox
Customers:
Lowe’s, Whirlpool, LeapFrog, Harbour Air Seaplanes, Planned Parenthood.
HappyFox
Stats:
HappyFox
Pricing:
HappyFox offers four pricing plans, Mighty, Fantastic, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus. Mighty and Fantastic target small and medium-sized businesses and start at $29 and $49 per agent per month, while Enterprise and Enterprise plus are more geared toward larger operations.
Best For
Medium to large sized companies looking for an easy to use customer service solution.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
OneDesk helps small businesses improve the way they handle daily customer support and project management processes. The platform is affordable and easy to use with little to no training required.
OneDesk
Review:
OneDesk combines the capabilities of a help desk and project management tools into a single, easy-to-use platform. Their help desk solution allows you to easily support your customers by capturing, responding to, and managing customer queries, issue reports and service requests, and their project management solution facilitates seamless communication and collaboration between team members, increasing productivity and ensuring deliverables are completed on time.
OneDesk is cloud-based, but they do have an on-premise version that can be installed on your own servers, AWS or MS Azure. Do note that a minimum of 1 year commitment is required to use OneDesk on premise.
OneDesk
Customers:
The Freelance Firm, Rocket Industrial
OneDesk
Stats:
OneDesk
Pricing:
OneDesk’s pricing is very simple. They have one plan that includes all of the platform’s features, and this plan costs $9 per user per month when billed annually ($11 per user per month when billed monthly.) This price is for employee accounts. Customer accounts are free of charge, without any limits on how many customers you can add. Free 2-week trials are available.
Best For
Small companies that need to elevate their support and project management efforts with software.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
SolarWinds Service Desk has one of the widest feature sets in IT service management, complete with a 30 day free trial to ensure you like it before you buy.
SolarWinds
Review:
SolarWinds Service Desk is an IT service management (ITSM) solution that goes beyond just ticketing and incident management. Besides allowing you to assign, prioritize and escalate tickets collected from different sources, it offers features for self-service, live chat, scheduled reporting, asset management, change management, network discovery, API access, and more.
SolarWinds
Customers:
Adler Planetarium, The Bloc, DPR Construction, Betfred.
SolarWinds
Stats:
SolarWinds
Pricing:
SolarWinds Service Desk offers a tiered pricing model of four plans that can be tested for free for up to 30 days. When billed annually, SolarWinds Service Desk’s plans cost as follows:
- Team: $19 per agent per month with an additional $0.10 per device per month
- Business: $39 per agent per month with an additional $0.30 per device per month
- Professional: $69 per agent per month with an additional $0.50 per device per month
- Enterprise: $89 per agent per month with an additional $0.70 per device per month
Best For
Medium to large companies looking for an ITSM solution with asset management capabilities.
Worth Checking Out:
Besides Service Desk, SolarWinds also offers Web Help Desk, a robust on-premise help desk solution that you can purchase a perpetual license of, once only. Visit SolarWinds’ website for more information on their ITSM and help desk solutions.
Why we love it
:
Zoho is a provider of all sorts of business solutions that are affordable yet on par with the market’s leading offerings. Zoho Projects exemplifies this, being a feature-rich project management product that’s robust, intuitive, and budget friendly.
Zoho Desk
Review:
Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk software that allows you to provide context-driven support. It provides comprehensive features and workflows for ticket management, assignment, categorization, prioritization, escalation, and more. It also features a knowledge base for ticket deflection through self-service, as well as easy-to-use dashboards to track quality metrics such as customer satisfaction and overall team performance.
Zoho Desk
Customers:
McAfee, Daimler, Lycamobile, Godrej, Essilor.
Zoho Desk
Stats:
- Zoho Desk offers 24/7 support without a global team
- Zoho Desk was featured in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC), 2020
Zoho Desk
Pricing:
Zoho Desk stands out from competitors by offering affordable plans, ranging from free (with a reasonable limit of three users) to $35 per agent per month billed annually.
- Zoho Desk’s most popular plan, i.e. Zoho Professional, includes several feature additions and goes for a competitive price of $20 per agent per month when billed annually.
- Their most comprehensive plan, i.e. Zoho Enterprise, is on par with most top-tier plans by other providers in terms of features and goes for a significantly low price of $35 per agent per month billed annually.
Best For
Companies of all sizes looking for a comprehensive yet affordable customer support solution.
Worth Checking Out:
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Final Advice
Choosing a help desk ticketing system can be a long process, but we’re confident you’ll make a good selection if you:
- Carefully consider your needs and budget and make purchases accordingly.
- Sign up for a trial period to experience the help desk first-hand and see if it’s the right fit for you.
- Schedule demos with different help desk vendors to get all of your questions answered
Top IT Help Desk Ticketing Systems
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