15 best ticketing software solutions of 2025

Constantly missing out on customer tickets and struggling to maintain those perfect CSAT scores? Explore our curated list of 15 best ticketing software solutions that are budget-friendly, scalable, and offer powerful AI features to enhance your support operations. Choose an agentic AI platform with advanced ticketing and automation. Try Freshdesk today!

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ticketing systems

Jul 31, 202522 MIN READ

With rising customer expectations, prompt responses are no longer enough. Modern customers now demand proactive communication, personalized assistance, and seamless omnichannel experiences. In our recent research on customer service statistics, we found that 80% of buyers are more likely to do business with brands that offer personalized support. Another study suggests that 88% of shoppers are likely to keep returning to a brand that provides a smooth omnichannel experience. 

As a result, modern support teams, especially those facing growing ticket volumes, need to be well-equipped to meet these rising demands while still ensuring prompt responses. However, support teams can’t meet these challenges alone; modern times and demands require the adoption of modern ticketing software. 

Therefore, businesses looking to retain customers and build a loyal base need a modern ticketing system, one that offers automation, AI-driven workflows, and multichannel capabilities. The right ticketing software can reduce manual effort, streamline ticket handling, and improve the overall quality of support.

To help you find the best ticketing solution for your needs without examining hundreds of available options, we have shortlisted the most dependable ones. This blog presents a list of the 15 best ticketing software platforms that stand out for their functionality, user experience, scalability, and overall value.

How we picked the 15 best ticketing tools of 2025

To bring you a list of the best ticketing software, we reviewed 35+ solutions to handpick the most reliable, user-friendly, scalable, and affordable platforms.

Here's the in-depth breakdown of the parameters we considered during our evaluation:

  • Core functionalities: We evaluated each platform for essential ticketing features. These include omnichannel support, automation workflows, knowledge base, and analytics.

  • Usability: We prioritized solutions with an intuitive interface, which are easy to use and quick to onboard.

  • Scalability: We analyzed how well each software could scale to accommodate growing ticket volumes and expanding support teams, ensuring suitability for both scaling startups and established enterprises.

  • Customization: We shortlisted tools that allow end-to-end customization. We looked for features like custom-built reports, no-code/low-code workflows, and branded help centers to ensure the platform can be tailored to your brand.

  • Agentic AI capabilities: We focused on platforms with AI-powered features such as sentiment analysis, writing assistance, quality coaching, and AI agents that can autonomously handle customer queries.

  • Pricing: We focused on platforms that offer affordable base plans, transparent upgrades across pricing tiers, and better value for money. 

With this structured evaluation framework, we shortlisted 15 ticketing software platforms with advanced capabilities, best ticketing management features, and pricing that fits businesses of all sizes.

15 best ticketing solutions at a glance 

Here’s a head-to-head comparison table of the shortlisted 15 best ticketing systems based on their core features and base prices:

Top Software

Key Features

Base Pricing (Annually)

Freshdesk

Omnichannel support  Intelligent ticketing system

Freddy AI

Workflow automation

SLA Management

Multilingual conversations 

Self-service

Team collaboration 

AI-driven analytics

$15/agent/month

HubSpot Service Hub

Omnichannel messaging 

Unified ticketing system

SLA management 

$90/seat/month

Zoho Desk

Multichannel ticketing

Zia and Answer Bot

Workflow builder

$7/user/month

Salesforce Service Cloud

Omnichannel 

Einstein for Service 

Incident management

$25/user/month

Zendesk

Omnichannel support

AI agents

Messaging and live chat

Workforce management 

$19/agent/month

HappyFox

Multilingual support

Self-service portal 

Email ticketing

$24/agent/month

Intercom

Intercom messenger-based ticketing 

Fin AI

Collaborative inbox

$29/seat/month

Kayako

Customer journey dashboard

AI-driven responses

Self-service portal

$79/month

Gorgias

Multichannel support

E-commerce ticketing 

Order management

$10/month

Front

Shared inbox

Live chat

AI-driven automation 

$25/seat/month

Kustomer

Omnichannel support

AI-powered automation

Real-time pulse dashboards

$89/seat/month

Help Scout

Beacon (live chat)

Advanced automation

Collision detection

$25/month

Kapture

360-degree customer view

Unified dashboards

AI-enhanced workflows 

Custom pricing

ServiceNow CSM

Unified ticket management

AI-driven automation

Incident management 

Custom pricing

Hiver

Workflow automation 

AI-assisted responses 

Collision detection 

$19/user/month

Resolve queries 83% faster with Freshdesk

Deliver quick resolutions with Freshdesk’s advanced automation and Freddy AI to keep customers happy and loyal.

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A detailed review of the top 15 ticketing software 

Navigating the crowded ticketing software market can be daunting, with every solution claiming to be the ultimate fix for your customer service needs. To give you a clearer picture of the top 15 ticketing solutions and help you choose the one that best fits your business requirements, let’s dive deeper into each.

1. Freshdesk

Best for: Startups, SMBs, and large enterprises looking for budget-friendly advanced AI capabilities and automation

Freshchat- Best customer portal software

Freshdesk is an agentic AI customer service solution for modern support teams trusted by 73,000+ companies worldwide. At its core lies a powerful ticketing system powered by Freddy AI, Freshdesk's proprietary artificial intelligence engine.

Beyond advanced ticketing, Freshdesk offers a self-service portal, knowledge base, powerful reporting and analytics tools, along with collaboration features that boost team productivity and accelerate issue resolution.

It empowers support teams by automating routine queries with conversational agents. It also assists agents with smart reply suggestions via Freddy AI Copilot and provides AI Insights to monitor performance and boost transparency across support operations. The result? Faster resolution times, greater efficiency, and more personalized customer experiences.

Freshdesk's powerful ticketing system helps businesses transform every customer interaction into organized and easily trackable tickets. Most importantly, it offers a user-friendly interface with a minimal learning curve, making it easy for new users to get started.

Key features of Freshdesk

  • Omnichannel ticketing and unified inbox: Consolidates customer queries from across support channels (email, live chat, web forms, and social media) into a single inbox, helping agents answer queries without shifting channels. 

  • Freddy AI Agent: Handles routine queries and performs actions autonomously for faster, self-sustained support.

  • Freddy AI Copilot: Aids agents with contextual summaries, sentiment analysis, and reply suggestions for faster, smarter responses.

  • Automated workflows: Enables agents to set up advanced workflows to automate priority assignment based on urgency, categorize inquiries by type, and route tickets to appropriate agents. Admins can set rules using conditions and multiselect options to trigger specific actions when certain criteria are met.

  • SLA management: Helps admins create SLA policies to define response times, resolution targets, and ticket priorities. The system monitors compliance and alerts agents on missed deadlines to ensure timely resolution and high-quality service.

  • Advanced reporting and analytics: Offers ready-to-use reports to track key metrics such as ticket volume, customer satisfaction (CSAT), and resolution times. It also enables agents to visualize data and analyze ticketing trends for better insights.

Freshdesk pricing 

Freshdesk’s pricing plans are known for affordability and great value, helping support teams realize ROI faster. The pricing starts at $15 per agent per month. This plan comes with a shared inbox, ticket management, basic reporting and analytics, knowledge base, and basic security.

Pros and cons of Freshdesk 

Pros

Cons

User-friendly interface that facilitates quick onboarding for new users

The mobile app has limited features compared to the desktop version

Strong automation capabilities to streamline internal processes and service workflows

Limited customization in reporting and analytics

Offers advanced functionalities like real-time dashboards, automations, and role-based access control, even in entry-level plans

Doesn’t have built-in workforce management capabilities

Flexible pricing plans that are suitable for small teams and large enterprises alike

User reviews on Freshdesk

“We adopted Freshdesk because it is a highly adaptable solution with metrics that allow us to track and follow up on our customers and agents efficiently.”

Christophe Tomborski Back Office Manager, Bridgestone

"We were lucky to be part of the beta trial for Freddy AI. It was fantastic to have that opportunity and to see the power of what it can do. It was truly a game-changer for the team."

Simon Birch Customer Service Manager, Hobbycraft

Support that scales - only with Freshdesk

From startups to enterprises, Freshdesk adapts to your support volume with automation and customizable workflows.

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2. HubSpot Service Hub

Best for: Businesses using HubSpot and seeking a support solution with native CRM capabilities

HubSpot Service Hub is a comprehensive customer support platform with a built-in ticketing system. Breeze, a suite of AI-powered tools like Breeze Agents and Breeze Copilot, powers this platform. While Breeze Agents deflect tickets autonomously with contextual and quick responses driven from the knowledge base, Breeze Copilot helps agents with quick conversation summaries and drafts quick responses.

HubSpot Service Hub features a shared inbox where agents can collaborate, view entire customer interactions and details, and resolve service requests from multiple channels. Additionally, this platform also offers self-service options through a built-in knowledge base and chatbot tools.

Key features of HubSpot Service Hub

  • 360-degree customer view: Gives agents full visibility into customer history, including past sales and marketing interactions, for personalized and informed support.

  • Breeze AI: AI that helps resolve queries in real time with responses derived from the knowledge base. It also assists human agents with conversation summaries, auto-replies, and more. 

  • Feedback management: Integrates customizable surveys (NPS, CSAT, CES) in your support workflows, which directly trigger once the ticket is closed to gather feedback after ticket closure.

HubSpot Service Hub pricing

HubSpot Service Hub’s pricing starts at $90 per month per seat. This plan provides basic help desk software features with customer feedback surveys and a customer success workspace. 

Pros and cons of HubSpot Service Hub

Pros 

Cons

Easy to integrate and customize the live chat widget 

Lacks core ticketing features like parent-child ticketing, shared ticket ownership, and collision detection

Native CRM integration for a 360-degree customer view and personalized support

Integration for key communication channels like Instagram, Apple Messages, and Line is missing, limiting support capabilities 

Highly responsive and reliable vendor support 

Does not have reusable ticket templates, thus requiring manual effort to handle repetitive queries

3. Zoho Desk

Best for: SMBs already using Zoho Suite and looking for an integrated support ecosystem 

Zoho Desk is an advanced help desk system that combines automation with Zia, its artificial intelligence engine, for faster query resolutions. Its omnichannel support capabilities and contextual ticket management provide agents with full customer context. This includes interaction histories and timelines, helping them better understand issues and offer personalized support. 

Zoho Desk effortlessly integrates with key Zoho ecosystem tools like Zoho CRM, Zoho Analytics, and more, enhancing cross-functional team collaboration and providing in-depth customer insights. It also allows agents to use Work Modes and custom views that automatically organize tickets by due time, status, and priority, helping agents prioritize tickets by urgency level. 

Want a closer look at how it compares to Freshdesk? Check out this Freshdesk vs Zoho Desk breakdown.

Key features of Zoho Desk

  • AI-driven ticket intelligence: Analyzes incoming tickets to understand their intent and sentiment and categorizes them. It also helps agents by suggesting relevant help articles from the knowledge base for more context-aware responses.

  • Blueprint workflow builder: Offers a drag-and-drop interface to create detailed support processes, guiding tickets step-by-step from arrival to resolution while ensuring process compliance.

  • Reporting and analytics: Helps track support performance metrics like first response time, resolution time, ticket volume, SLA compliance, and customer satisfaction ratings through reports and dashboards.

Zoho Desk pricing 

Zoho Desk offers a free version and four paid plans. The base plan costs $7 per user per month and includes all free plan features plus direct ticket assignment, workflow, ticket timeline, history, and multi-level escalations.

Pros and cons of Zoho Desk

Pros 

Cons

Customizable knowledge base for self-service

Fragmented admin across multiple tabs and tools complicates routine support tasks

Smooth integration with the Zoho ecosystem and other third-party tools

Lacks scalability for growing teams

Automated ticket assignments and follow-ups 

Limited AI capabilities and training restrictions

4. Salesforce Service Cloud

Best for: Large enterprises looking for advanced ticketing workflows and a customizable support system

Salesforce Service Cloud is a powerful customer service software with a highly customizable ticket management system. This platform allows agents to get a complete view of customer profiles, including sales and marketing interactions, ensuring more accurate and personalized responses.

Salesforce Service Cloud features ticketing system functionalities, like automatic ticket routing, SLA management, and ticket prioritization. Additionally, it also offers AI-powered recommendations via Agentforce for Service, omnichannel support, and advanced customization capabilities.

Considering Salesforce but exploring alternatives? Check this Salesforce Service Cloud vs Freshdesk comparison to help you weigh the pros and cons.

Key features of Salesforce Service Cloud

  • Omnichannel routing: Automatically assigns cases to agents based on skills, workload, availability, or language.

  • Agentforce for Service: Offers AI-powered capabilities like chatbots and smart ticket routing. It also provides agents with contextual suggestions, sentiment analysis, and knowledge base links to help them resolve cases more efficiently.

  • Incident management: Provides tools to monitor systems and detect incidents before they make a huge impact. This helps teams identify root causes and provide swift responses with intelligent swarming. 

Salesforce Service Cloud pricing

Salesforce Service Cloud is priced on the premium end. Its base plan is priced at $25 per user per month and includes case management, knowledge management, mobile app, case auto-assignment, customizable reports, and dashboards

Pros and cons of Salesforce Service Cloud

Pros

Cons

Omnichannel support functionalities that help diversify service channels

Configuring even basic features like SLA and workflow customization can be time-consuming and require tech support 

360° customer view with CRM integration

Complex user interface bloated with sales features that support teams don’t require 

Deep integration with other Salesforce products 

Requires coding expertise and external support for setup

5. Zendesk

Best for: Growing businesses and enterprise support teams looking for AI-driven omnichannel support

Zendesk’s ticketing system features an omnichannel inbox, where queries from multiple channels, such as web widgets, phones, and social media, are consolidated in a unified workspace. This centralized view provides agents with a comprehensive timeline of customer interactions, along with easy access to relevant contexts, such as order history and past activities. Its voice support features AI-agent assisted IVR, call summaries, and intelligent call routing.

Zendesk sends automated messages to customers whenever their tickets are assigned to an agent. Its AI capabilities also feature AI agents and AI Copilot. AI agents deflect tickets on their own using the knowledge base and continuously learn from past customer interactions. Meanwhile, AI Copilot assists service teams with important customer context and reply suggestions.  

Zendesk provides powerful tools for growing teams, but is it the best option? This Zendesk vs Freshdesk comparison highlights which solution delivers better value for your needs.

Key features of Zendesk

  • Automated ticket routing: Enables teams to create triggers, macros, and rules-based workflows that intelligently route tickets to the appropriate department and agent.

  • Intelligent triage: Zendesk’s AI identifies the intent, language, and sentiment of tickets, enabling smart triaging. Once a ticket is received, intent prediction understands the problem and uses macros to respond quickly with relevant, personalized replies.

  • On-ticket collaboration: Enables multiple team members to collaborate on a ticket with internal notes and side conversations. 

Zendesk pricing: 

Zendesk's pricing structure starts at $19 per agent per month. The package includes a basic ticketing system, a unified agent workspace across channels, prebuilt analytic dashboards, and custom business rules with triggers and automation.

Note: To use AI features like Agent Copilot and Gen AI writing tools, the Copilot add-on, costing $50 per agent per month, needs to be purchased as an add-on. This add-on is available only in Professional plans and above.

Pros and cons of Zendesk

Pros 

Cons

Department-wise customization of agent workspace

UI is fragmented across the admin center, analytics, and AI, delaying configuration 

Strong analytics and integration with business intelligence tools

Complicated pricing structure with hidden charges for essential features

The workforce management module helps optimize resource allocation and accurately predict staffing needs for specific periods

Customer support can be slow and unresponsive

6. HappyFox

Best for: Mid-sized teams seeking fixed-cost ticketing with unlimited agents and optional add-ons

HappyFox enables businesses to automate complex workflows with a smart rules engine. Teams can create smart rules to define ticket assignments and set conditions for the system to automatically route tickets to the right agents based on issue criticality and complexity. This way, repetitive actions such as task assignment, SLA compliance, and ticket status updates can be automated to reduce manual intervention. 

Besides automation, Happyfox allows agents to forward complete customer interaction details to provide full context to other assignees. It also supports ticket cloning and merging related tickets for better organization. If you're comparing tools, this HappyFox vs Freshdesk breakdown can help you evaluate which platform suits your support needs better.

Key features of HappyFox

  • Advanced ticket management: Define custom fields for quick reference or derive context for various types of tickets. Additionally, it organizes tickets by category, status, and priority to support smart automation and faster resolution.

  • Agent collision detection: Helps ensure that no two agents are working on the same ticket.

  • HappyFox AI: Includes AI Copilot (ticket summaries and response suggestions), AI urgency (classify and prioritize critical issues), and AI knowledge (convert tickets into knowledge base articles). It also features AI Answers, an AI agent that provides quick responses to customers. 

HappyFox pricing 

HappyFox’s pricing structure is divided into two models: agent-based pricing and unlimited agents. The agent-based pricing model limits the number of agents based on the plan. It starts at $24 per agent per month and provides up to 5 agents. 

The unlimited agents model offers no restriction on the number of agents and starts with pricing starting at $1,999 per month, offering 20,000 tickets per year. 

Pros and cons of HappyFox

Pros

Cons

Easy to use and quick to implement 

Fewer native integration options 

Excellent vendor support 

Does not have skill-based routing functionalities 

Effortless ticket management with customizable workflows

Limited AI capabilities; doesn’t feature intelligent triage, sentiment analysis, and more such automation features

7. Intercom

Best for: Businesses prioritizing conversational support, via live chat, in-app messaging, and proactive engagement

Intercom’s ticketing system features an AI-enhanced shared inbox that converts inquiries from multiple channels into tickets. Enhanced by Fin AI, this shared inbox includes Copilot, which helps agents with onboarding and training and provides response suggestions directly sourced from the knowledge base. 

Intercom further facilitates team collaboration through internal notes and real-time context, helping cross-functional teams to collaborate on the same ticket and deliver faster, more personalized resolutions. 

If you’re looking to compare Intercom with other tools, this Intercom vs Freshdesk comparison highlights the key differences and helps you determine which platform meets your business needs better.

Key features of Intercom

  • Messenger-based ticketing: Enables customers to submit, view, and track multiple tickets from the Intercom messenger. It also provides customers with a help center to find answers to common issues on their own.

  • Unified agent workspace: Enables agents to manage tickets from multiple channels in a centralized inbox. The platform also allows collaboration with teammates using side conversations for more context and quicker resolution.

  • Fin AI: Automatically handles routine queries and routes complex conversations requiring human intervention to the appropriate agent based on availability and context.

Intercom pricing 

Intercom offers three paid plans, each with access to Fin AI at $0.99 per resolution. Its base plan costs $29 per seat per month and includes a shared inbox, ticketing system, Messenger, pre-built reports, and public help center. 

Pros and cons of Intercom

Pros

Cons

Messenger-embedded tickets make it easier for users to create and track tickets

Intercom is a chat-first solution, thus limiting its capabilities in omnichannel support

Fin AI helps auto-resolve a significant number of customer queries 

Doesn’t offer strong ticketing capabilities and lacks essential features like ticket triaging and parent-child ticketing 

Omnichannel support for customers 

Lacks advanced routing capabilities like skill-based routing 

One inbox. Every channel. Zero confusion.

Bring all your support channels into a single, unified ticketing workspace. Freshdesk helps your team respond faster with full context and zero confusion.

Get a demo

8. Kayako

Best for: Businesses looking for strong customization and team collaboration features

Kayako is an intuitive help desk software that enables agents to manage customer inquiries across multiple channels from a SingleView dashboard. This dashboard provides a quick overview of the entire customer journey with a business.

Its AI-driven automation helps deflect queries without human intervention, automates ticket triaging, and handles other redundant tasks. This reduces workload and allows agents to focus on priority tasks. The platform is easy to set up and offers customizable self-service portals and collaboration tools to help support teams solve tickets more effectively. 

Key features of Kayako

  • SingleView: Compiles each customer interaction, such as site visits, previous support cases, and order history, into a unified profile. Agents can refer to this profile to deliver more personalized support.

  • AI-powered ticket resolution: Automates routine processes with smart workflows and suggests replies to repetitive queries. It also provides agents with quick summaries of long threads for faster, more contextual responses.

  • Ticket collaboration: Enables internal collaboration through private notes and agent assignments, keeping in-house discussions hidden from customers. 

Kayako pricing 

Kayako offers a single pricing model priced at $79 per month. This plan includes a single Brand Messenger, a shared inbox and ticketing system, pre-built reports, and a public help center. Additionally, it supports multiple team inboxes, a private and multilingual help center, and multi-brand messaging capabilities.

Pros and cons of Kayako

Pros 

Cons

Smooth ticket assignment and inter-departmental collaboration 

Cluttered and dull/uninteractive user interface 

Offers good customization of workflows and fields

No transparent pricing on the website

Comprehensive dashboard that offers a unified view of support operations

Lacks in-depth customization options in reporting and analytics 

9. Gorgias

Best for: High-volume eCommerce support with deep platform integrations and smart ticket automation

Gorgias is a help desk and customer support software powered by conversational AI, designed specifically for eCommerce businesses. One of its most defining features is its native integration with eCommerce platforms, providing representatives with complete customer and order details directly within the ticket. 

Gorgias also provides omnichannel support, centralizing customer queries from multiple channels, including email, SMS, chat, voice, and social media. It features powerful automation tools and a flexible rules engine, making it ideal for high-volume e-commerce setups. In such environments, customer support plays a critical role in driving sales and retention. For eCommerce businesses deciding between support tools, this Gorgias vs Freshdesk guide explores which platform aligns better with high-volume customer service needs.

Key features of Gorgias

  • Native eCommerce integration: Integrates with platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce to provide agents with complete customer profiles. This includes order details, shipping statuses, and lifetime value, all visible in the ticket sidebar.

  • Actionable tickets: Enables agents to edit orders and perform actions like issuing refunds, canceling orders, or updating shipping details directly from the ticket interface.

  • AI-driven ticket automation: Auto-resolves support inquiries with an AI agent and rules-based engine. It also escalates issues when human insights are required based on agent availability and priority.

Gorgias pricing

Gorgias’s pricing starts at $10 per month. It includes 50 billable tickets per month, Shopify and WooCommerce integrations, 3 user seats, and multi-channel support.

Pros and cons of Gorgias

Pros

Cons

Omnichannel support helps manage every customer request effortlessly

Analytics and reporting tools need modernization 

Deep integration with multiple ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce

Exceeding the ticket limits can lead to steep additional costs

Helps direct order-relevant actions from within the ticket interface

Custom-built for eCommerce, making it difficult for other industries to adapt and requiring teams to put in significant effort

10. Front

Best for: Cross-functional support teams seeking a shared inbox with email-like simplicity, AI automation, and real-time internal collaboration

Front is a collaborative customer service platform that blends the familiarity of email with the modern ticketing system. It offers shared inboxes, AI-driven automation, and real-time collaboration features to help teams respond to customer queries faster and more efficiently.

The platform consolidates support requests from all communication channels, like email, chat, social media, and SMS, into a unified workspace. Here, multiple team members and cross-functional teams can collaborate to deliver a satisfactory customer experience.

Check out this Front vs Freshdesk comparison to see how the two stack up on shared inbox and team collaboration features.

Key features of Front 

  • Shared inbox: Provides a unified interface where multiple team members can view and collaborate on customer support tickets in real time. It also provides @mentions to loop in agents and internal comments to resolve queries faster through team collaboration.

  • AI-driven ticket categorization and routing: Categorizes tickets by topic or sentiment automatically and intelligently routes conversations to the right agents.

  • Incident management: Allows support teams to group tickets related to the same issue under a single incident and sends bulk resolution notifications once the issue is resolved.

Front pricing

Front’s pricing starts $25 per seat per month. This plan includes features such as shared inboxes, ticketing, knowledge base, up to 10 rules, and custom ticket statuses.

Pros and cons of Front

Pros

Cons

Supports smooth internal communication

Slow and limited customer support

Easy to track team performance and get insights into gaps

Limited features are available in low-tier plans 

Seamless conversation handoffs

Has a long learning curve for new users 

11. Kustomer

Best for: Brands focused on delivering holistic, journey-based customer experiences

Kustomer is an AI-powered customer service platform featuring a unified ticketing system. This solution enables businesses to manage communication across multiple channels from a single interface, helping them streamline and enhance support operations. 

What sets Kustomer apart is its unique customer-object model. Instead of focusing solely on individual tickets, it considers the entire customer journey. This helps drive personalization and enables more proactive service.

Key features of Kustomer 

  • AI agents & automation: Helps agents with quick conversation summaries and response suggestions for prompt resolution. It also provides intelligent ticket routing and triaging for faster ticket classification and reduced response time.

  • Real-time team management: Provides service managers with real-time pulse dashboards to track agent activities. It also helps optimize ticket handling by reallocating agents from less busy queues to high-volume ones.

  • Omnichannel support: Converts support requests from multiple channels like email, chat, and social media into a single, unified thread. 

Kustomer pricing

Kustomer‘s pricing starts at $89 per seat per month and offers basic ticketing features with conversational timeline, SLA management, 100 business rules & custom workflows, and omnichannel messaging support. It also offers two AI add-ons, AI Agents for Customers ($0.60 per engaged conversation) and AI Agents for Reps ($40 per user per month). 

Pros and cons of Kustomer

Pros

Cons

Provides an in-depth customer view for deeper personalization 

Occasional performance lags during high-volume transactions 

User-friendly interface and easy to navigate 

Advanced automation and detailed reports are only available in high-tier plans 

Pre-built macros help in driving faster resolutions

A steep learning curve for complex features

12. Help Scout

Best for: Small to mid-sized teams seeking email-first support with a user-friendly interface

Help Scout is a help desk and ticketing software that delivers an email-based support experience. It converts customer queries into tickets, accessible through a Gmail-like interface with native email integration. 

Help Scout features a shared inbox for easy ticket management, along with a knowledge base, live chat (Beacon), and AI capabilities. Help Scout’s AI tools, including AI Assist, help agents resolve queries faster by summarizing long conversation threads, translation, and content generation.

If you're choosing between Help Scout and a platform like Freshdesk, this Help Scout vs Freshdesk comparison lays out the differences in automation, collaboration, and scalability.

Key features of Help Scout

  • Beacon: A widget that hosts AI agents to deliver instant resolutions to customer queries or let them browse the knowledge base for self-service.

  • Collision detection: Prevents multiple agents from working on the same ticket by offering a real-time view of who is actively engaged, avoiding duplicate replies and confusion. 

  • Advanced automation workflows: Set up workflows to automate routine and tedious tasks like ticket organizing, routing, adding canned responses, and more, saving manual effort.

Help Scout pricing

Help Scout’s base plan is priced at $25 per month. It includes up to 5,000 contacts, CSAT ratings, 2 inboxes, AI drafts, AI assist, AI summarize, phone & SMS support, and 50 workflows. 

Pros and cons of Help Scout 

Pros 

Cons

Easy to use and customize

Offers only email and chat native support, requires third-party integration for phone and social media, thus offering limited omnichannel support

Facilitates smooth collaboration with team members 

Lacks skills-based routing, restricting its ability to route the right ticket to the right team or agent

Offers a built-in live chat (Beacon) widget and self-service features like a knowledge base 

Help Scout AI lacks natural language understanding and often struggles with complex queries 

 13. Kapture

Best for: Large enterprises requiring automation, multilingual support, and tailored CX workflows

Kapture is a customer experience management platform powered by KAI (Kapture AI), an agentic AI designed to power automation and optimize customer support operations, especially for large enterprises. The platform features a smart ticket management system with capabilities such as automated routing, prioritization, and assignment based on customer lifetime value and ticket nature.

Using AI and automated workflows, this platform helps businesses enhance agent efficiency, reduce resolution times, and provide in-depth analytics for continuous service improvement.

Key features of Kapture

  • 360-degree customer view: Provides support agents with a complete view of the customer's history, including past interactions, key activities, sentiment, and more, alongside the current ticket.

  • AI-powered automation and assistance: Kapture AI helps automate repetitive tasks, including ticket routing, triage, and more. It also provides sentiment analysis, AI-drafted response suggestions, and automated ticket summaries for faster prompt resolution.

  • Team collaboration tools: Enables teams to collaborate on the same ticket with side conversations without requiring them to switch channels or leave the platform. 

Kapture pricing

Kapture offers a custom pricing model, with pricing available on request. Its base plan, Essential, offers omnichannel support, ticketing system, 1000+ API integrations, analytics dashboard, knowledge base, smart routing, and auto-trigger

Pros and cons of Kapture 

Pros

Cons

Centralized customer data enables better service delivery

Frequent downtimes and slow performance 

Simple and user-friendly interface

Limited transparency; no public pricing or self-serve trial

Good omnichannel support functionalities

Kapture outsources customer support, leading to delays and inconsistent service

14. ServiceNow CSM

Best for: Organizations with strong SLA compliance needs and major issue management

ServiceNow CSM offers advanced ticketing software that streamlines ticket management through AI-driven automation. Its self-service capabilities, powered by AI-driven conversational chat, help customers get answers to their issues independently. 

With process mining, the platform helps businesses optimize support operations by identifying the root causes of issues, identifying redundant tasks, and automating them. The feature also helps analyze team performance to discover bottlenecks and enable actions that boost productivity. Meanwhile, task intelligence automates ticket triaging and routing using sentiment analysis and language detection capabilities.

Key features of ServiceNow CSM

  • Unified ticket management: Provides a holistic view of each customer, including subscribed services, support assets, contracts, and SLAs. Empowers agents with full context to manage inquiries, complaints, and support requests efficiently.

  • AI-driven ticket routing and prioritization: Leverages predictive intelligence to automate ticket classification and assignment based on agent skills, urgency, availability, and customer type, significantly reducing manual triage workloads.

  • Major issue management: Helps address issues affecting a large group of customers by identifying impacted users, distributing relevant updates, and keeping them informed throughout the resolution process.

ServiceNow CSM pricing

ServiceNow CSM plans and pricing are available only upon request. The pricing plans are tailored based on your business’s requirements and scope.

Pros and cons of ServiceNow CSM 

Pros 

Cons

Centralized ticket and workflow management 

Steep learning curve for new users

Smooth cross-team collaboration 

Complex to modify workflows without prior experience

Efficient ticket-routing system 

Performance lags during peak usage

15. Hiver 

Best for: Gmail-based support teams looking for a lightweight, collaborative ticketing solution.

Hiver is a ticketing software that offers a Gmail-like interface, allowing teams to collaborate and resolve customer requests across multiple channels. Whether it's assigning, tracking, creating tickets, or collaborating with teammates, everything happens in one place for faster resolution. The platform automatically converts incoming emails into trackable tickets without disrupting the native email flow. 

Hiver allows businesses to define SLA policies to ensure timely responses and resolution of all tickets. It features collision alerts that prevent multiple team members from working on the same ticket. Additionally, it provides real-time performance insights and ticket analytics, helping businesses track response times and SLA breaches to optimize support operations.

Key features of Hiver

  • Team collaboration: Multiple agents can collaborate on the same ticket using internal notes and @mentions within the email thread without cluttering the customer’s view.

  • AI-driven ticket responses: Features Harvey, an AI bot that provides AI Compose and AI Summarizer. AI Compose helps draft grammatically accurate, well-toned, and professional replies, while the AI Summarizer condenses long conversation threads into concise notes. 

  • Workflow Automation: Supports rule-based automation for repetitive tasks like ticket routing (via round-robin or skill-based assignment) and actions like tagging and status updates.

Hiver pricing 

Hiver’s pricing starts at $19 per user per month. It includes omnichannel support, advanced ticketing, live chat, team collaboration, auto assignment (round-robin), and basic analytics. 

Pros and cons of Hiver 

Pros

Cons

Enhances team collaboration 

Conversations are limited to Gmail, restricting multichannel support

Clear email ownership and reduced miscommunication

Limited mobile functionality as compared to the desktop version

Easy to use, Gmail-like interface facilitating a quick onboarding process

High pricing and limited multi-inbox reporting

Choosing the right ticketing software for your business

After the complete breakdown of the 15 top ticketing software solutions, it is now time to determine the right fit for your business requirements. Here are a few actionable steps that’ll help you find the ideal software that precisely aligns with your business's operational needs and strategic goals.

1. Identify your business needs

Before you even start reviewing software, clarify what problems you're trying to solve and the goals you want to achieve. Analyze your current ticket volume, complexity of requests, team size, and compliance or security requirements. 

Identify key pain points you and your users are facing, whether it's delayed response times, lost tickets, or a lack of customer context. Also, consider which communication channels your customers prefer most.

2. List out essential features

Identify and list the features you require in your ticketing system. Prioritize core features like:

  • Automation and workflow rules

  • Omnichannel support

  • Reporting and analytics

  • Self-service tools

And, if you are a high-volume business, consider customization options to align widgets and the dashboard with your brand identity. Decide whether advanced AI & ML capabilities, such as AI ticket routing, sentiment analysis, or response generation, are necessary for your use case. 

3. Determine usability 

Evaluate each software for its ease of use and learning curve, ensuring the system provides a user-friendly interface that facilitates quick adoption for agents and admins. Request demos or opt for free trial periods to simulate real-world scenarios and gauge how well your team adapts to the platform.

4. Review integration capabilities 

You must review the integration capabilities of each software to ensure it works seamlessly with your existing business tools. This includes CRM systems, communication platforms, and other applications, so the software doesn’t operate in a silo. Also, ensure they provide open APIs for custom integrations and extended functionalities.

5. Review pricing and scalability 

Study the complete pricing model of each tool, including subscription fees, additional charges for extra users or features, and implementation costs. Choose a platform like Freshdesk with transparent pricing and flexibility to scale so it can grow with your business without unexpected cost spikes.

6. Assess vendor support

Determine the quality of vendor support by reviewing their support hours, communication channels, and platform implementation support. Review their onboarding and training quality. Also, check customer reviews on platforms like G2, Capterra, and Gartner to assess real-world support experiences.

Once you’ve reviewed these six parameters, you will have a clear view of which solution software is best equipped to meet your needs. Choose a platform that delivers essential features, fits your budget, and has a strong market reputation. Make sure it integrates smoothly with your existing tools and offers reliable support for long-term success.

From chaos to clarity: Experience support simplicity with Freshdesk

Turn ticket chaos into customer satisfaction. Freshdesk’s intelligent automation helps you manage ticket volume, reduce response times, and deliver exceptional support.

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Boost customer satisfaction and streamline support operations with Freshdesk 

Today’s customers expect fast, personalized support across every channel. But for growing teams juggling high ticket volumes, maintaining consistency and quality can be tough without the right system in place.

Freshdesk helps teams overcome this complexity with an intuitive, AI-powered platform built for omnichannel ticket management. Trusted by over 73,000 businesses globally, it is one of the best platforms for unified customer ticket management across channels..

With Freddy AI, you can reduce response times by 83%, with an average conversational resolution time of under two minutes. Freshdesk enables teams to deliver faster, more personalized, and context-aware responses at scale. It offers omnichannel support, smart ticket routing, contextual collaboration, and AI-driven automation to streamline customer service.

Whether you're a startup, SMB, or enterprise, Freshdesk can help you turn each customer interaction into a delightful experience. Want to see it in action? Book a product demo with the Freshdesk team today!

Frequently asked questions on the best ticketing solutions

What’s the difference between a ticketing tool and a helpdesk tool?

A ticketing tool focuses primarily on creating tickets, tracking them, and their overall management, which includes functions like prioritization, status updates, and routing tickets to the right agents.

On the other hand, helpdesk tools are broader platforms that, along with ticketing functionality, also offer features like automation, team collaboration tools, knowledge bases, and more. In simple terms, ticketing tools manage support requests, while help desk solutions provide a complete customer service ecosystem.

Are free ticket tools reliable for scaling businesses?

Free ticketing tools are ideal for startups or small teams with low ticket volumes, offering basic support at no cost. However, these tools often lack flexibility, scalability, and advanced features. Capabilities like custom workflows, automation, analytics, and integrations are usually missing, making it harder for growing businesses to manage high volumes and deliver fast, personalized support.

What is the best ticketing software for small businesses?

Many ticketing software solutions, like Freshdesk, Help Scout, and Zendesk, offer excellent features at affordable prices suitable for small businesses. Among these, Freshdesk often stands out, particularly with its Growth plan. 

This plan is specifically designed for small businesses, offering essential customer support features. These include a strong ticketing system, shared inbox functionality, basic analytics and reporting, real-time dashboards, a comprehensive knowledge base, and core automation capabilities.

What is the best free ticketing software?

Freshdesk, Zoho Desk, and Help Scout offer one of the most generous free plans on the market. It includes essential ticketing features, a knowledge base, pre-built reports, and supports up to two agents, features that many competitors reserve for their paid plans.

How do I migrate from my current ticketing tool?

Start by reviewing your current data, including tickets, customer information, knowledge base articles, etc, and decide what data is important and needs to be transferred. Next, clean the data to remove duplicates and errors. Most ticketing tools provide migration tools to facilitate smooth data transfer, and if your chosen tool doesn't have such capabilities, opt for third-party tools. 

It is advisable to export data to your chosen platform during low-activity periods, ensuring minimal disruption, and train your team on the new platform to ensure a smooth transition.

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