{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "help-scout",
 "name": "Help Scout",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "helpscout.com",
 "category": "Customer Support",
 "task": "A help desk, tickets or a shared inbox",
 "summary": "Email-first shared inbox for support teams with live chat, social messaging, a knowledge base, workflows and an AI assistant that answers customer questions.",
 "best_for": "small and mid-sized support teams that want an email-first shared inbox with live chat and a help centre, priced per user without a minimum below Pro",
 "skip_if": "you run a large contact centre with native phone support, or you need SSO but have fewer than ten agents (SSO is on Pro, with a 10-user minimum)",
 "honest_knock": "The Free plan caps you at 100 contacts a month and one Inbox. Standard stops at 25 users and Plus at 50; Pro has a 10-user minimum and is sold through a demo. Extra Inboxes ($10) and Docs sites ($20) are charged monthly, AI Answers adds $0.75 per resolution, and SMS and phone run through integrations rather than natively. We have not used Help Scout ourselves.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "public",
  "entry_price": "$25",
  "entry_price_terms": "Standard · per user per month billed yearly",
  "from_price_usd_month": 25.0,
  "plans": null,
  "plans_source": null,
  "notes": "(read 2026-10-10 on helpscout.com/pricing with the monthly and annual toggles, USD) Free covers up to 5 users, 1 Inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts a month, with 10 saved replies and 10 tags. A contact is someone who got a reply from your team or the AI assistant; several conversations with the same person count once. Standard is $25 per user a month billed annually or $30 monthly, for up to 25 users: 2 Inboxes, live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, multiple knowledge bases, one basic SLA policy, basic workflows, unlimited tags and saved replies and the AI Inbox assistant. Plus, marked popular, is $45 annually or $54 monthly, for up to 50 users: 5 Inboxes, advanced workflows, two advanced SLA policies, a secure customer portal, unlimited AI drafts, round-robin routing, Salesforce, Jira and HubSpot integrations and 25 light users. Pro is $75 annually or $90 monthly with unlimited users and a minimum of 10, sold through a demo: 10 Inboxes, unlimited workflows and SLAs, SSO/SAML, HIPAA compliance, 50 light users and a dedicated onboarding specialist. Extra Inboxes cost $10 a month and extra Docs sites $20 a month. AI Answers, the autonomous assistant, is an add-on at $0.75 per resolution billed monthly, with a 3-month free trial. Annual billing is labelled 16% off; SMS and phone calls run through integrations.",
  "verified_at": "2026-10-10",
  "source_url": "https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/"
 },
 "free_plan": true,
 "free_plan_evidence": "(read 2026-10-10 on helpscout.com/pricing with the monthly and annual toggles, USD) Free covers up to 5 users, 1 Inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts a month, with 10 saved replies and 10 tags.",
 "cost_traps": [
  {
   "id": "per_seat",
   "label": "Per-seat pricing",
   "evidence": "Standard is $25 per user a month billed annually or $30 monthly, for up to 25 users: 2 Inboxes, live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, multiple knowledge bases, one basic SLA policy, basic workflows, unlimited tags and saved replies and the AI Inbox assistant.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-10",
   "source_url": "https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/"
  },
  {
   "id": "addons_extra",
   "label": "Key features are paid add-ons",
   "evidence": "AI Answers, the autonomous assistant, is an add-on at $0.75 per resolution billed monthly, with a 3-month free trial.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-10",
   "source_url": "https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/"
  },
  {
   "id": "annual_lock",
   "label": "Annual commitment",
   "evidence": "Annual billing is labelled 16% off; SMS and phone calls run through integrations.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-10",
   "source_url": "https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/"
  }
 ],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "Zendesk",
  "why": "Zendesk is in our dossiers too and is the larger ticketing platform with more routing, reporting and add-ons. Help Scout keeps support closer to a shared email inbox, has a usable free plan for up to 5 users and fewer configuration layers."
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/help-scout.json",
  "review": "https://zerotouchsupport.com/help-scout-review.html",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/help-scout/",
  "vendor_site": "https://helpscout.com"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://helpscout.partnerlinks.io/4e2xjrhu8u5l",
  "affiliate": true,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "not_yet",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": null,
  "growth": null
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Plan-by-plan prices are not structured in this record yet; pricing.notes has the full text.",
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "No computable price rules yet: cost at a given team size cannot be calculated for this product.",
  "Not tested hands-on by us: what the product does comes from the vendor's pages and our reading of them."
 ],
 "task_evidence": null,
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "help-scout:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "help-scout:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "help-scout:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "help-scout:minimum_seats",
   "key": "minimum_seats",
   "question": "Is there a minimum number of seats or users on any plan?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": null,
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_checked",
   "detail": "We could not read the vendor's pages as plain HTML.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}