What a helpdesk costs for a team of three
Most helpdesk pricing pages show a per-agent number and leave the AI charges somewhere else. This page does the arithmetic for a team of three and says what each price includes. Every figure is the one on our comparison page for that product, with the date we checked it.
Two things move the real bill more than the headline: whether you pay per agent as you hire, and whether AI answers are included or billed per resolution. Both are in the table.
What a helpdesk costs for a team of three
Cheapest paid plan, three people, per month. Prices are the ones on each comparison page, with the date we checked them - follow the link and check us.
| Helpdesk | 3 agents / month | What that buys |
|---|---|---|
| Coasting | $0 | Free plan covers 3 agents and 50 AI answers a month. $29 flat when you outgrow it. |
| Gorgias | $10 | Priced per ticket, not per agent, and each AI resolution costs about $1 on top. $10/mo for 50 tickets - checked 11 September 2026 |
| Tidio | $24.17 | Flat, and their free plan gives more seats than ours. AI is a paid add-on. Starter, $24.17 a month billed yearly - 100 conversations - checked 26 September 2026 |
| Coasting (paid) | $29 | Flat, up to 5 agents, 500 AI answers included. |
| Crisp | $45 | Flat like us. The real question is AI volume, not per-agent fees. Mini, $45 a month for 4 seats (+$10 a seat) - checked 14 September 2026 |
| Freshdesk | $57 | 3 x $19, billed yearly. Their forever-free plan ended. Growth, $19 per agent a month billed yearly - checked 14 September 2026 |
| Zendesk | $57 | 3 x $19 for email only. Chat and a help centre need Suite Team at $55 an agent, so $165. Support Team, $19 per agent a month - checked 18 September 2026 |
| Help Scout | $75 | 3 x $25, plus $0.75 for each AI resolution. Standard, $25 per user a month - checked 18 September 2026 |
Zoho Desk is not in this table: it is priced per user, but we have not verified a per-user figure, and a table is exactly where an unchecked number gets quoted back at us. Read the Zoho comparison.
What we are not telling you
- We are one of the products in the table, so read it against each vendor's own pricing page - every row links to ours, and ours links to theirs.
- Prices change. The date beside each figure is when a person last checked it, not when the page was built.
- Coasting's paid plans cannot be bought yet. The free plan is real and works today.
Or read the full comparisons.