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Help Scout is a well-liked, fairly priced help desk with three tiers and per-resolution AI. CrowdStack is a help desk, a CRM and a revenue dashboard for one flat price. Here is how they line up, including where Help Scout still wins.
CrowdStack
£28 £14 per user a month
Billed monthly. 50% off for your first 12 months, then £28.
Help Scout
From $25 per user a month
Standard, billed monthly. Plus is $45 and Pro $75 a user a month. AI Answers is a further $0.75 per resolved conversation.
Help Scout publishes prices in USD only, billed monthly, as shown on helpscout.com in August 2026. UK customers are billed in dollars, so no conversion is applied. Check helpscout.com for the current figure.
Help Scout Standard is $25 a user for support alone. CrowdStack is £28 a user a month for support, CRM, revenue, issues, feedback and docs, with 500 AI credits a month per seat.
Help Scout keeps customer profiles beside the conversation. CrowdStack goes further: companies, deals, tasks and custom fields live with the inbox, so sales and support share one record.
Connect Stripe and the plan, MRR and churn risk show on the ticket sidebar. Help Scout's Stripe app shows recent charges; it does not report MRR, churn or ARPA.
Help Scout counts SLA policies and workflows per tier. CrowdStack has SLA tracking by priority, automations and macros in the one plan.
| Feature | CrowdStack | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Support | ||
| Shared inbox with saved views | Included | Included |
| SLA tracking by priorityHelp Scout: one basic policy on Standard | Included | Partly |
| Automations and macrosHelp Scout: workflows capped per tier | Included | Partly |
| Knowledge base and help centre | Included | Included |
| AI replies grounded in your docsHelp Scout: AI Answers, $0.75 per resolution | Included | Partly |
| AI draft assist for agentsHelp Scout: unlimited AI Drafts need Plus | Included | Partly |
| CSAT surveys | Included | Included |
| Merge duplicate tickets | Included | Included |
| Human live chat | Not available | Included |
| SMS, WhatsApp and social messaging | Not available | Included |
| CRM | ||
| Contacts, companies and notesHelp Scout: company grouping needs Plus | Included | Partly |
| Deal pipelines with custom stages | Included | Not available |
| Custom fields on every record | Included | Included |
| Public forms that create contactsHelp Scout: Beacon contact form only | Included | Partly |
| Tasks and activity timeline | Included | Not available |
| Revenue | ||
| Stripe MRR, ARR, churn and ARPA | Included | Not available |
| Revenue shown on contacts, companies and ticketsHelp Scout: Stripe app shows charges only | Included | Partly |
| Issues, feedback and docs | ||
| Issue tracker with projects and kanban | Included | Not available |
| Create an issue from a ticket | Included | Not available |
| Public feedback board and roadmap | Included | Not available |
| Team wiki with @mentions across records | Included | Not available |
| Platform | ||
| Every product on every seatHelp Scout: limits lift by tier | Included | Not available |
| API access on the base price | Included | Included |
| Slack integration | Not available | Included |
| App marketplace | Not available | Included |
| Free tierCrowdStack: 14-day free trial | Not available | Included |
Based on Help Scout's published feature lists in August 2026. “Partly” means the feature exists but is limited to a higher tier, an add-on, or a metered credit. Spotted a mistake? Email support@crowdstack.org and we will correct it.
We would rather you pick the right tool than pick us. Stay on Help Scout if you need live chat, SMS or WhatsApp, want a free plan for a small team, rely on the Slack integration or the app marketplace, or only need a help desk and nothing else. Help Scout is good at that and priced fairly for it. CrowdStack is for teams who also want the CRM, the Stripe numbers and their issues and docs in the same tool, and who would rather not pay for AI by the resolution.
For email and help centre support, yes. CrowdStack has the shared inbox, saved views, SLAs, macros, automations, knowledge base, CSAT and knowledge-grounded AI replies, and adds a CRM, Stripe revenue, issues, a feedback board and a wiki. It does not have live chat, SMS or social messaging.
Five users on CrowdStack cost £140 a month at the full rate, with every product and 2500 pooled AI credits included. Five users on Help Scout are free with one inbox and one Docs site, $125 a month on Standard, or $225 on Plus, before AI Answers at $0.75 per resolution.
Customers import from a Help Scout export as contacts, with custom properties mapped to custom fields. Email us at support@crowdstack.org before you switch and we will walk through the mapping, and talk through what to do with conversation history.
Live chat, SMS, WhatsApp and social messaging, a free plan, a Slack integration and an app marketplace. If your support runs on chat and messaging channels, or you only need a help desk, Help Scout is the better fit today.
Every product, 500 AI credits per user, one price. Free for 14 days, no card required.