Plain bills a seat for each member who replies and meters Ari’s resolutions in credits. Helply plans include human agents and monthly AI credits spent by effort. From Team up, Helply’s Background Agents can act on account signals; Pro includes all of them.
Plain, an API-first support platform for B2B teams, charges per member seat. Plain Foundation costs $55 per member a month ($45 billed yearly) for up to five members. Horizon is $99 per member a month, billed yearly, and Ari, Plain’s customer-facing agent, uses 100 credits per resolved thread.
Helply vs. Plain: the quick verdict
Plain suits technical B2B teams that want an API-first tool to extend and whose AI use fits within 1,000 to 2,500 monthly credits. As a Plain alternative, Helply suits B2B software teams, online stores, and marketplaces that want AI on most conversations within the plan price. Both handle support in shared Slack channels, from Team up on Helply, and include AI agents.
- Plain Foundation: $55 per member a month ($45 billed yearly) for up to five members, with 1,000 AI credits a month.
- Plain Horizon: $99 per member a month, billed yearly, for three to ten members, with 2,500 credits a month. Ari uses 100 credits per resolved thread on every Plain plan.
- Helply: Starter at $99 a month billed yearly for up to 2 agents, or Plus at $199 for up to 5 agents and 5,000 AI credits.
- Each Helply plan comes with Support Agent, which can resolve tickets, and Assist Agent for your staff. Team includes 2 Background Agents; Pro has all of them.
- Billed yearly, Helply Plus is $199 for up to 5 agents, or $239 with 1,000 extra credits for about 1,000 conversations a month. Five Plain Foundation members pay $715 a month billed yearly if Ari resolves 500 and nothing else uses credits. Slack Connect, WhatsApp, SMS and SLAs start on Team at $499 a month.
Helply vs. Plain 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 includedPlain$715
$225 for 5 seats ($45 Foundation seat)$490 for about 500 AI resolutions (Ari at about $1 per resolution after included credits)$476 a month less on Helply (67% less), $5,712 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. Plain compared: pricing, Ari, Slack, and developer access
Helply and Plain differ most on how they charge for the people who reply and on how much AI work each plan includes.
| Capability | Helply | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | A complete help desk with AI agents throughout; your team can take over any conversation | An API-first support platform for B2B teams, priced per member seat; Plain AI draws on included credits |
| Pricing (November 2026) | Starter $99, Plus $199, Team $499, Pro $999, Growth $1,999 a month billed yearly, for 2 to 50 agents, AI credits included | Foundation $55 per member a month ($45 billed yearly), 1,000 credits; Horizon $99 per member a month billed yearly, 2,500 credits; Frontier custom |
| Free trial | 14 days free, no credit card required | 7 days, no credit card |
| AI agents | Every plan: Support Agent, which can take supported Actions, and Assist Agent. Team adds 2 Background Agents, Pro all; each AI task costs 1 to 10 credits, 15 at most a conversation | Ari answers customers from your docs at 100 credits per resolved thread and can’t carry out actions today. Sidekick, workflows, and connected agents can act |
| Agent assist | Assist Agent drafts, investigates, and takes supported Actions your team directs | Sidekick, the internal agent, uses 15 to 300+ credits per session and can act in tools like Linear; it asks before irreversible steps |
| Customer context | Customer details, account information, and past conversations on every request, plus CRM, billing, product, and engineering data from connected tools | Customer cards pull live data from your systems; HubSpot, Salesforce, and Attio sync on Horizon and up |
| Channels | Email and chat on all plans; Team adds Slack Connect, WhatsApp, SMS, and Discord; Pro adds Microsoft Teams. Telegram, plus supported call information and transcripts | Slack, email, chat, contact forms, and a headless portal; Microsoft Teams on Horizon and up; Discord on Frontier |
| Slack | From Team up, manage customer conversations in Slack Connect channels; configured agents can answer inside supported Slack conversations | Plain turns messages from shared Slack Connect channels into threads; up to 25 Slack channels on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon |
| Developer access | An API, webhooks, and Zapier on every plan; MCP connectors from Team; custom apps and agents you build on Growth | A GraphQL API that can do anything the UI can, plus webhooks, an MCP server, a headless portal, and connected agents you build |
| Background work | Background Agents can act on churn risk, upgrade intent, product requests, trends, and doc gaps. Team has 2, Pro all; Growth adds your own | Insights groups threads into daily AI themes and spots churn risks and upsell potential; knowledge gaps in beta; team reporting on Horizon |
| Team access | Plans cover up to 2, 5, 10, 25, or 50 human agents, the people who reply to customers; Team, Pro, and Growth add agents at $49 a month each | Paid member seats to reply (up to 5 on Foundation, 3 to 10 on Horizon). Free viewers can read threads and, by default, use Sidekick |
| Best for | Teams of any size in B2B software, ecommerce, or marketplaces that want support, engineering, operations, and AI agents on one queue | Technical B2B and developer-forward teams that build support flows on Plain’s API |
Where Helply and Plain part ways
AI on 1,000 conversations a month, inside the Team price
If nothing else uses credits, Team’s 15,000 a month cover 1,000 Helply conversations, since none uses more than 15. On the same terms, Plain Horizon’s 2,500 cover 25 Ari resolutions, and Foundation’s 1,000 cover 10. Past that, Plain sells top-ups at $10 per 1,000 credits.
A customer-facing agent that can file a bug and prepare an eligible refund
Helply’s Support Agent checks conversation history plus your connected billing, CRM, and engineering tools, and can then take supported Actions for the customer. It can file Linear issues from Team up, or work out whether a refund applies and prepare it where you allow billing Actions. Plain’s Ari answers from your docs and can’t carry out actions today, though Sidekick, workflows, and connected agents can act.
Background Agents that act on churn and upgrade signals
Helply’s Background Agents, all included on Pro, watch customer accounts for signs of churn, upgrade intent, product requests, and doc gaps. They start when a signal appears and can alert the right teammate, update your records, or trigger a workflow. Plain’s Insights groups threads into AI themes and spots churn risks and upsell potential.
Plain pricing vs. Helply pricing
Plain pricing begins with Foundation at $55 per member a month ($45 billed yearly); Horizon is $99 per member a month, billed yearly. Ari draws 100 credits per resolved thread, so Horizon’s 2,500 monthly credits cover 25 resolutions if nothing else uses them. On Helply, $199 a month billed yearly buys Plus, with up to 5 agents and 5,000 AI credits; Team is $499 for 10 agents.
- Foundation: $55 per member a month ($45 billed yearly); up to five members; 1,000 credits a month
- Horizon: $99 per member a month, billed yearly; three to ten members; 2,500 credits a month
- Horizon on monthly billing: $139 per member a month, listed in Plain’s billing docs
- Frontier: custom pricing, billed yearly only; ten or more members
- Viewer seats: free and unlimited; viewers read threads and, by default, use Sidekick but can’t reply to customers
- Ari (customer-facing AI agent): 100 credits per thread it resolves without a teammate, once the thread stays in Done for 7 days
- Sidekick (internal AI agent): 15 to 300+ credits per session, depending on effort
- Credit top-ups: $10 per 1,000 credits, bought as needed; they never expire
- Included credits: shared across the workspace; they expire at the end of each month
- Free trial: 7 days, no credit card
- Startup Plan: Horizon at 50% off for eligible VC-backed startups ($6,000 flat fee for 12 months and 10 seats)
| Cost line | Helply | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| Plan compared | Plus, since Starter stops at 2 agents | Foundation, the lower-priced plan that fits five members |
| Price per user a month | $199 a month covers up to 5 agents; Team covers 10 for $499 | $55 billed monthly ($45 billed yearly) |
| Five people who reply to customers | Included in Plus’s $199 a month, billed yearly | $275 a month ($225 billed yearly) |
| AI included | 5,000 AI credits a month, pooled across your workspace; a drafted reply costs 2, an investigation 6, an end-to-end resolution 10 | 1,000 credits a month; Ari uses 100 credits per resolved thread |
| Doesn’t use credits | Help desk work with AI off, spam, notifications, auto-replies, handoffs after an AI attempt, and Playground tests | Everything outside Ari, Sidekick, AI workflows, and connected agents |
| More AI | When credits run out on Starter, Plus, or Team, AI pauses and you can top up in the app at $40 per 1,000. On Pro and Growth, you choose a hard cap or go over at a rate agreed at signup. | Top-ups at $10 per 1,000 credits, or a larger monthly allowance through Plain’s sales team |
| Monthly total: 1,000 conversations, AI resolving 500, no other credit use | $239: Plus at $199 plus $40 for 1,000 extra credits, 6,000 in all | $715: $225 in seats plus $490 for 49,000 top-up credits |
On 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. With 500 Ari resolutions and no other credit use, five Plain members pay $715 a month on Foundation or $975 on Horizon, both billed yearly. Slack Connect, WhatsApp, SMS and SLAs start on Team at $499 a month.
Once a sixth person needs to reply on Plain Foundation, you move to Horizon at $594 a month for six members, billed yearly. On Helply, a sixth agent moves you from Plus to Team at $499 a month billed yearly, with 10 agents and 15,000 AI credits. Every Helply plan has usage alerts and limits for AI credits.
Teams that switched
“Helply forced us to run support properly. It resolves the deep technical tickets, keeps our docs honest, and remembers every fix, so the whole thing compounds. That’s the difference between support being a drag and being an asset.”
- 3x faster responses, with 79% of technical questions resolved end to end
- 30+ plain-language Skills built for recurring integration scenarios
- Knowledge base mapped from ~70% complete and closed by living documentation
Switching from Plain
Keep Plain running while you test Helply, and your past Plain threads stay where they are. Plain’s GraphQL API can export those threads in bulk if you want a copy.
- Open a 14-day Helply trial (no card) and connect your docs and Stripe; CRM and engineering tools start on Team. Playground tests use no credits.
- Route one Slack channel or inbox to Helply, keep the rest in Plain, and compare answers on similar questions.
- Move your remaining channels once AI resolution quality meets your bar.
- Docs from Notion, Confluence, Google Drive, or GitBook, plus knowledge you write in Helply
- Customer and billing data from HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio, Stripe, or Chargebee
- Engineering tools such as Linear, Jira, and GitHub
- Slack Connect channels, support email, and your chat widget
Helply or Plain: which should you choose?
- Your engineers want to build on a GraphQL API that can do everything Plain’s UI does.
- Five or fewer people reply to customers, and Foundation’s 1,000 monthly credits cover your AI use. Five members cost $275 a month ($225 billed yearly).
- You’re a VC-backed startup that qualifies for Plain’s Startup Plan, with Horizon at 50% off.
- Your conversation volume is growing faster than your hiring, and you want AI to resolve a large share of it.
- You handle about 1,000 conversations a month and want AI on all of them within one plan price.
- You want a built-in customer-facing agent that can take supported actions, such as preparing a refund the customer qualifies for.
- You want Background Agents that act on churn risk and upgrade intent, all included on Pro, plus your own on Growth.
- Your customers write in on WhatsApp, Telegram, or SMS as well as Slack and email (WhatsApp, SMS, and Slack Connect from Team).
Frequently asked questions
How is Helply different from Plain?
Helply prices plans by human agents and includes AI credits; harder AI tasks cost more credits. Plain charges per member seat; Ari uses 100 credits per resolution.
Can Helply replace Plain?
Yes. From Team up, Helply replaces Plain as one platform for Slack Connect, email, chat, ticketing, a help center, workflows, analytics, and AI agents.
Is there a Plain alternative that includes more AI work?
Yes. If nothing else uses credits, Helply Team’s 15,000 cover 1,000 conversations a month; Plain Horizon’s 2,500 cover 25 Ari resolutions.
How much does Plain cost?
In November 2026, Plain Foundation costs $55 per member a month ($45 billed yearly); Horizon, $99 per member a month billed yearly. Frontier is custom.
Does Plain charge per user?
Yes: Plain bills per member seat, and only members can reply to customers, up to five on Foundation. Free viewers can read but not reply.
How does Plain AI pricing work?
Plain Foundation includes 1,000 monthly credits; Horizon, 2,500. Ari resolutions use 100 each and Sidekick sessions 15 to 300+; top-ups cost $10 per 1,000.
What is Plain AI?
Plain AI covers Ari, Sidekick, AI workflows, and connected agents. Ari answers customers from your docs; Sidekick can act in tools like Linear.
Does Plain have ticketing?
Yes. Plain turns Slack, email, chat, and contact-form messages into threads your team works; SLAs and escalation paths start on Horizon.
How does Helply’s pricing work?
Starter is $99 a month billed yearly for up to 2 agents. Plus costs $199; Team, $499; Pro, $999; Growth, $1,999; each includes AI credits.
Is Helply cheaper than Plain for a five-person team?
Yes, with 500 AI resolutions and no other credit use: billed yearly, Plain Foundation costs $715 and Helply Plus $199, or $239 with 1,000 extra credits. Slack Connect, WhatsApp, SMS and SLAs start on Team at $499 a month, so Slack-first teams with light AI use pay less on Plain.
Can I run Helply alongside Plain before switching?
Yes. Route one Slack channel or inbox to Helply during the 14-day trial, compare the results, then move your other channels.
Which channels does Helply support compared with Plain?
Both cover Slack, email, chat, and Microsoft Teams (Helply Pro, Plain Horizon). Helply adds Telegram; Slack Connect, WhatsApp, SMS, and Discord need Helply Team.
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