Skip to main content

Help desk software gives support teams the tools they need to track, prioritize, and resolve customer issues efficiently. Whether you’re managing IT requests, customer service tickets, or internal support needs, the right help desk software improves response times, boosts agent productivity, and keeps customers satisfied.

To help you choose the right tool, I tested and reviewed leading help desk software platforms based on features like automation, multichannel support, reporting, and scalability. This guide highlights the top help desk solutions available in 2026—so you can find a platform that fits your team, customers, and support goals.

What Is Help Desk Software?

Help desk software is a tool that helps businesses manage, track, and resolve customer support inquiries from a centralized platform.
It converts customer questions into support tickets, automates responses to common issues, and ensures nothing slips through the cracks. By streamlining workflows and improving visibility into customer interactions, help desk software boosts support team efficiency and drives better customer satisfaction.

The Best Help Desk Software Comparison Chart

This is an easy-to-use comparison tool of the best help desk software on the market.

The 10 Best Help Desk Software Overviews

These are overviews of the best pieces of help desk software from my experience:

Help desk software is a tool that helps businesses manage, track, and resolve customer support inquiries from a centralized platform.
It converts customer questions into support tickets, automates responses to common issues, and ensures nothing slips through the cracks. By streamlining workflows and improving visibility into customer interactions, help desk software boosts support team efficiency and drives better customer satisfaction.

Best with remote monitoring and management

  • Free trial available
  • From $149/technician/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Atera provides a comprehensive IT management solution designed to meet the needs of businesses and IT professionals looking for an efficient helpdesk software. It caters to managed service providers (MSPs) and internal IT departments by offering tools that enhance service delivery and problem resolution.

Why I Picked Atera

I picked Atera for its robust helpdesk and ticketing system, which stands out in the realm of IT management. This system includes email-to-ticket conversion and automated ticket routing, which can significantly improve your team's response time and customer satisfaction. Additionally, Atera's remote monitoring and management capabilities allow you to troubleshoot and resolve issues without being on-site, addressing the challenge of managing multiple client locations. These features make Atera a strong contender for those in need of efficient helpdesk software.

Atera Key Features

In addition to its helpdesk capabilities, Atera offers a variety of features that can enhance your IT management experience.

  • Automation Tools: Automate routine tasks such as onboarding and patch management to save time and reduce manual errors.
  • AI Tagging: Leverage artificial intelligence to categorize and prioritize tickets automatically, ensuring critical issues are addressed promptly.
  • Real-Time Monitoring: Monitor client systems in real-time to detect and address potential problems before they impact operations.
  • 24/7 Live Chat Support: Access round-the-clock support to resolve any issues that may arise while using the platform.

Atera Integrations

Integrations include Acronis, AnyDesk, Webroot, Bitdefender, Splashtop, TeamViewer, QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and Dropbox.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Offers comprehensive remote monitoring and management features.
  • Integrates multiple IT management tools into one platform.
  • Includes AI-driven automation for proactive issue resolution.

Cons:

  • Less granular control for highly complex custom workflows or integrations.
  • Reporting features may incur additional costs for advanced needs.

Best for its automation capabilities

  • 14-day free trial available
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

SysAid is an IT Service Management (ITSM), service desk, and help desk software platform that supports core ITIL practices. It provides the essential tools IT teams need to manage incidents, service requests, assets, and workflows in a structured way.

SysAid places a strong emphasis on automation, offering ticket, task, self-service, and workflow automation features that allow you to define rules and reduce manual effort. Ticket automation helps route requests to the appropriate team or queue based on predefined conditions. Task automation supports repetitive actions, such as common IT maintenance tasks, while workflow automation lets you define structured steps for processes like employee onboarding or change approvals.

Additional standout features include remote control capabilities that allow agents to troubleshoot issues directly on a user’s device, asset management that links hardware and software details to tickets, and reporting tools that help you track KPIs and other service desk metrics.

SysAid also offers a marketplace with pre-built integrations, including tools such as Microsoft Teams, Jira, TeamViewer, SolarWinds, Azure, and Slack. You can also connect SysAid to thousands of additional applications through Zapier.

Pricing is available upon request, and SysAid offers a free trial.

New Product Updates from SysAid

SysAid Adds Direct Knowledge Base Linking in Service Records
SysAid adds direct linking between service records to enhance issue tracking.
November 30 2025
SysAid Adds Direct Knowledge Base Linking in Service Records

SysAid now allows linking knowledge base articles directly to service records, enhancing centralized access to information and speeding up issue resolution. For more information, visit SysAid's official site.

Best for centralized ecommerce communication

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $39/agent/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

Designed specifically for online sellers, eDesk offers a suite of features that reduce repetitive tasks and improve response times, making it easier to manage customer queries and enhance engagement. For businesses aiming to boost customer loyalty and sales, eDesk's AI-driven capabilities provide the efficiency and automation needed to transform your support operations.

Why I Picked eDesk

I picked eDesk for its unique ability to centralize customer messages and order details, which is crucial for ecommerce businesses managing high volumes of inquiries. The intelligent ticket routing and smart replies feature enhances response accuracy and speed, allowing your team to focus on more complex issues. Additionally, the AI chatbot, capable of handling over 70% of customer queries, ensures support is available 24/7, addressing the common challenge of providing round-the-clock assistance without increasing headcount.

eDesk Key Features

In addition to centralized ecommerce communication, eDesk offers:

  • Unified Inbox: Consolidates all customer messages across various platforms into a single view, simplifying communication management.
  • Pre-Sales Support Tools: Provides tools to help convert inquiries into sales, directly impacting your revenue.
  • Performance Measurement: Offers insights into customer interactions and team performance to help you refine your support strategy.
  • Scalable Integration: Supports integrations with over 300 platforms, ensuring seamless connectivity with your existing systems.

eDesk Integrations

Integrations include Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Walmart, Etsy, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Allegro, Magento, and Back Market.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Reduces switching between inboxes and marketplace portals
  • Gives agents full customer context in one view
  • Helps manage high ticket volumes during peak sales periods

Cons:

  • Setup requires connecting multiple storefronts and channels
  • Reporting focuses on operations, not deep analytics

Best for AI copilot assistance

  • Free demo available
  • From $16/user/month (billed annually)

If you manage a team that juggles customer inquiries from multiple channels, SparrowDesk might be the solution you need. It combines AI-driven automation with an intuitive interface to streamline your helpdesk operations. Whether you're in retail, tech, or any customer-centric industry, SparrowDesk aims to reduce manual workload by automating a majority of customer interactions, enhancing both efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Why I Picked SparrowDesk

I picked SparrowDesk for its standout AI capabilities that directly address the needs of modern helpdesk teams. Its AI Agents automate repetitive queries, freeing up your team to focus on complex issues that require a human touch. The AI Copilot further assists by providing agents with real-time summaries and smart replies, making it easier to manage high volumes of inquiries. These features are designed to improve response times and ensure consistent, on-brand communication across all customer interactions.

SparrowDesk Key Features

In addition to its AI capabilities, SparrowDesk offers a suite of features tailored for effective helpdesk management.

  • Omnichannel Inbox: Consolidate customer interactions from chat and email into a single, easy-to-manage inbox.
  • Service Level Agreements (SLA): Set response and resolution targets to meet customer expectations consistently.
  • Interactive Analytics: Gain insights into team performance and customer trends with real-time dashboards.
  • Quick-Action Macros: Automate frequent tasks with pre-set macros to boost efficiency.

SparrowDesk Integrations

Native integrations are not currently listed by SparrowDesk.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • No code workflow builder automates routing and notifications
  • Copilot features summarize long conversations inside the agent inbox
  • AI agents designed to auto resolve many repetitive tickets

Cons:

  • Limited native integrations could hinder seamless connectivity
  • Channels currently focus on email and live chat, not voice or social

Best enterprise helpdesk software

  • 14-day free trial + free plan available
  • From $19/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Used by over 150,000 businesses, including Panasonic, HP, and Pearson, Freshdesk (a product of Freshworks Inc.) lets you streamline your support channels (email, phone, chat and more) so that you can then notice trends and assign tickets accordingly. Some features include: automation of repetitive tasks, dissemination of tutorials to customers, and community management. For many teams, the biggest advantage is the time saved in managing client communications. Shaun Bettman, CEO and Chief Mortgage Broker of Eden Emerald Mortgages, shared his experience: “Freshdesk has reduced our average response time to less than thirty minutes, so that my team was able to devote all their energies to assisting clients with their finance needs and not get bogged down in emails.”

One of Freshdesk’s standout strengths is the ability to set service-level agreements (SLAs) and track them through advanced reporting tools. This makes it easy to monitor performance, ensure commitments are met, and spot areas for improvement. From knowledge management to reporting and collaboration, these capabilities make Freshdesk an extraordinarily helpful tool for support teams.

Integrations listed include Google Apps, JIRA, various live chat apps, Zoho CRM, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, DropBox, Box, OneDrive, MailChimp, iContact, SurveyMonkey, and many more, including a whole host of selection through a paid Zapier plan.

The app would not accommodate the uploading of larger documents or files, which may not be ideal in many circumstances. Additionally, having the ability to set reminders on tickets would be an asset for anyone whose workload is particularly demanding.

Freshdesk starts at $18/user/month

21 days Free Trial, No Credit card required

Also has a freemium version

New Product Updates from Freshdesk

February 1 2026
Freshdesk Introduces Precision Time Formats for Analytics

Freshdesk introduces Precision Time Formats for Analytics, showing exact measurements in seconds or milliseconds. This update improves reporting accuracy and makes performance data easier to interpret and share. For more information, visit Freshdesk's official site.

Best IT service desk for beginners

  • 14-day free trial + free demo available
  • From $19/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Freshservice’s modern and intuitive UI requires minimal to no training, and is customizable to IT and non-IT needs. It automates tasks and provides support for issues raised via email, self-service portal, phone, chat, or in-person. Freshservice maintains records of contracts, hardware, software, and other vital customer-data assets.

For organizations managing complex operations, it can make a measurable difference. Logan Jacobson, Manager of Technology Asset Management at Smartsheet, shared his team’s experience: “It used to take up to four hours to provision software. Now we're able to provision it within minutes. Everyone uses Freshservice. It has been instrumental in streamlining our operations not only within the IT department but also across various business functions.”

Built in user-portal, reporting, workflows, and continuous updates mean that you have all the basic functionality you would expect for a helpdesk tool as well as a roadmap for constant improvement.

They offer the whole gamut of helpdesk tools: incident management, change management, release management, vendor relationships all with robust analyzing tools to make sure common problems are tracked and improved.

The biggest cons that I noticed was that it doesn’t work with corrective actions (CAPA) and that it doesn’t manage portfolios or offer product road mapping. These services can be supplemented with another app or service, but that will obviously increase the cost of your overall set-up.

Freshservice scored favorably on our features and functionality evaluation criteria section because it truly is a jack-of-all-trades. The software lets you track assets, manage problems, manage self-service portals, navigate advanced incident management, organize contracts and licenses, and more.

Integrations listed include Slack, DocuSign, Jira, Freshbooks, Google calendar, Survey Monkey, Dropbox, and many more through Zapier.

Freshservice starts at $19/user/month and has a 21-day free trial.

New Product Updates from Freshservice

Smarter Freshservice Status Pages Unveiled
Freshservice lets teams post incident updates directly to status pages.
February 1 2026
Smarter Freshservice Status Pages Unveiled

Freshservice introduces built-in Status Pages and service health tracking to improve communication during outages. This update helps teams keep users informed during planned maintenance and unexpected incidents. For more information, visit Freshservice’s official site.

Best for MSPs and IT teams

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $89/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

SuperOps is a PSA-RMM software designed to help managed service providers (MSPs) and IT teams monitor infrastructure and deliver exceptional support. It offers tools to prioritize issues, centralize communication, and automate routine tasks, enhancing service delivery.

I like SuperOps for its conversational workspace, which provides technicians with all the context they need within each ticket. This setup eliminates the need to switch between tabs, enabling your team to resolve issues faster and more effectively. Additionally, the auto-tracking of time spent on tickets ensures accurate billing for clients.

Another great feature is the platform's automation capabilities through Runbooks. By turning repetitive processes into standardized workflows, tasks are completed more quickly and consistently. Event-based triggers can apply these Runbooks automatically, reducing manual intervention and allowing your team to focus on more complex issues. 

One thing I find especially unique is that, aside from its service desk through its PSA suite, you can fully integrate with its RMM product, which includes asset management, policy management, network monitoring, endpoint security, and more. This means that you can get more context around tickets and have more visibility around activities.

Integrations include Acronis, ESET, Sophos, SentinelOne, Emsisoft, Bitdefender, Splashtop, TeamViewer, Connectwise Control, Xero, Quickbooks, and Azure.

New Product Updates from SuperOps

SuperOps Launches Retainer Summary Report
SuperOps summarizes retainer usage, remaining value, and utilization rates.
January 26 2026
SuperOps Launches Retainer Summary Report

SuperOps introduces the Retainer Summary Report for tracking retainer usage and remaining value. This update helps MSPs manage block hour and block money retainers with clearer visibility into consumption. For more information, visit SuperOps’ official site.

Best context-aware help desk software with multi-channel capabilities

  • 15-day free trial
  • From $7/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Zoho Desk is a cloud-based customer service application with contextual AI that helps your company build stronger relationships with customers. For organizations handling high volumes of requests, the platform can be a game-changer. Miguel Angel Gongora Meza, Founder & Director of Evolution Treks Peru, explained: “Zoho Desk provided our cooperative with the organization that we required to oversee dozens of requests per day by travelers intending to go to Peru, and I loved how tickets, emails, and follow-ups were all visible in a single transparent perspective.”

Zoho Desk has great features for prioritizing, managing, and closing customer support tickets. Users have control over tickets submitted to the support team via email, phone, chat, social media, a self-service portal, forums, and web forms. All tickets are presented in one place, and team members can set priorities and close tickets in the preferred order.

The tool allows teams to create a Knowledge Base of customer support articles, so your team can quickly find appropriate solutions for customer tickets. Zoho Desk’s Help Center features also allow customers to create a ticket and track it online themselves.

Zoho Desk’s AI and automation features take into account an appropriate resolution time based on your business hours when a customer ticket is created. If those parameters are missed, the ticket will be escalated automatically. Tasks such as ticket assignment, service escalations, notification rules, live chat widget and time-based actions can be automated by setting workflow rules.

The tool provides detailed reports and analytics about your support center performance, such as the average resolution time, the number of tickets closed per agent per day, the number of tickets opened per product and more.

The platform integrates with Zoho customer relationship management (CRM), as well as other Zoho Apps. The tool also offers an API for further integrations.

Pricing starts at $20/agent/month billed annually.

Best for IT service teams

  • Free trial available
  • $17/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

InvGate Service Management is a comprehensive IT service management (ITSM) solution designed to enhance your organization's service delivery. It offers tools for managing incidents, problems, changes, and service requests, all within a single platform. 

One thing I like about InvGate Service Management is its robust ticket management system. You can organize and prioritize work based on factors like priority, service level agreements (SLAs), and urgency, ensuring that critical issues are addressed promptly. The platform also highlights actions that can be resolved with minimal effort, helping to prevent bottlenecks and keep operations running smoothly.​

With access to over 150 metrics, you can also cross-analyze data to create insightful reports, aiding in faster and more informed decision-making. Sharing custom dashboards with stakeholders enhances transparency, providing visibility into the status of the service desk and fostering improved communication.​

Integrations include FileWave, Lansweeper, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft ActiveDirectory, Azure DevOps, Okta, Office 365, OpenAI, Outlook, and Jira.

New Product Updates from InvGate Service Management

January 26 2026
InvGate Service Management Improves Workflows and Asset Integration

InvGate Service Management introduces dynamic subflows, Microsoft Teams form access, expanded asset integration, WhatsApp configuration details, and a new API endpoint for shared custom fields. These updates improve workflow automation, collaboration, and asset visibility across service operations. For more information, visit InvGate Service Management's official site.

Best helpdesk software for incident management processes

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

ServiceDesk Plus is a complete IT Service Management (ITSM) suite with built-in IT Asset Management (ITAM) and Configuration Management Database (CMDB) capabilities. With advanced ITSM functions, powerful automations, smart customizations, and easy-to-use capabilities, ServiceDesk Plus helps IT support teams easily deliver world-class service to end users at lower costs.

Features include strong incident management processes that help resolve incidents swiftly and improve agent productivity; comprehensive problem management features that enable IT teams to classify, analyze, and close issues as well as identify repetitive issues to close tickets faster; and a change management system that allows IT teams to implement IT changes with minimal risk through streamlined planning, approval, and implementation.

The tool also provides integrated knowledge management, virtual assistant, and AI capabilities, as well as effective SLA management with proactive and reactive escalations and escalation actions.

It offers various integration options, including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Jira, and more through REST APIs.

Pricing for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus starts at $12/per user/month for the standard plan. See further pricing plans on their pricing page.

Best for custom workflow automation

  • 7-day free trial + free plan available
  • From $25/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.7/5

Tidio is a versatile helpdesk software designed to enhance customer interactions and support experiences. It combines live chat, ticketing, and AI-driven automation to manage customer inquiries across multiple channels.

One feature that stands out to me is Tidio's advanced ticketing system, which organizes customer inquiries into tickets for efficient management. This system allows your team to focus on prioritizing and resolving issues without losing track of any communication. The multichannel shared inbox further enhances this by centralizing emails, chats, and social media messages into one platform, ensuring your team never misses a customer query.

Another reason Tidio makes the list is its AI-powered chatbots, which provide immediate responses to common questions. These chatbots handle routine inquiries, freeing up your team to tackle more complex issues. Additionally, Tidio's video call support offers a more personal touch, allowing you to connect with customers directly for more detailed assistance when needed.

With the ability to create custom workflows, Tidio is great automating repetitive tasks and saving time. Tidio's analytics feature provides insights into customer satisfaction and team performance, helping you make informed decisions. Furthermore, order management is integrated for platforms like Shopify, allowing you to handle customer orders directly from the Tidio interface.

The platform also integrates with WordPress, Squarespace, WIX, Adobe Commerce, Google Analytics, Klaviyo, Omnisend, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Hubspot, and Salesforce.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Built-in lead collection and chatbot performance
  • Integrated live chat and AI features
  • Customizable chatbot flow creation without the need for coding skills

Cons:

  • Limited customization options for advanced users
  • AI and flow features cannot be used simultaneously

Best help desk software for cloud-based flexibility

  • Free trial + free demo available
  • From $25/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Salesforce Service Cloud is a cloud-based customer service management solution designed for businesses looking to set up a flexible help desk program and initiate their customer service operations from anywhere.

Service Cloud is built on the Salesforce1 platform, and it aims to optimize and centralize customer service agent efforts, giving them the ability to manage cases and handle customer requests with a flexible and mobile approach. It was initially developed to provide proper support mobility for customer service professionals. The solution allows them to not only receive service requests but also provide high-quality support with omnichannel customer experience from anywhere. This means the platform is more than capable of serving as a truly mobile help desk solution for remote and hybrid teams. Using the Service Cloud console, support teams and agents can easily manage all their active cases with relative efficiency.

The platform comes with a Communities tool that empowers customers by giving them the ability to help themselves and others through the self-service approach. Service Cloud works as a help desk solution with self-service capabilities. Other Service Cloud features include a knowledge module that enables organizations to build their knowledge base. This knowledge base can then be utilized by customer support teams and customers alike to look for the answers they need at any given moment.

Salesforce Service Cloud also has a social service function that enables the help desk to be seamlessly integrated with various social media channels, further enhancing the customer service experience.

Pricing for the Salesforce Service Cloud starts from $25 per user/month with the Essentials package. This option supports a maximum of 10 users and is billed annually. A 14-day free trial is available.


Best help desk software for productivity and customer experience

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $19/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

Zendesk is an easy-to-use, AI-powered customer service solution that’s sophisticated enough to meet complex needs and simple enough to let you get set up and running immediately. For many businesses, it’s more than just a support tool—it’s a way to strengthen customer relationships and uncover valuable business insights. Paul Hodges, CEO & Cofounder of Soltech, explained: “Customer service and relations is a core pillar of our business. By managing customer interactions through Zendesk, we can easily provide full support while also gaining valuable insights for our product development and marketing strategies.”

Zendesk makes it easy for desk agents to track, prioritize, and respond to customers with one unified agent workspace that brings all conversations across web, mobile, and social channels together. With complete customer context, including more than 1000+ pre-built integrations from the Zendesk Apps Marketplace, agents have all the relevant customer details and interaction history to provide better, more personalized support.

Your team can customize the support environment based on use cases, such as software support, customer service, troubleshooting, and orders & shipping. Leverage built-in routing and intelligence to collect critical details and reduce data entry, and escalate issues to the agent best suited to help. Zendesk allows users to create knowledge base content for customers and a customized, mobile-responsive, help center.

Zendesk includes a reporting solution for ticket and support teams that allows access to real-time and historical data, and lets you analyze performance using pre-built dashboards populated with useful metrics such as unresolved tickets, reopened tickets, and ticket resolution times. Users can also customize dashboards and charts, and share relevant dashboards to keep stakeholders in the loop about key insights and trends.

Integrations include Asana, Google Workspace, HubSpot, Jira, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Shopify, Slack, Trello, Zoom, and over 1200 more options on the Zendesk Marketplace.

Zendesk starts at $19/user/month and offers a 14-day free trial.

Front - Best help desk software for efficient customer communication

  • 14-day free trial + free demo available
  • From $25/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 5/5

Front is a customer operations and help desk platform that centralizes communication channels to facilitate better customer service and team collaboration. It integrates email with other communication tools to provide a unified platform for managing customer interactions, aiming to improve responsiveness and maintain high-quality customer relationships.

I selected Front as the helpdesk software due to its comprehensive approach to managing customer interactions. It integrates email with other communication channels, enabling a unified platform for team collaboration and customer service. Front's distinctiveness lies in its emphasis on transparency and teamwork, allowing all team members to see the entire context of customer conversations and work together directly within the inbox.

You can use Front's shared inboxes to manage team emails, comments, and tasks in one place, facilitating collaboration. It offers workflow automation to assign, triage, and track messages, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. The platform also includes analytics for insights into team performance and customer engagement, as well as integrations with other tools to centralize work.

Integrations are available with 100+ software systems, including Calixa, Fullcontact, Gainsight, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Outlook 365, NiceReply, Outreach, Pipedrive, and Salesforce.

Pricing for Front starts at $19/user/month for their Starter plan when billed annually, which supports up to 10 user seats.

Best for simplifying IT operations

  • 14-day free trial + Free demo available
  • Price upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 5/5

NinjaOne is a unified endpoint management (UEM) and IT management platform that provides a suite of tools for managing and monitoring IT infrastructure. What makes NinjaOne different is its ability to automate IT management tasks and provide a fast, flexible ticketing system that caters to the needs of IT teams.

NinjaOne's capabilities in endpoint management and alerting are particularly notable, offering automation and efficiency that cater to the needs of managed service providers (MSPs) and IT departments, which is why it is recognized as a top choice in this area. I chose NinjaOne as a help desk software because of its high customer satisfaction ratings and its comprehensive approach to monitoring and managing IT portfolios.

I believe NinjaOne is best for endpoint management and alerting due to its extensive features, which include patch management best practices and integrations that cover a wide range of IT management needs. Its reputation for simplicity and effectiveness, especially in protecting organizations from ransomware attacks, solidifies its position as a top choice in this category.

NinjaOne is a unified endpoint management (UEM) and IT management platform that caters to the needs of IT departments and managed service providers (MSPs). For IT departments, it offers endpoint management, patch management, remote control, helpdesk ticketing, and endpoint backup. MSPs benefit from features like remote monitoring and management (RMM), MSP backup, ticketing, documentation, and endpoint security. The platform emphasizes the importance of endpoint visibility, control, and automation for secure and efficient device management.

NinjaOne offers a pay-per-device pricing model for their cloud RMM software, which allows customers to pay on a monthly basis and only for the devices they manage. NinjaOne provides a 14-day free trial of their software.

Best omnichannel shared inbox

  • Free plan available
  • From $25/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Hiver is a modern AI-powered help desk software that brings you all the features you need to deliver strong customer service in a familiar interface resembling your email inbox. You can manage conversations (across email, live chat, WhatsApp, voice, SMS, and social media) from a panel on the left-hand side of your screen, where you can also view the status of each query and track the number of open, pending, or resolved tickets at a glance. 

Hiver’s standout features include its omnichannel shared inbox, which lets teams manage customer conversations across multiple channels from a single, unified view. To keep operations running smoothly, Hiver includes workflow automations and SLA management, ensuring tickets are routed to the right agents, escalated when needed, and resolved on time. The knowledge base and customer portal allow customers to solve their own problems instantly. 

All of this is enhanced by Hiver’s AI features. AI Copilot suggests and refines responses in real time, AI Agents handle repetitive tasks like follow-ups and closures, and AI Insights helps you spot bottlenecks and areas for improvement. 

Hiver pricing starts at $19/user/month when billed annually. 

Best for creating helpful in-app experiences

  • Free 14-day trial + free plan + free demo available
  • From $174/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.7/5

UserGuiding is a customer onboarding and engagement platform that helps you familiarize new users with your product. You can build no-code walkthroughs that get new users up and running quickly, and show existing users how to navigate key product features and functions.

The software also facilitates the creation of a self-serve knowledge base for your users. Not only can you create no-code guiding experiences directly in your app, you can also offer a go-to hub for support materials. Because it's a no-code platform, it's easy to create product walkthroughs, onboarding checklists, and other resource repositories and integrate them into a helpdesk knowledge base for self-service support.

Your resource center can include in-app support, self-service, FAQs, help articles, interactive guides, checklists, and more. It can also integrate with your own existing knowledge bases. UserGuiding makes self-service easy with a search bar for users to find the help they need.

The software also facilitates customer feedback collection via micro-surveys. There are tons of pre-built survey templates to choose from, or you can build your own. The survey builder is also code-free, and the analytics dashboard provides you with real-time insights from survey responses.

UserGuiding integrates with other tools including Mixpanel, Segment, Intercom, Slack, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Woopra, and HubSpot.

Paid plans start from $89 per month with annual billing, and a 14-day free trial is available.

Best for creating personalized ticket views

  • Free demo + free plan available
  • From $13.79/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.7/5

EngageBay offers help desk software in the form of their Service Bay tool. Users can answer unlimited tickets in one place, as well as create a personalized ticket view to suit their needs.

The tool also offers advanced service automation tools so users can automate routine customer service processes and tasks. Users can also create canned responses to common queries and questions to save time and increase productivity.

EngageBay also includes capabilities for grouping and organizing tickets in order to boost efficiency. You can also manage tickets like tasks in order to keep track of closed and open tickets. The tool offers custom reporting and analytics to ensure you make informed decisions about the support process and specific tickets.

EngageBay's Service Bay software is free to use.

Best helpdesk software for ecommerce businesses

  • Free 7-day trial + free demo available
  • From $10/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Gorgias is a helpdesk software for Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce merchants that allows retailers to manage all of their customer communication and tickets from email, social media, SMS, and phone in one platform. The tool is powered by machine learning and automations, and seamlessly integrates into existing tech stacks.

In addition to managing email, social media, SMS, and phone support, Gorgias also allows teams to manage live chat conversations and reviews, and view customer communication and order history. Team members can use intelligent templates and refer to customer data points in responding to customer inquiries and tickets.

The tool’s machine learning capabilities assist support teams members with detecting the intent of customers and segmenting interactions into categories such as social leads, negative comments, and social questions for prioritization and organization. Support teams can also set up automation features for responding to and handling customer inquiries, as well as track team member performance and attribute sales to specific team members.

Integrations with Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce allow teams to update and manage orders in those platforms directly through Gorgias, as well as create orders, cancel orders, process refunds, issue invoices, and update shipping addresses.

Pricing for Gorgias starts at $60 per month.

Best conversational customer support chat bot

  • Free plan + free demo available
  • From $9/seat/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Everything you need to organize, track, and nurture your relationships with leads and customers; grow traffic and convert more visitors with tools like landing pages, automation, analytics, et cetera; time-saving tools that help you get deeper insights into your prospects, automate the tasks you hate, and close more deals; and more.

Hubspot is excellent about quality of life features, which is why it scored well across our features and functionality evaluation criteria. For example, Hubspot creates transcripts of any phone conversations, it adeptly organizes both contacts and task flows, and tracking and segmenting audiences is convenient and intuitive. It also has an outstanding conversational chat bot you can add (and you can try it out for free, a major plus).

A few minor gripes, though by no means dealbreakers: You can’t merge two Hubspot accounts so when we were doing testing through two different users we would have to manually input all the data from one to the other should we ever need to combine them. Also, Gmail integration so that you can email clients right from Hubspot would have been a plus.

Hubspot has a host of integrations listed in its app marketplace, including Gmail, Outlook, Cyfe, Arena, CallPage, Zoom, LeadSpace, Facebook, TwentyThree, and over a thousand more with Zapier.

HubSpot Service Hub starts at $400/month and has a freemium version and a free demo.

Other 10 Best Helpdesk Software

Not keen on any of the above resources? You’re in luck. There are always dozens of other IT support software and helpdesk tools clattering for your business. The helpdesk software options below are just a few more worthy of your analysis.

  1. ServiceDesk Plus

    Support software for building ITSM workflows

  2. HaloITSM

    Help desk software for enterprises

  3. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

    Customer portal & self-service features

  4. Jitbit Helpdesk

    Email ticketing system for medium and large businesses

  5. ProProfs

    Help desk software for email ticketing

  6. SysAid

    For its automation capabilities

  7. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud

    For all digital end-to-end engagement with your customers.

  8. Hesk

    Open source help desk software

  9. Hiver

    Help desk software for Gmail-based team collaboration

  10. JivoChat

    Free helpdesk software plan for small teams

  11. CometChat

    No-code chat plugin

  12. Samanage

    ITSM help desk

  13. SAAS First

    For AI-driven customer support

  14. DoneDone

    Simple help desk managing support tickets, issues, and tasks

  15. FocalScope

    For social media messaging integration

  16. Creatio CRM

    For customer service management

  17. ClickUp

    For automating your helpdesk workflows

  18. Zoho Assist

    For providing remote access support

  19. LiveAgent

    Help desk software for analytics and reporting

  20. monday service

    For customizable helpdesk boards

How I Picked The Best Help Desk Software

What criteria do we use to determine the best IT help desk solution? First, I carefully researched the top tools on the market, then I compared them against the features that I believe help the most to provide an amazing customer service. Finally, I used the criteria below to analyze my top choices.

  • User Interface (UI): How well-designed is the support desk software? Does it offer clear displays and intuitive navigation? Is it aesthetically pleasing or all-business? Who does the UI cater to and do they succeed in addressing their target user?
  • Usability: Is this easy to learn and master? Are there tutorials and training? What tech and user support is offered by the software company?
  • Integrations: Is it easy to connect with other tools? Any pre-built integrations? How many different integrations are available and how easy (or costly) are they to implement?
  • Value for $: How much does it cost? Are there different tiers? What features do you have access to at each stage?

Other types of software you might need

Not looking specifically for helpdesk software today? Here are a few adjacent topics that I think might interest you:

  • Bug Tracking: If a lot of your help desk traffic is about bug reports, maybe it’s time to start investing in bug-tracking tools like DoneDone, Trackduck or DebugMe.
  • CRMs: Many customer relationship management tools offer modules for customer support—see if you can cut down on the number of tools you’re using by getting a CRM that has helpdesk features included.
  • Collaboration Software: you could also look at using online collaboration tools to manage communication between departments in order to resolve issues and keep a searchable record of communication.

Help Desk Software FAQs

Find answers to common questions about this topic.

help desk software logos list

What's Next?

Regardless of whether you work at a small business or big corporation, I think we can agree that the help desk platform you choose should be one where a customer query gets routed efficiently. Also, it's important for this platform to invite customer interaction and customer engagement through a notification system.

Now that you've covered the tools, I encourage you to read more about how help desk software can help your business.

Ben Aston
By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 20 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony. I'm a Certified Scrum Master, PRINCE2 Practitioner and productivity nut!

Want to get on a listicle? Ask here.