Customer Support · decision tool

What Help Scout really costs at your usage

Help Scout priced at YOUR usage from verified pricing pages — Up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site — but only 100 contacts/month. See the free-tier ceiling, the per-unit overage, and exactly when it starts costing real money.

Prices verified 2026-07-17 against official pricing pages · fit weights are our estimates (see methodology) · share the URL to share your configuration

As of Jul 2026, with 15 support seats, a $50 budget for this slot, Help Scout ranks first for these inputs at 42% fit and a StackSays-estimated $375.00/month. Fit weights are our estimates; prices trace to official pages. Change any input below and the verdict recomputes.

Your situation

The verdict updates as you move these.

Support seats (people answering)how many humans will actually reply to customers — per-seat vendors bill each oneBudget for this slot ($/mo)what you'd accept paying for the support tool layerTeam size1 = solo; bundled platforms save glue time for small teams

Clear pick for your inputs

Help Scoutfit 42% · est $375.00/mo

Genuinely usable free tier and flat, honest per-user pricing

Help Scoutfit 42%

$375.00/mo

Comparing 1 tools head-to-head. Open the full field (8 options) →

The decision, in plain words

For a solo builder at 15 support seats and a $50.00/mo budget for the support tool slot, Help Scout leads at 42% fit and $375.00/mo. The two rules doing the work: batteries included (Bundles knowledge base, AI answers — fewer services to glue at team size 1); ecosystem maturity (established — our estimate from ecosystem age, docs and hiring pool).

Honest weak spot of the pick: ~$375/mo is 750% of your $50/mo budget — over it.

Generated from the calculation above — every number traces to the sourced data; nothing here is written by an AI making things up.

Why Help Scout scores 42%

Budget fit (weight 30, our estimate) — ~$375/mo is 750% of your $50/mo budget — over it-30

Batteries included (weight 12, our estimate) — Bundles knowledge base, AI answers — fewer services to glue at team size 1+8

Exit cost (weight 4, our estimate) — Proprietary SaaS — conversation history export is usually partial-0.8

Ecosystem maturity (weight 8, our estimate) — established — our estimate from ecosystem age, docs and hiring pool+8

Free-tier runway (weight 10, our estimate) — Free tier exists (Up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site — but only 100 contacts/month) — a cheap staging/dev lane even after you outgrow it+4

Total (lines sum exactly)-10.8

Possible range −64…+64 (sum of active rule weights) · fit % = (total + max) / (2 × max)(-10.8 + 64) / 128 = 42%

How the $375.00/mo estimate is calculated

support seats overage — 15 over 0 included × $25/unit$375.00

Note — $25/user/month on MONTHLY billing (16% annual discount); 2 inboxes; unlimited AI drafts; AI Answers $0.75/resolution extra$0

Monthly total (lines sum exactly)$375.00

What could change this verdict

No single input change within the tested range changes the winner.

Cost risk

Estimated now (StackSays estimate, not your final bill)$375.00/mo · Standard

Free-tier statusFree tier exceeded (support seats 15 > 5 cap)

Next known billing thresholdStandard caps at 25 support seats — beyond that you change plans

Official prices verified 2026-07-17; calculation is deterministic code over those prices.

At a glance

Tool	Free tier	Paid entry	Verified
Help Scout	Up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site — but only 100 contacts/month	Pay-as-you-go — $25/user/month on MONTHLY billing (16% annual discount); 2 inboxes; unlimited AI drafts; AI Answers $0.75/resolution extra	2026-07-17

Where did you land?anonymous, one click

Data sources

Tool	Source	Verified
Help Scout	Help Scout pricing	2026-07-17

A monitor re-checks these pages for changes; when a vendor moves a price, the date updates and every verdict recomputes.

Keep deciding