Updated on March 27, 2024 in Remote support, Reviews

Top 15 Help Desk Software : Free & Paid Options

Helga York Article author

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Are you looking for the best help desk software that you can use for your business? Whether you own a small IT business or are a member of a large enterprise organization’s help desk team, selecting the appropriate remote support tool is essential for enhancing work productivity and ensuring customer satisfaction.

Take a look at the help desk software list we prepared for you. These help desk systems have been tested for functionality, efficiency, price, strengths, weaknesses, and primarily their capacity to run smoothly IT support activities.

After reading this article, you’ll be able to choose which software can boost your business’s customer service overall quality.

The Best Free Help Desk Software

Listed below are different free simple help desk software programs that are perfect for those looking to cut costs or who simply do not have sufficient support volume at this time to keep paying for a specific help desk tool.

• • Freshdesk
• • Zoho Desk
• • Spiceworks
• • Google Collaborative Inbox
• • OSTicket

1. Freshdesk

Best for small-sized businesses in terms of budget and functionality.

Freshdesk is one of the best free help desk software for call center tools in corporate settings. Several add-ons, such as the integration of AI and machine learning and field service management, can be included in your subscription package to tailor the program to your needs.

Features included:

• • Data analytics
• • Comprehensive reporting
• • Mobile compatibility
• • Predefined responses
• • Collaborative dashboards
• • SLA management
• • Approval workflow
• • Freddy AI chatbot

2. Zoho Desk for Small Businesses

Best free help desk software for small businesses.

Zoho Desk is a cost-effective, free help desk software that provides all the basic features to meet your needs while staying within your budget. Arranging your ticketing process and support activities is simpler with this free IT help desk software. It has a top-notch chatbot system powered by AI that enables automated responses.

You can use this feature after subscribing to their deluxe plans. One thing to keep in mind is that this system might need extra training, meaning that in addition to the subscription fees, you will need to invest more time, effort, and resources if you want to use the program to its fullest extent.

Features of this best free IT help desk software include:

• • Voice software
• • Data analytics and reporting
• • On-site live chatting
• • App integrations
• • Multi-lingual support
• • Supports multiple channels

3. Spiceworks

Best free help desk software for startups.

Spiceworks is one of the free help desk software on the market at the moment, especially for small-sized businesses on a tight budget. Due to its limited features, the program is not ideal for large businesses managing immense operations.

With Spiceworks, small businesses can arrange and control conversations with their clients. Additionally, they can handle problems independently using the software’s self-service portal. Access to essential tools, such as automation tools, required for the help desk management system will be available without charge.

Features included:

• • Tracking and reporting
• • Calendar scheduling
• • Knowledge base
• • Remote desktop

4. Google Collaborative Inbox

Best free help desk for teams that already use G Suite.

Google Collaborative Inbox is the best free IT help desk software for those using Gmail and who want to give their support efforts some structure. To understand what a Collaborative Inbox is, think of it as a shared folder that more than one user can access from their email accounts.

It is easy to create Collaborative Inbox. You need to set up the email address and make a Google Group. Add people to that group afterward, and then you’re done. Now, each user in the group can answer emails in the group mailbox without sharing their login credentials (which is extremely important for security).

Aside from that, you can assign conversations to different members of the group and place statuses for various conversations (on hold, closed, etc.). Although it has some limitations, you can give collaborators varying levels of permission.

Features of this best free help desk software are:

• • Shared inbox to allow smooth collaboration
• • Email assignments to easily designate incoming emails to certain team members
• • Email tags and notes to provide context for team members
• • Email collaboration to interact within email threads
• • Collision detection to avoid duplicate responses
• • Email archive and history to save a record of all email exchanges
• • Email notifications

5. OSTicket

Best open-source solution.

OSTicket is also one of the great choices when it comes to free, simple help desk software. It is an open-source help desk solution that is among the best ones on the market today. Agencies of all sizes can use it to manage tickets and provide customer support. By integrating the program through phone, email, or other web forms, they can easily create a basic multi-user interface.

Over 15,000 businesses around the world use OSTicket. In particular, support teams utilize the software to gather, arrange, and control all client requests.

Features included:

• • Automated routing
• • Customizable fields and forms
• • Predetermined responses
• • Self-service portal
• • Service level agreement (SLA) management
• • Workflow configuration
• • Dashboard reports
• • Agent collision avoidance
• • Autoresponder and thread action

Top 10 Help Desk Software for Your Business

This section will discuss excellent help desk solutions to organize inquiries, improve customer service, and elevate business productivity. We will walk you through the features, advantages, and pricing structures of the top remote help desk software so that you can find the ideal tool for remarkable customer service. Whether you are a startup or a reputable business, there’s a program for you.

• • Help Scout
• • Zendesk
• • Hiver
• • HubSpot Service Hub
• • ProProfs Help Desk
• • Gorgias
• • SolarWinds Service Desk
• • HappyFox
• • Live Agent
• • Vivantio

1. Help Scout

Best for a business with a customer support team comprising more than 500 individuals.

Help Scout is definitely one of the most popular help desk software. It’s recommended if customer satisfaction is your company’s priority. It provides detailed reports of incoming activity, has a native knowledge base, and is also small-business friendly. This help desk software might just be what you’re looking for. This help desk solution is available also on iOS and Android, so you can also use Help Scout on mobile devices in order to provide support even quicker.

Features included:

• ✦ On-site live chatting
• ✦ Collaboration tools
• ✦ Knowledgebase manager
• ✦ Data analytics
• ✦ Multi-channel support
• ✦ Ticket routing and prioritization
• ✦ Templated responses

Pricing:

2. Zendesk

Best help desk software for multi-division teams and companies.

Through its years of service, Zendesk has always been one of the top choices when building an omnichannel ticketing system. With Zendesk, it is easier to organize your ticketing system and support activities. It is equipped with a top-of-the-line AI-based chatbot system that allows automated responses.

You can get this feature if you subscribe to their deluxe plans. One thing to note is that this system may require additional training, which means that besides the subscription fees, you’ll have to dedicate additional time, energy and resources to be able to use the software to its fullest potential.

Features included:

• ✦ Voice software
• ✦ Data analytics and reporting
• ✦ On-site live chatting
• ✦ App integrations
• ✦ Supports multiple languages
• ✦ Multi-channel support
• ✦ Custom branding

Pricing:

3. Hiver

Best for Gmail users

Hiver is a cooperative email management program that turns Gmail into a shared inbox to smoothen team communication and boost work rates. It provides a variety of features to heighten email collaboration, delegation, and monitoring. It was designed for enterprises and teams that depend on Gmail for sales, customer assistance, and project management.

This remote IT help desk software also provides access to some reporting, so you can learn more about team performance and discover the typical causes of customer inquiries.

Features:

• • Shared inbox: to team up on emails and designate assignments
• • Email tasks to assign emails to group members
• • Email notes and tags to add context.
• • Collision detection to avoid sending multiple responses to the same email
• • Email templates that for frequent queries
• • Email analytics provides data on crucial metrics
• • Automation to establish rules and workflows

Pricing Plans

4. HubSpot Service Hub

Best for connection of all your customer service data and channels on one CRM platform.

HubSpot Service Hub is a remote help desk software that gives your support staff a single dashboard where they can log, arrange, and check all client concerns. Agents have access to information about customers, queue location, status of tickets, and resolution time.

Tracking KPIs, such as ticket volumes, first contact resolution times, and others, with the help of reporting and analytics, enables you to determine what you are doing correctly and what requires improvement in order to deliver an improved customer experience.

Moreover, the ticket routing and automation features provided by this remote IT help desk software enable your team to automate tedious assignments so they can pay more attention to the client. When a customer chats, sends an email or submits a form, it instantly creates tickets, which means your staff can route the request to the appropriate agent to handle the concern quickly.

Features:

• • Knowledge base, community forum, and customer portal
• • Omnichannel agent workspace
• • Reporting and analytics
• • Ticketing system
• • No-code chatbot builder
• • Skills-based routing

Pricing Plans

5. ProProfs Help Desk

Best for workflow automation

Another top remote help desk software, ProProfs Help Desk, was designed to make ticketing and interacting with customers easier. Thanks to its intuitive interface and automation features, the program enables businesses to efficiently deliver excellent customer service and attend to inquiries.

This remote IT help desk software offers an extensive set of features, from self-service options to ticket assignment, to escalate client satisfaction and support staff performance.

Features:

• • Ticketing system to organize client inquiries.
• • Email integration to tie up with your current email system with ease.
• • Self-service knowledge base to cut down on the number of support tickets.
• • Ticket automation to program recurring tasks to enhance response times.
• • Multi-channel support to oversee client engagements on different channels.
• • Agent collision detection to keep multiple agents from addressing the same ticket.
• • SLA Management to establish and monitor service level agreements.

Pricing Plans

6. Gorgias

Best for small to midsized e-commerce stores.

Gorgias help desk software is a beginner-friendly solution with a simple and intuitive user interface. What sets it apart from other help desk software is its ability to link Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce operations.

It’s also capable of scanning the World Wide Web for reviews from customers about your products and services, both negative and positive, and it will display the said results in the application itself.

Features included:

• ✦ Simple and intuitive user interface similar to standard email UI.
• ✦ Automatic data collection for customer complaints
• ✦ Customization of automated responses.
• ✦ Compatible with most e-commerce platforms

Pricing:

7. SolarWinds Service Desk

Best for the needs of medium to large enterprises.

SolarWinds service desk app is an IT service management (ITSM) solution that caters to the needs of medium to large enterprises. It can handle a multitude of data and traffic with its asset management and workflow automation system that allows for easy ticket creation and routing. It also has a unique incident management feature that allows for multichannel management of tickets. In order to get a 14-day free trial, you have to install this help desk software on your own server hardware. Unfortunately, the only option to get more information about the account in a cloud-hosted setting is to watch a demo provided on the webpage.

Features included:

• ✦ Relationship Mapping
• ✦ IT Asset management
• ✦ Configuration Management Database Software (CMDB)
• ✦ Help Desk Knowledge Base
• ✦ Procurement Tools
• ✦ Service Automation
• ✦ Service Desk Chat
• ✦ Service Desk Reporting
• ✦ Risk Management

Pricing:

8. Happyfox

Best for companies with a limited budget.

Happyfox help desk software solution is a flexible IT solution for businesses of all sizes. It has all the basic features that a help desk software should have, and it’s also a budget-friendly choice. It can also be used in collaboration with Salesforce, Microsoft Teams and Slack.

Features included:

• ✦ Smart Rules-based Automation
• ✦ Workflow Macros
• ✦ Website Live Chat
• ✦ Advanced Reports
• ✦ Ticket Routing, Categorization and Tagging
• ✦ Unlimited Shared Inboxes
• ✦ Custom Branding
• ✦ Knowledgebase Management
• ✦ Omnichannel Communication

Pricing:

9. Live agent

Best for a small team for an online business operating on WordPress.

Live Agent is one of the best help desk solutions that you can use to handle your customer service operations. This software has a multichannel inbox where voice, email, chat, and social media tickets are sent for resolution.

Features included:

• ✦ Universal Inbox
• ✦ Customer Portal
• ✦ Omnichannel Support
• ✦ Knowledgebase Support
• ✦ Workflow Automation
• ✦ Simple and Intuitive UI

Pricing:

10. Vivantio

Best for small to mid-sized B2B companies.

Vivantio is for B2B businesses that are currently finding their ground or trying to expand into bigger markets. It is one of the best help desk software that is enterprise-oriented. It houses advanced features which allow ITIL-compliant service at a competitive price.

Features included:

• ✦ Ticket Hierarchies
• ✦ Intuitive Interface
• ✦ Call Center Management
• ✦ Live Chat
• ✦ Queue Management
• ✦ IT asset Management
• ✦ Workflow Configuration

Pricing:

What Is Help Desk Software?

Your business needs the best help desk software to be able to efficiently resolve issues from your customers. This software allows you to organize, manage and respond to support tickets in one application. There are two types of help desk software solutions that are used for two kinds of requests, namely external and internal.

These software programs share the same goal. Thus, most of these have the same features, differing in the UI, efficiency, and pricing. Some of the most common features include a shared inbox, a knowledge base, and live chatting.

As of today, the help desk solutions industry is continuously growing and is expected to blow up to a whopping 11 billion USD industry in 2023, according to studies. This is not really a surprise seeing the benefits these help desk platforms are giving small and large businesses when it comes to improving their customer’s experience.

Top Help Desk Solutions Features

1. Multi-channel Support

With this multi-channel customer support customers can send their requests through different channels, including phone, email, and through social media among many others.

2. Unified view of the customer

Even with multiple supported channels, help desk solutions should still be able to filter and organize all incoming information from customers. The customer’s profile, conversation logs, and other details should be accessible in one place to allow easier access and when a client needs to be transferred to another agent, the transition will be smooth and easy.

3. Knowledge base and community forum

This is where your customer base and your workforce connect with each other online to talk about your product/service, issues encountered, and possible solutions.

This is a way for your customers to create their own community, feel an emotional and social connection, and at the same time, help each other solve problems. Ultimately, this will lessen the load on your ticket system while still effectively resolving more customer issues.

4. Tracking and Analytics

A tracking and analytics system helps your support agents filter through a large number of tickets. This feature allows them to resolve similar tickets at once.

Most importantly, this feature creates a detailed report of your product/service’s performance based on the data received from the customers. This can help you improve your team’s product/service quality performance.

5. Automation

One of the best it help desk practices that we have today is automation, made possible by modern technology. By making repetitive tasks automatic, you’ll be able to lessen the workload on your employees and allow them to focus on more important and complex tasks.

In the customer service department, this can be done by creating automated responses for queries/issues that are most common. One software called Zendesk does this with the help of an AI-powered bot named Answer Bot, which learns how to respond to customers by accessing information from a knowledge base.

6. Apps and Integrations

Apps and integrations allow your support agents to choose from a variety of tools that can help them perform better and more efficiently. This feature makes collaborative efforts between your employees possible and makes accessing important information easier and faster.

What’s more, in some instances, the deployment of help desk remote control software is crucial. This tool allows support specialists to access their clients’ remote computers, greatly enhancing efficiency and reducing the time it takes to resolve issues. By engaging directly with the problem within its original environment, specialists can deliver more precise and faster solutions.

7. Customer Feedback

Knowing what your customers need and want is vital to your business’s success. You can use several feedback collection methods to determine how your products/services are performing based on your customers’ experiences. Feedback can come in the form of online reviews, social media posts, online store reviews, and support tickets.

8. Agent Efficiency Tools

The backbone of a customer support system is your workforce. With agent efficiency tools or collaboration tools, you can effectively boost your team’s performance and efficiency in resolving customer issues.

In a 2023 trend report, it was revealed that 26 percent of companies believe that they lack cross-departmental collaboration. Giving their support agents collaboration tools can help them respond to tickets faster and answer questions correctly.

How to Choose the Right Help Desk Software?

At first, looking for the best help desk software amongst these options can be very overwhelming, especially if you’re just starting a business and you’ve never heard about these software programs before. But worry not – we have some tips to make it easier for you.

Here are some things to consider when choosing the right help desk software for your business.

Channels of Support

Do you have multiple channels where your customers can reach you, or do you have just one? Make sure that the software that you will choose has the capability to receive customer messages from different channels. Also, opt for a software that does an excellent job at organizing data from multiple channels and has an efficient filtering system.

Usability

Pick a software that matches your customer support agents’ qualifications and experience with similar software. There are some help desk software that are so complex that special training is needed to be able to operate them. If you don’t have the budget or resources to conduct such training, look for a software with an intuitive and simple UI.

Price

When deciding which help desk software to buy, the price really isn’t something that you should focus on. Expensive does not always mean quality, and cheap software sometimes has more valuable features. Always think about how the software can help your business become more efficient at handling customer service requests.

Scalability

There are some help desk software programs that are only good for small businesses that don’t see much traffic, while some are best suited for large corporations handling thousands of tickets at a time.

However, it doesn’t mean that every small business should only use small-scale help desk software. Consider your business’s trajectory through the years. Will you be seeing more traffic in the next few months or years? If yes, then get a help desk software that will give you the needed room for growth.

Flexibility

Can the software adapt to your company’s unique needs? Will it be able to support the needs of your organizational structure? Does it fit your business model? Can it handle the traffic in your chosen industry? Will it be able to accommodate additional channels if you ever decide to expand your business?