Zendesk is never your best option for small companies on a decent funds. It’s expensive, far more advanced than what you want at this stage, and infrequently requires technical help to arrange. So earlier than you subscribe to Zendesk, it’s value having a look at the very best free Zendesk options.
The eight instruments under are simpler to make use of than Zendesk and are all accessible at a value everybody can afford — free!
Assist Scout has one of the crucial beneficiant free plans of all buyer help instruments in the marketplace. With it, you possibly can add limitless customers at no further price and ship help by way of electronic mail, chat, self-service, and social. You get entry to all of Assist Scout’s AI options in its free plan, and you’ll even combine with instruments like Shopify, Slack, and Aircall.
Free plan options
Limitless customers: As a small enterprise, you may not but have a devoted help workforce. With Assist Scout, that’s no drawback. You possibly can add everybody in your organization as a person and nonetheless use the platform totally free.
Omnichannel help: Assist Scout has built-in instruments for electronic mail, stay chat, and self-service help. If it is advisable to present help on different channels, you possibly can combine with apps like Instagram, Messenger, Aircall, and Talkdesk. Your entire help requests from all channels go right into a central shared inbox.
AI with no add-on charges: Most help platforms cost further if you wish to use their AI options. With Assist Scout, you get entry to all of its AI options — together with chatbots, translations, and sensible drafts — on the free plan.
Productiveness instruments: Create as much as 10 workflows to robotically route requests to the suitable place, add tags, and far more. Construct saved replies to reply FAQs in simply a few clicks, and use keyboard shortcuts to carry out frequent actions shortly.
Collaboration instruments: Distinguished collision detection alerts forestall a number of customers from engaged on the identical dialog on the identical time. You may as well go away non-public notes on buyer conversations to collaborate as a workforce on replies.
Group instruments: Create views to group conversations into lists, add tags to label and kind conversations, and snooze conversations you wish to reply to at a later date/time.
What’s included?
Assist Scout’s free plan consists of as much as 100 contacts monthly, limitless customers, one shared inbox, one stay chat widget, one assist heart, 10 views, 100 tags, 10 saved replies, 10 workflows, and reporting for 30 days of knowledge.
Get began with Assist Scout:
In case you’ve been utilizing Google Workspace for help and also you just like the interface, Hiver could be a superb possibility to contemplate. It really works as an add-on to Gmail, providing you with further options to assist your workforce collaborate extra simply on help requests. It’s additionally one of many few help instruments that, like Assist Scout, helps you to add limitless customers on the free plan.
Free plan options
Limitless customers: Add everybody at your organization to your Hiver shared inbox with no further prices.
Limitless tickets: There are not any limits to the variety of help requests you possibly can obtain or reply to on Hiver’s free plan.
Omnichannel help: Hiver’s free plan consists of channels for electronic mail, stay chat, WhatsApp, and telephone help, and you can too create a data base.
Collaboration instruments: Share draft replies with different workforce members to collaborate on them earlier than sending, and add collaborators or create permalinks to share requests and replies with individuals who don’t have Hiver accounts.
Group instruments: Create shared and private views to prepare requests into lists that present solely the inquiries it is advisable to see.
What’s included?
Hiver’s free plan consists of limitless customers and tickets, one shared electronic mail inbox, one tag, one electronic mail template, and its Slack integration. AI options usually are not included in Hiver’s free plan.
HubSpot Service Hub is an efficient possibility for small buyer success groups that must collaborate with gross sales groups that work in HubSpot CRM. Whereas its free plan options are fairly restricted, it affords sufficient of the fundamentals — like electronic mail and stay chat help — to allow you to simply handle buyer requests when you’re within the early levels of constructing out your division.
Free plan options
Two customers: You possibly can add as much as two customers on HubSpot’s free plan.
Limitless help requests: There are not any limits to the variety of help requests you possibly can obtain or reply to on Service Hub’s free plan.
E mail, chat, and social help: Create a shared workforce inbox, publish a stay chat widget with HubSpot branding, and combine with Fb Messenger.
Information base: Publish a data base that incorporates as much as 5 articles.
Productiveness options: Create as much as three canned snippets and three electronic mail templates, and get a restricted model of HubSpot’s chatbot for routing clients to the suitable workforce member or data base article.
What’s included?
HubSpot Service Hub’s free plan consists of two customers, limitless tickets, a shared inbox, a stay chat widget, its Fb Messenger integration, 5 data base articles, three canned snippets, three electronic mail templates, and a restricted model of its chatbot.
Zoho Desk is an efficient free different to Zendesk for small groups that want service-level agreements and solely supply electronic mail help. Whereas just one SLA is included on the free plan, that could be sufficient for a workforce of not more than three individuals (the restrict on Zoho Desk’s free plan).
Free plan options
Three customers: You possibly can add as much as three customers on Zoho Desk’s free plan.
Limitless help requests: There are not any limits to the variety of help requests you possibly can obtain or reply to on Zoho Desk’s free plan.
E mail and self-service help: Create one shared inbox and one assist heart. Get versioning in your assist heart articles to see modifications made to articles over time. Depart inner notes on electronic mail tickets to collaborate together with your workforce privately.
Service-level settlement: Create one SLA on the free plan. You even have the flexibility to pause the SLA counter on tickets which might be blocked.
What’s included?
Zoho Desk’s free plan can be utilized by as much as three brokers to reply limitless inquiries and consists of one electronic mail inbox, non-public notes, as much as 10 tags per ticket, one assist heart, one contact kind, two macros, one SLA, and data base article versioning.
In case you solely have one particular person at your organization doing your entire buyer help, ProProfs Assist Desk is an efficient possibility. The one-user restrict is the one restrict on the plan; you get limitless entry to all of its different options, together with options you received’t discover in different free plans like customized fields, a Salesforce integration, and a number of inboxes.
Free plan options
E mail help: ProProfs Assist Desk is restricted to electronic mail help solely. If you wish to add a data base or stay chat, you’ll must additionally subscribe to ProProfs Information Base or ProProfs Stay Chat (although these merchandise additionally supply free plans). You possibly can create an infinite variety of shared inboxes on ProProfs Assist Desk’s free plan.
Limitless function utilization and tickets: There are not any limits on the options you should use, the variety of instances you should use these options, or the variety of electronic mail requests you possibly can reply to.
Productiveness options: Set a most decision time, then see when tickets are overdue. Create canned responses to answer to FAQs shortly. Add customized fields to your consumption types to get the knowledge you want from clients upfront.
Buyer suggestions: Gather buyer satisfaction rankings on closed requests.
Integrations: Join ProProfs Assist Desk with different ProProfs merchandise like Stay Chat, Information Base, and Survey Maker. Combine your assist desk with Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics.
What’s included?
ProProfs Assist Desk’s free plan can be utilized by one particular person and consists of limitless inboxes, limitless tickets and replies, buyer suggestions surveys, little one tickets, canned responses, ticket labels, enterprise hours, and the flexibility to customise your branding on the platform.
In case you’re snug self-hosting your buyer help platform, osTicket is an efficient alternative. It’s an open supply assist desk that permits you to ship electronic mail help, and because you’re self-hosting it, there are not any limits on the variety of customers you possibly can add or tickets you possibly can reply to. You may as well use all of its options with out limits and even construct your individual options if it is advisable to.
Self-hosted plan options
E mail help and buyer portals: osTicket is restricted to electronic mail help. There aren’t choices for including stay chat, social, telephone, or a assist heart. Nevertheless, you should use it to create buyer portals, which is a novel providing among the many free instruments on this listing.
Group options: Create customized columns and queues, add customized fields to consumption types, and robotically route tickets to the suitable particular person/workforce.
Collaboration options: Forestall duplicate work with collision avoidance, assign tickets to a different agent or switch them to a distinct workforce, and create reference tickets that may be seen however not edited by different people/groups.
Activity administration: Create to-do lists within the platform for particular brokers or groups. To-dos may be tied to open tickets or created as standalone duties.
What’s included?
The self-hosted, free model of osTicket consists of electronic mail help for limitless customers and tickets and limitless use of all the platform’s options. Nevertheless, you possibly can solely get entry to neighborhood help on the free plan — no help is on the market from the osTicket workforce.
UVdesk is one other open-source assist desk that’s accessible totally free should you self-host it. Like osTicket, it doesn’t have limits on the variety of customers you possibly can add, tickets you possibly can reply, or options you should use. What units UVdesk aside is that it caters extra to ecommerce corporations with its pre-built integrations with Shopify, Magento 2, BigCommerce, and extra.
Self-hosted plan options
E mail help and data base: Deliver help requests from a number of electronic mail addresses into UVdesk’s assist desk, and create a data base to make it simple for patrons to search out solutions to their questions on their very own.
Ecommerce integrations: Reap the benefits of pre-built integrations with ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento 2, Opencart, PrestaShop, Amazon, and WooCommerce.
Limitless customers and tickets: Add as many customers as it is advisable to the platform, view reviews on every agent’s efficiency, and obtain and reply to as many requests as your clients ship totally free.
Productiveness options: Create a library of saved replies to reply to FAQs shortly, and construct workflows to robotically route tickets to the suitable place.
What’s included?
The self-hosted, free model of UVdesk consists of electronic mail help for limitless customers and tickets, a data base, ecommerce platform integrations, and limitless use of all of the open-source platform’s options.
Tidio’s free plan is an efficient possibility if you wish to ship help by way of stay video calls; video calls may be initiated by clients by means of Tidio’s stay chat widget. Nevertheless, it is a little more limiting than among the different instruments on this listing with restrictions on the variety of conversations you possibly can deal with and the variety of customers you possibly can add on the free plan.
Tidio’s free plan options
E mail, stay chat (textual content and video), and social help: Deal with as much as 50 conversations monthly over electronic mail, stay chat, Messenger, Instagram, or WhatsApp.
AI chatbot: Use Tidio’s chatbot, Lyro AI, to robotically reply to as much as 50 conversations totally free over your lifetime as a buyer.
Flows: Create automated workflows that immediate clients to have interaction with you by way of your stay chat widget. Use them to share coupon codes, encourage guests to schedule a gathering together with your gross sales workforce, promote your cellular app, and extra. Your first 100 views of Flows (lifetime) are included totally free.
What’s included?
Tidio’s free plan can be utilized by as much as 10 customers to answer to as much as 50 billable conversations. It comes with a assist desk, stay chat widget, primary analytics, and integrations with Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The primary 50 conversations dealt with by its AI chatbot are additionally free, however that’s 50 whole over your lifetime as a buyer. You’ll must buy the Lyro AI Agent add-on if you wish to proceed utilizing it after these first 50 replies.
The eight instruments above aren’t the one free Zendesk options in the marketplace, however they’re probably the most beneficiant choices to select from. Nevertheless, should you didn’t discover precisely what you had been on the lookout for within the listing above, listed below are some further choices chances are you’ll wish to take into account that didn’t make it into our listing (and why we didn’t embrace them).
Freshdesk: Freshdesk is a well-liked help device, however there’s very restricted data on its web site about what’s included in its free plan, and even Freshdesk’s data base article concerning the free plan is essentially about easy methods to improve from it to a paid plan. It appears extra like a leaping off level for the platform’s paid plans than a long-term free possibility.
Jira Service Administration, Solarwinds, and Spiceworks: These platforms are all designed for IT help groups. Since Zendesk is constructed extra for customer-facing groups, we didn’t really feel these choices certified as Zendesk options. If you wish to study extra about these platforms, try our information to the very best free assist desk ticketing methods.
Crisp, Tawk.to, JivoChat, and Chaport: These instruments’ free plans embrace stay chat help solely — no different channels are included. In case your workforce solely wants stay chat help, we now have detailed opinions of those instruments and extra in our information to the very best free stay chat software program.
Nonetheless in quest of the proper resolution? You might also wish to try our article on the very best total Zendesk options, which incorporates each free and paid choices.
Selecting the very best free Zendesk different on your workforce
Finally, the very best platform is the one which aligns together with your workforce’s particular wants. To make your choice simpler, right here’s a fast abstract of which free Zendesk different could be greatest for you primarily based in your firm’s objectives and construction:
For probably the most beneficiant free plan with limitless customers, built-in AI, and omnichannel help, Assist Scout is the clear winner.
In case your workforce lives in Gmail, Hiver is a wonderful alternative that enhances your current workflow with out forcing you to study a brand new platform.
In case you’re already utilizing HubSpot’s CRM, HubSpot Service Hub is the pure alternative for holding your gross sales and help knowledge tightly built-in.
Zoho Desk is the best possibility if it is advisable to set up and monitor formal response instances with a service-level settlement.
For one-person help groups, ProProfs Assist Desk affords a beneficiant free plan with limitless options.
When you’ve got the technical sources to self-host, osTicket and UVdesk present highly effective, limitless help with no limits on function utilization.
If you wish to supply help by way of stay video chat, Tidio is the standout possibility, although be aware of its person and dialog limits.
Any of the platforms on this listing will show you how to present considerate help and construct a happier buyer base, and the very best half is that you are able to do all of it with out the stress of a price ticket.
