Choosing a helpdesk tool for a six-person online shop

Bottom line

Trial Help Scout Standard first. It is the cheapest of the three plans compared here that include live chat: US$75 a month for three users on annual billing, or US$90 on monthly billing. Its Shopify app installs without developer work. Its weak point is export: conversation history comes out through its API, so decide how you would retrieve your data before committing to a year.

Choose Freshdesk Omni Growth instead if an in-app full account export matters more than easy setup. Zendesk Suite Team covers everything in the brief, but costs more than twice as much and includes breadth this shop did not request.

Side by side

What we found

1. Cost

All three show a lower per-agent rate for annual billing than monthly billing [1][2][3]. Help Scout Free allows 100 contacts a month and counts one person as one contact, however many conversations they have [1]. Conversation volume alone does not show whether this shop exceeds that limit; it must check monthly unique contacts.

2. Email and chat

All three handle email. Help Scout includes live chat on Standard [1]. Freshdesk has live chat only in Freshdesk Omni; standalone Growth at US$19 does not include it [2][4]. Zendesk includes messaging and live chat from Suite Team; Support Team at US$19 covers ticketing without them [3]. Neither US$19 plan meets the brief.

3. Setup effort

Each displays Shopify order details with the conversation and supports refund or cancellation actions within Shopify status and permissions [5][6][7]. Help Scout and Zendesk install from the Shopify App Store. Freshdesk requires creating a custom app, setting permissions and copying credentials into Freshdesk, making it the most technical setup here.

4. Data export

Freshdesk is the only compared plan with an in-app full account export: an admin can export tickets, articles, forums and customers as XML, though Freshdesk suggests developer help to make it readable [8]. Zendesk Team plans use the REST API [9]. Help Scout reports export in-app, but conversations use its Inbox API; on request it also supplies a customer CSV [10].

Recommendation and reasoning

Help Scout Standard leads on cost and setup, ties on coverage and trails on export. For three part-time agents, lower cost and simpler setup matter most day to day. Freshdesk Omni Growth adds the only in-app full account export for US$12 a month more across three agents on annual billing. Zendesk adds breadth such as telephony and omnichannel routing, which the shop did not request.

The known trade-off is Help Scout's export route. Choose Freshdesk Omni Growth if the shop needs to download a full archive inside the tool and is willing to get the XML converted. The effort of a later move out of any option remains unknown.

What would change the answer

• Phone support: shortlist Zendesk Suite Team, which includes telephony [3].
• AI replies: compare ongoing cost on actual volume. Help Scout charges US$0.75 per resolution after three free months [1]. Freshdesk includes 500 AI agent sessions once per account, then US$49 per 100 [2][11]. Zendesk Suite Team includes five automated resolutions per agent monthly, then US$1.50 committed or US$2 pay-as-you-go [3]. These units are not directly equivalent.
• More than 25 users: Help Scout Standard has a 25-user limit [1].

What is still unknown

• Whether Freshdesk still offers the Free plan named in help articles; its pricing page shows none [2][8].
• Tax, local-currency billing and startup-programme eligibility [1][3].
• Hands-on quality: trials, email deliverability, chat reliability and real setup time were not tested.
• The shop's monthly unique-contact count.
• The cost of importing existing email history and the real effort of a later migration.

Suggested next steps

1. Run Help Scout's 15-day Standard trial without a card. Connect Shopify and chat, then process a week of real email [1].
2. If in-app export matters, run Freshdesk's 14-day trial alongside it, testing only Omni Growth features [2].
3. Before paying annually, confirm price and tax in the shop's currency and test one export route.