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!
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 |
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
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 |
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 |
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.
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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