Help Scout Pricing 2026: Standard, Plus, Free Plan
Help Scout Standard is $25/user/mo, Plus $45, Pro $75. A Free plan covers 5 users, and startups under 2 years old get Plus free for 6 months.
Help Scout plans and prices
Help Scout has four plans: Free, Standard at $25/user/mo, Plus at $45/user/mo, and Pro at $75/user/mo. Its pricing page has an annual toggle that takes 16% off, so check which billing view you are reading. Free covers up to 5 users, 1 Inbox, and 1 Docs site. Standard allows up to 25 users, Plus up to 50, and Pro is unlimited with a 10-user minimum.
Standard covers multiple Inboxes, live chat and SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger channels, multiple knowledge bases, basic workflows, and an AI inbox assistant. Plus adds advanced workflows, two SLA policies, a secure customer portal, round-robin routing, and Salesforce, Jira and HubSpot integrations. Pro adds unlimited workflows and SLA policies, SSO/SAML, and HIPAA compliance.
The Free plan and the startup program
Help Scout for Startups is a separate offer: eligible companies get 6 months of the Plus plan free, along with AI Answers. To qualify, a company must be a new Help Scout customer, an incorporated tech startup under two years old, and earning under $1 million in annual recurring revenue.
If you qualify, apply. It is a legitimate way to run support properly without the cost burden in early stages. Terms change, so confirm them with Help Scout first.
Flat seat pricing is the selling point
Help Scout does not charge per conversation and does not split its core features into separate add-ons. The main exception is AI Answers, covered in the FAQ below. The simplicity of the pricing model is itself a feature.
Compare to Zendesk, where a comparable setup with QA and AI costs $190+/agent/mo. Help Scout Plus at $45 covers a lot of the same daily workflow for support teams that do not need enterprise routing complexity.
Frequently asked questions
Does Help Scout really have zero AI fees?
Not entirely. AI Answers, Help Scout's customer-facing AI feature, is billed separately, $0.75 for each resolved conversation, and Help Scout lists a 3-month free trial. The base seat pricing itself has no markup, but budget for this add-on if you plan to use AI deflection at volume.
What happens when I add a 26th agent on the Standard plan?
You are forced to upgrade to the Plus plan, which jumps the per-user rate from about $25 to $45, roughly an 80% increase per seat. Plan your tier around expected headcount growth, not just your current team size.
Is the 16% annual billing discount applied to everything?
No. The annual discount applies only to user seat costs. Add-ons like extra inboxes ($10/month annual, $12/month billed monthly), extra Docs sites ($20/month annual, $24/month monthly), and AI Answers resolutions are charged at full price regardless of billing frequency.
How much does Help Scout cost for a 10-person team?
On Standard at roughly $25/user/month, a 10-person team runs about $250/month. Moving the same team to Plus, at $45 per user, would run about $450/month, before any AI Answers usage.
Does Help Scout's startup program still exist in 2026?
Yes. As of September 2026 it gives eligible new customers 6 months of Plus free, and the company must be less than two years old with ARR below $1 million. Check the current terms with Help Scout before applying.
Is Help Scout cheaper than Zendesk for a small team?
Yes, substantially. The entry Standard plan from Help Scout starts around $25/user/month with no mandatory AI add-on markup baked into seat price, while matching Zendesk plan-for-plan once you add its quality-assurance and AI modules commonly runs $190+/agent/month.
See Zoho Desk pricing if that's closer to what you're evaluating.
A closely related resource: Help Scout review.
We wrote a dedicated breakdown of this in Free customer satisfaction survey template for SMBs, worth a look if it applies to your setup.