Help Scout bills per user and per AI resolution. Helply’s plans cover a set number of human agents and a monthly pool of AI credits, and its agents can take on a growing queue without new hires.
Help Scout charges $30 to $90 a month per user ($25 to $75 billed yearly). Its free plan covers up to 5 users. Help Scout sells Envoy, its AI add-on, at $0.75 per resolution; Scout is the agent built into Envoy.
Helply vs. Help Scout: the quick verdict
Help Scout fits growing teams that start free, add paid users as they hire, and pay for Envoy per resolution. Helply fits support teams in B2B software, B2C, ecommerce, and marketplaces whose queues grow faster than their headcount. Both put an AI agent that resolves customer questions beside a shared inbox and help center.
- Help Scout Plus: $54 per user a month ($45 billed yearly), with AI Drafts and 5 light users. Pro needs at least 10 users.
- Envoy, Help Scout’s AI add-on: $0.75 per resolution on paid plans; a new account’s resolutions are free for three months.
- Helply: Starter costs $99 a month billed yearly, for up to 2 agents. Plus is $199 for up to 5 agents and 5,000 AI credits.
- On every Helply plan, Support investigates and can resolve, and Assist drafts. Team adds 2 Background Agents; Pro and up get the full set.
- At 1,000 monthly conversations with AI resolving half, five Help Scout Plus users and Envoy cost $600 billed yearly ($645 monthly), after Envoy’s three free months. Five agents on Helply Plus cost $239 billed yearly: the $199 plan plus 1,000 extra credits. Slack Connect, WhatsApp, SMS and SLAs start on Team at $499 a month.
Helply vs. Help Scout for your team
AI credits move with your conversations: from 1 per conversation (a summary or triage only) up to 15, the most one conversation can use. Resolving about half end to end is roughly 6.
Helply Plus$239
$199 plan, up to 5 human agents + 1,000 top-up credits ($40), billed annually (15% off)Top-ups at $40 per 1,000 credits, up to 15,000 a month. Assist and Support Agents includedHelp Scout$600
$225 for 5 seats ($45 Plus seat)$375 for about 500 AI resolutions ($0.75 per Envoy resolution)$361 a month less on Helply (60% less), $4,332 a year
Monthly estimates at list price. Helply prices are from our pricing page: 15% less with annual billing, with credit top-ups at $40 per 1,000; competitor prices are the ones cited on this page, billed yearly where they offer it. Taxes, add-ons and discounts aren't included.
Helply vs. Help Scout compared: pricing, AI actions, routing, and SLAs
Helply and Help Scout differ on how each prices the people who reply, what the AI can reach, and how each bills AI work.
| Capability | Helply | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | One help desk with three AI agents inside it; your team can step into any conversation | An AI support suite of Inbox, Envoy, and Signal, with Copilot coming soon; Help Scout charges per user and per Envoy resolution |
| Pricing | Starter is $99 a month billed yearly for up to 2 agents. Plus is $199 for 5, Team $499 for 10, Pro $999 for 25 and Growth $1,999 for 50. Monthly billing costs about 17% more | $30 to $90 a month per user ($25 to $75 billed yearly), plus $0.75 per Envoy resolution. Pro has a 10-user minimum |
| Free plan and trial | 14-day free trial, no card | Free plan for up to 5 users; 15-day trial of Standard or Plus, no card; Pro trials through sales |
| AI agents | On every plan, Support can resolve or escalate with its findings, and Assist drafts. Background Agents watch for signals: 2 on Team, all on Pro and up | Envoy’s agent, Scout, resolves customer conversations from your Docs, websites, and files. It hands complex or sensitive ones to your team |
| AI that takes action | Support Agent can check billing and account data in connected tools, then take action; custom API actions and MCP connectors from Team up | Help Scout’s API supports custom workflows that take action |
| Agent assist | Assist Agent writes reply drafts on every plan and can run supported actions at your team’s direction | AI Drafts and AI Summarize on Plus and Pro |
| Customer context | Customer details and conversation history, beside CRM (Team and up), billing (Stripe or Chargebee), and product data from your tools | Customer profiles and history on every plan; Stripe and Shopify sidebar apps for refunds and cancellations; Salesforce and HubSpot on Plus and Pro |
| Knowledge base | A help center with AI article writing; from Team up, the Knowledge Agent finds missing and outdated answers and drafts fixes | Docs sites (1 to 5 by plan), AI that polishes and translates article text, and a Docs report of failed searches |
| Routing and SLAs | Rules on every plan; round robin, load balancing, SLAs, and escalations from Team up; skills-based routing from Growth up | Rule-based workflows, round-robin routing on Plus and Pro, and SLA policies from 1 on Standard to unlimited on Pro |
| Channels | Every plan covers email and chat; Plus adds Facebook and Instagram, Team adds WhatsApp, SMS, Discord, and Slack Connect, and Pro adds Microsoft Teams. Helply also supports Telegram | Email on every plan; Beacon chat, SMS, and WhatsApp on paid plans; Instagram and Messenger as native channels |
| Phone and voice | Ties supported call information, transcripts, and follow-up to the caller’s support history | Calls through integrations such as Aircall, logged in Help Scout |
| Slack | Customer conversations in Slack Connect channels, managed in Helply, from Team up; Slack notifications on every plan | Slack app for notifications only; Slack isn’t a Help Scout support channel |
| Background work | Background Agents watch for churn risk, upgrade intent, product feedback, and gaps in your docs (2 on Team, all on Pro and up) | SLA, Happiness, and other pre-built reports, plus custom reports from Standard; Signal’s AI Topics beta (Plus and Pro) sorts conversations by topic |
| Team access | Plans are priced by human agents, the people who reply: up to 2 on Starter, 5 on Plus, 10 on Team, 25 on Pro, 50 on Growth. Team and up add agents at $49 a month each | On paid plans, every replying teammate is a paid user: up to 25 on Standard, 50 on Plus, unlimited on Pro (10 minimum). Light users can view and collaborate but can’t reply: 5 on Plus, 15 on Pro |
| Security | SOC 2 Type II and GDPR on every plan; AI providers never train on your customer data | SOC 2 Type II, with HIPAA support on Pro; Help Scout never trains AI with your data |
| Best for | Growing B2B or B2C queues where AI can check the account and act, with AI credits included in every plan | Small teams that fit the free plan, teams that need HIPAA support on Pro, and buyers who want AI billed per resolution |
What Helply adds as a Help Scout alternative
An AI agent that can check the account before it answers
Helply’s Support Agent looks into billing, account, and product data in your connected tools and can act on what it finds. It can pull a subscriber’s Stripe payments or, from Team up, a B2B account’s CRM record, then resolve the ticket or escalate with its findings. Scout resolves conversations from your Docs, websites, files, and text.
One plan price for agents and AI credits
Help Scout charges for each paid user, then $0.75 for every Envoy resolution. Helply prices plans by human agents, the people on your team who reply to customers, and every plan includes pooled AI credits. Plus covers up to 5 agents and 5,000 credits for $199 a month billed yearly.
Catch churn risk and upgrade intent without a prompt
On Pro and up, all of Helply’s Background Agents start when the right signals appear and can alert teammates, create work, or trigger a workflow. The Churn Agent spots frustration and sentiment shifts, and the Revenue Agent flags upgrade intent; Team gets two, the Knowledge and Insights Agents. Help Scout’s Signal groups conversations into AI topics (beta, Plus and Pro); Help Scout lists sentiment and alerts as coming soon.
Help Scout pricing vs. Helply pricing
Help Scout’s paid plans run $30 to $90 a month per user ($25 to $75 billed yearly), plus $0.75 per Envoy resolution. Helply plans start at $99 a month billed yearly (Starter, up to 2 human agents and 2,500 AI credits). Plus is $199 for up to 5 agents, Team $499 for 10, Pro $999 for 25 and Growth $1,999 for 50.
- Free: $0 for up to 5 users and 100 contacts a month, with 1 inbox and 1 Docs site
- Standard: $30 a month per user ($25 billed yearly), up to 25 users
- Plus: $54 a month per user ($45 billed yearly), up to 50 users; adds AI Drafts, AI Summarize, and 5 light users
- Pro: $90 a month per user ($75 billed yearly), with a 10-user minimum, 15 light users, and HIPAA support
- Free trial: 15 days on Standard or Plus, no credit card; Pro trials go through sales
- Envoy, with its agent Scout: $0.75 per resolution on Standard, Plus, and Pro, monthly or yearly; Help Scout charges once per chat session
- Envoy resolutions are free and unlimited for a new account’s first three months
- You can set a monthly cap on resolutions; at the cap, Envoy turns off until the next cycle unless you raise it
- Discounts: lower rates for prepaid Envoy resolutions, and 10% off for nonprofits on top of the yearly discount
- Extra light users and extra inboxes: $12 a month each ($10 billed yearly); extra Docs sites: $24 a month ($20 billed yearly)
- Phone: through integrations, with Aircall as an add-on on Standard and Plus
| Cost line | Helply | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Plan compared | Plus: up to 5 agents and a monthly allowance of 5,000 AI credits, since Starter stops at 2 agents | Plus, the entry plan for AI Drafts |
| Price per user a month | Helply bills Plus per plan: $199 a month billed yearly, up to 5 agents | $45 billed yearly |
| Five users | Included | $225 a month |
| Drafting help | Assist Agent on every plan | AI Drafts and AI Summarize on Plus |
| AI agent billing | Credits by effort: summarizing 1, drafting a reply 2, investigating 6, and resolving end to end 10, with at most 15 per conversation | $0.75 per Envoy resolution, billed after each month ends |
| Not charged | Help desk work with AI turned off, spam, notifications, auto-replies, Playground tests, and the handoff to a person after an AI attempt | Chats where Scout only greets or asks a follow-up, and chats where the customer asks for more help |
| Spend control | Usage alerts and limits on pooled AI credits. On Plus, reaching the limit pauses the AI until you top up or switch to a bigger plan | An optional monthly cap on resolutions; Envoy turns off at the cap until the next cycle or until you raise it |
| Teammates beyond the five | Plus stops at 5 agents; Team covers 10 for $499 a month, then $49 for each extra agent | $45 each billed yearly; Plus includes 5 light users, who can view and collaborate but can’t reply |
| Monthly total at list price, AI resolving 500 conversations | $239 billed yearly: $199 plus 1,000 extra credits | $600 after the three free months: $225 for users plus $375 for Envoy |
| If the five use Standard instead | Same plan: $239 billed yearly | $500 after the free months: $125 for users plus $375 for Envoy; AI Drafts start on Plus |
Helply Plus is $199 a month billed yearly for up to 5 agents and 5,000 AI credits, or $239 with 1,000 extra credits for about 1,000 conversations a month. At list price after the free months, five Help Scout Plus users and 500 Envoy resolutions cost $600 billed yearly ($645 monthly). Slack Connect, WhatsApp, SMS and SLAs start on Team at $499 a month.
Help Scout charges for each new teammate who replies on a paid plan, plus $0.75 per Envoy resolution. On Helply, Plus runs $199 a month billed yearly and covers up to 5 agents plus 5,000 AI credits pooled across your workspace. Team, Pro and Growth add agents at $49 a month each.
Teams that switched
“Helply was simple to set up and it’s become a phenomenal tool. It took everything we’d learned over the years and turned it into support that runs itself, takes action, and warns us early. Our authors move faster and my team isn’t buried.”
- Manual, human-only support replaced with one complete platform
- 92% resolution across 1,500+ monthly conversations; only ~120 escalations
- Years of communications converted into shared company memory
Switching from Help Scout
Start with one mailbox, such as billing@, while support@ and the rest stay on Help Scout. Move them across once you’ve reviewed billing@ in Helply. Free migration and an onboarding call come with Team and up; Pro and Growth add white-glove migration.
- Connect your Help Scout workspace during a 14-day free trial; you don’t need a card.
- Choose the supported mailboxes, customers, conversations, and Docs content to migrate.
- Add your support addresses to Helply, swap Beacon for Helply’s chat widget, then review your workspace and complete the cutover.
- Conversation history from your mailboxes
- Customer records
- Docs knowledge base content
Helply or Help Scout: which should you choose?
- Your team has five people or fewer and fits the free plan’s 1 inbox and 100 contacts a month.
- You need HIPAA support, which Help Scout includes on its Pro plan.
- You want to pay for AI only when it resolves a chat; new accounts get three months of free resolutions.
- You’re an incorporated tech startup new to Help Scout, under two years old and under $1M ARR. You can apply for 6 months of Plus and Envoy free through Help Scout’s startup program.
- You run a five-person team with few AI resolutions: five Standard users cost $125 a month billed yearly; Helply Plus is $199.
- You want Background Agents watching for churn risk and upgrade intent, which come with Pro and up.
- You’d rather pay one plan price that includes a monthly AI credit pool than $0.75 per Envoy resolution ($375 at 500 a month).
- You want an AI agent that can check billing and account data in your connected tools before it answers.
- Your customers write in through Slack Connect or Discord (Team and up), Microsoft Teams (Pro and up), or Telegram.
Frequently asked questions
How is Helply different from Help Scout?
Helply’s agents can check account data and take action, using AI credits included in each plan. Help Scout bills Envoy, its AI add-on, per resolution.
Can Helply replace Help Scout?
Yes. Every plan has a shared inbox, help center, live chat, and Support and Assist Agents; SLAs and Background Agents start on Team.
How much does Help Scout cost?
Help Scout’s paid plans cost $30 to $90 a month per user ($25 to $75 billed yearly). Its AI add-on, Envoy, adds $0.75 per resolution.
How much does Helpscout cost per user?
Help Scout Standard is $30 per user a month ($25 billed yearly), and Plus is $54 ($45). Pro is $90 ($75), with a 10-user minimum.
Is Help Scout free?
Yes, for up to 5 users and 100 contacts a month in 1 inbox. Standard runs $30 per user a month ($25 billed yearly).
How does Help Scout charge for Envoy (AI Answers)?
Help Scout charges $0.75 on paid plans for each chat Scout resolves without human help. Resolutions are free for a new account’s first three months.
Is Help Scout a ticketing system?
Yes. Help Scout’s shared Inbox works as a ticketing system, with assignment, tags, workflows, and SLA policies.
How does Helply’s pricing work?
Plans pair human agents with pooled AI credits. Starter is $99 a month billed yearly for up to 2 agents; Plus runs $199, Team $499, Pro $999, and Growth $1,999.
Does Helply charge per user like Help Scout?
Not per user. Helply prices plans by human agents, the people on your team who reply to customers. Plus covers up to 5 for $199 a month billed yearly; Team, Pro and Growth add agents at $49 a month each.
Is Helply cheaper than Help Scout for a five-person team?
At list price, yes: 1,000 monthly conversations, half AI-resolved, after Envoy’s free months. Helply Plus $239, billed yearly; Help Scout Plus $600 billed yearly ($645 monthly).
Can I move from Help Scout to Helply?
Yes. Connect Help Scout during the 14-day trial and choose the supported mailboxes, customers, conversations, and Docs content; move one mailbox first.
Does Help Scout work with Slack?
Yes, for notifications only: Help Scout’s Slack app can’t create or manage conversations. From Team up, you can manage Slack Connect customer conversations in Helply.
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