Top 12 Kayako alternatives and competitors for 2024
The right customer support solution grows with your business and helps you deliver a great customer experience. Compare Kayako alternatives to find your fit.
Why you might want a Kayako alternative
Last updated December 5, 2023
Kayako is a help desk software that uses a shared inbox to help customer service teams manage customer tickets. The platform offers a ticketing system, live chat software, self-service resources, and a multichannel interface called SingleView where agents can manage conversations across channels in one place.
Despite these features and capabilities, Kayako does have a few limitations. Kayako does not emphasize the same advanced feature set or customization that industry leaders do.
For example, Kayako has a limited number of integrations to let users connect to other mission-critical tools. While integrations offer flexibility, some teams may prefer a more comprehensive set of native features within the platform, reducing their reliance on external tools. It’s also missing features like advanced reporting and analytics and robust case management—plus, getting AI requires add-ons and integrations. Because Kayoko is missing these key features, businesses might have to switch to a more robust solution for more advanced use cases.
That’s where our guide comes in with the necessary information to help you pick the right customer service software for your business. Dive into our comprehensive list of Kayako alternatives—which includes information on features, pricing, and capabilities—so you can make an informed decision.
More in this guide:
- Best Kayako alternatives and competitors at a glance
- A deep dive into the top alternatives and competitors to Kayako
- Frequently asked questions
- How to choose the best alternative to Kayako
Best 10 Talkdesk competitors and alternatives at a glance
Our comparison chart provides quick information—like starting price, free trial length, and key features—that businesses look for when choosing an alternative to Kayako.
| Kayako alternative | Starting price | Free trial | Key features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zendesk | $19 per agent/month (billed annually) | 14 days |
|
| Freshdesk | $0 per month (up to 10 agents) | 14 days |
|
| Help Scout | $20 per user/month (billed annually) | 15 days |
|
| Intercom | $74 per month (billed annually) | 14 days |
|
| Zoho Desk | $0 per user/month (for 3 users) | 15 days |
|
| ProProfs Help Desk | $0 per month(1 user) | 15 days |
|
| HappyFox | $29 per agent/month (billed annually) | 14 days |
|
| Front | $19 per seat/month (billed annually) | 7 days |
|
| SolarWinds Web Help Desk | $246 per technician | 14 days |
|
| Salesforce Service Cloud | $25 per user/month
(billed annually) | 30 days |
|
| Re:amaze | $27.55 per team member/month (billed annually) | 14 days |
|
| Chatwoot | $0 per month (up to 2 agents) | 15 days |
|
A deep dive into the top alternatives and competitors to Kayako
Kayako software may be a good option for startups, but other solutions may fit your business needs better. We’ve rounded up a list of the top Kayako competitors and alternatives with the detailed info you need to make the right choice for your business and improve your customer experience.
1. Zendesk
Zendesk is an award-winning software and a proven leader in customer service. We built our software specifically to enhance the customer experience, allowing your agents to deliver personalized service at scale.
Where Zendesk excels:
- 1,500+ apps and integrations: Extend the functionality and capabilities of your software and tools with the Zendesk Marketplace.This will enhance the customer experience and give you a 360-degree view of the customer journey.
- Industry-leading Agent Workspace: Unify your support channels, improve collaboration, and provide customer context—like personal data, interaction history, tickets, preferences, and more—in a single, customizable interface so agents can move seamlessly between conversations for complete omnichannel customer service.
- Advanced reporting and analytics: Pre-built and custom reports help your team gather and drill into critical data, metrics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) across channels.
- AI built on billions of real customer service interactions: With Zendesk AI, you get AI-powered bots pre-trained to handle your industry's top customer service issues from day one.
- Intelligent triage: This AI-powered feature analyzes support requests, instantly determining language, customer sentiment (positive, negative, neutral), and intent before automatically routing customers to the best-suited agent (based on priority, expertise, availability, and workload).
Furthermore, Zendesk grows with your company, providing you with the tools you need to achieve your customer service goals now and in the future. The fast setup and ease of use allow you to quickly realize a low total cost of ownership, swift time to value, and speedy return on investment (ROI).
For a deeper dive into how Zendesk compares with Kayako, check out our Zendesk vs. Kayako page.
Features:
- 1,500+ apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and customized reporting and analytics
- Industry-leading Agent Workspace
- AI built for CX
- Top-tier ticket management system
- Flexible platform
- Native live chat, messaging, email, and voice
- AI-powered self-service portal and knowledge base
- Support and partnerships
- Service level agreements (SLAs) and operational level agreements (OLAs)
Pricing:
- Support Team: $19 per agent/month
- Support Professional: $55 per agent/month
- Support Enterprise: $115 per agent/month
- Suite Team: $55 per agent/month
- Suite Growth: $89 per agent/month
- Suite Professional: $115 per agent/month
- Suite Enterprise: Contact sales
- Suite Enterprise Plus: Contact sales
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
14 days
2. Freshdesk
With Freshdesk, users get a customer service platform with a ticketing system that supports phone, live chat, email, social media, and web widgets. Its multichannel shared inbox allows agents to collaborate on tickets and track customer issues in one place. Users can also access Freshdesk’s app marketplace to integrate additional apps with your system.
Freshdesk offers products for a wide range of uses that include sales, marketing, support, IT, HR, and operational tools. Businesses looking to invest in software that helps them deliver better customer service may want to focus on a solution that specializes in CX. For example, Freshdesk is missing several critical features (including omnichannel reporting), and there are limited ways to layer datasets.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Shared inbox
- Live chat and in-app messaging
- Knowledge base
Pricing:
- Free: $0 per month (up to 10 agents)
- Growth: $15 per agent/month
- Pro: $49 per agent/month
- Enterprise: $79 per agent/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
14 days
3. Help Scout
Help Scout offers a customer service solution and has a customer base of around 12,000 businesses. Its software uses a multichannel team inbox to organize ticket requests and communicate with customers. Help Scout has automation capabilities that allow for flexible agent routing and a sidebar that helps agents access customer data.
Help Scout's reporting and analytics tools help businesses track metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) across channels that include customer conversations, email, chat, and phone. Help Scout allows users to sort and filter data, create custom views, and export reports to CSV and XLS spreadsheets.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Shared inbox
- Email integration
- Knowledge base
Pricing:
- Standard: $20 per user/month
- Plus: $40 per user/month
- Pro: $65 per user/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
15 days
4. Intercom
Intercom’s SaaS (software as a service) platform prioritizes customer service through messaging, especially with its chat widget, Intercom Messenger. With Intercom Messenger, customers can connect with live agents or get automated support through chatbots. Messenger routes support tickets from multiple channels to a shared inbox where agents can handle them in one place.
Intercom has an AI bot called Fin that helps answer frequently asked questions using knowledge base information. It also uses generative AI to draft automated replies for customer service agents and to create knowledge base content.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Self-service
- Ticketing system
- Mobile app chat
Pricing:
- Starter: Starts at $74 per month (includes 2 seats)
- Pro: Contact Intercom
- Premium: Contact Intercom
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
14 days
5. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is the cloud-based customer service offering from Zoho. Zoho Desk's omnichannel ticketing system allows agents to manage customer requests. The software consolidates tickets from communication channels including email, live chat, social media, telephony, and web form. With its shared inbox, agents have a single place to organize and respond to customer inquiries.
Zoho Desk also includes self-service options, providing 24/7 support to customers. Its knowledge base contains help center articles and FAQs, so customers can find information independently. Zoho also includes Zia, an AI-powered virtual assistant to provide additional automated support.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Live chat
- Ticketing system
- Mobile app chat
Pricing:
- Free: $0 per user/month (for 3 users)
- Express: $7 per user/month
- Standard: $14 per user/month
- Professional: $23 per user/month
- Enterprise: $40 per user/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
15 days
6. ProProfs Help Desk
ProProfs Help Desk’s team inbox allows support agents to deliver multichannel customer service. It has a simple interface designed to look and function like Gmail. ProProfs has automation features like ticket routing and automated notifications to enable better customer request tracking and swift responses.
ProProfs’ basic reporting and analytics provide standard metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that help businesses gather insights on agent and team performance. Users can create triggers to share customer satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter ScoreⓇ (NPS) surveys and generate custom surveys to collect customer feedback.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Customer portal
- Ticketing system
- Shared inbox
Pricing:
- Single User: $0 per month
- Team: $19.99 per operator/month
*Plan is billed annually.
Free trial:
15 days
7. HappyFox
The customer support software from HappyFox helps teams manage workflows and handle customer requests. HappyFox’s multichannel ticketing system includes features like prewritten responses and templates to streamline replies and automated task management to help resolve issues.
With HappyFox, users can access features like live chat and messaging, knowledge base software, and basic help desk reporting. The help desk is customizable, allowing users to create custom fields, roles, and permissions for agents to assist with automated routing.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Ticketing system
- Automatic ticket scheduling
- Customizable end-user interface
Pricing:
- Mighty: $29 per agent/month
- Fantastic: $49 per agent/month
- Enterprise: $69 per agent/month
- Enterprise Plus: $89 per agent/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
14 days
8. Front
Front’s software supports multiple use cases, including customer service management, sales, operations, and account management. Its shared inbox helps agents organize and collaborate tickets from across channels in a single view. Front allows users to configure automations that route and assign customer requests to the right agent.
From within Front’s team inbox, agents can collaborate internally on message threads to resolve issues. Users can also add labels and tags to messages that help keep messages organized, assist with pulling report batches, and filter searches.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Shared inbox
- Live chat
- Automations
Pricing:
- Starter: $19 per seat/month
- Growth: $59 per seat/month
- Scale: $99 per seat/month
- Premier: $229 per seat/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
7 days
9. SolarWinds Web Help Desk
SolarWinds Web Help Desk is an omnichannel ticketing system that helps customer service teams manage ticket requests in a centralized location. SolarWinds offers various products, including management software for networks, systems, databases, IT services, applications, and IT security.
SolarWinds allows users to automate repetitive tasks, ticket assignments, routing, and escalations. It also lets users link duplicate tickets for better organization. The software features issue and ticket tracking and reporting software to help management gather insights and monitor performance.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Ticket automation
- IT asset tracking and management
- SLA reporting
Pricing:
Starts at $246 per technician
Free trial:
14 days
10. Salesforce Service Cloud
In addition to its customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Salesforce offers a customer support software called Salesforce Service Cloud. The solution consolidates customer data, communication channels, and tickets into a single view to help agents manage and collaborate on service requests. Salesforce also features a virtual assistant, Einstein for Service.
Though Salesforce offers an AI product—Salesforce AI—it requires manual training and configuration. While the most advanced AI comes pre-trained on customer interactions specific to CX, Salesforce AI may need additional help from dev teams or technical engineers to train the software with the same data sets.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Pre-built and custom reporting
- Shared inbox
- Live chat support
- Automations
Pricing:
- Starter: $25 per user/month
- Professional: $80 per user/month
- Enterprise: $165 per user/month
- Unlimited: $330 per user/month
- Unlimited+: $500 per user/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
30 days
11. Re:amaze
Re:amaze is a cloud-based help desk that integrates communication channels, customer data, and ticketing systems into a single view. Re:amaze touts that its platform is designed for e-commerce, helping businesses drive customer engagement and deliver better customer service.
Re:amaze allows users to manage multiple online storefronts in one location. It also has an app marketplace for users to integrate their platform with additional tools. Users can allow human agents to offer real-time service or deploy chatbots to provide support via live chat software. Additionally, Re:amaze features a live reporting dashboard that includes customer insights and profile data.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Unlimited email inboxes
- Live chat and chatbots
- Trainable AI intents
- Workflows and pre-written responses
Pricing:
- Basic: $27.55 per team member/month
- Pro: $46.55 per team member/month
- Plus: $65.55 per team member/month
- Enterprise: Contact Re:amaze
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
14 days
12. Chatwoot
Chatwoot is an open-source, cloud-based customer service platform that allows businesses to manage customer requests, engagements, and communication channels in a single interface. Chatwoot supports multiple channels, including email, live chat, social media, and business messaging apps.
Chatwoot features pre-written responses and templates that allow agents to reply faster to frequently asked questions. Users can collaborate with private notes and @mentions, looping agents into the conversation. Chatwoot also offers automated support via chatbots and auto-generated reporting.
Features:
- Apps and integrations
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Website live chat
- Chatbots
- Automations
- Mobile app
Pricing:
- Hacker: $0 per month (up to 2 agents)
- Startups: $19 per agent/month
- Business: $39 per agent/month
- Enterprise: $99 per agent/month
Free trial:
15 days
Frequently asked questions
How to choose the best alternative to Kayako
When it comes to picking the right alternative to Kayako, you need to look for a few key features and capabilities. Businesses can benefit from software that offers robust case management, an apps and integrations marketplace, advanced reporting and analytics tools, and focuses more on native capabilities, including in-house AI offerings.
These product gaps aren’t an issue for Zendesk. Our solution offers advanced omnichannel reporting, native voice software, a robust app marketplace, and many more tools and capabilities that scale with businesses of all sizes across industries.
Zendesk was built exclusively for CX, meaning our software has the tools and best practices to help you crush your customer service goals—get started today with a free trial.
Zendesk vs. the rest: Related guides for software alternatives
Check out these pages on Kayako competitors and alternatives, packed with information you need to help you pick the best customer service software for your business.