Freshdesk is cloud-based customer service software by Freshworks that offers help desk, live chat, and call center solutions for businesses of any size. Freshdesk reviews show that its effective and easy to use, and customers appreciate the robust analytics and customization capabilities as well as being able to start with a free version. It is best for cost-conscious businesses that want scalable support desk tools to manage and improve multi-channel customer engagement.
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What We Recommend Freshdesk For
Freshdesks Support Desk software combines ticket management, collaboration, help desk, and customer service, support, and engagement tools into a single platform. Freshdesk pricing and plans scale up with additional features from the free basic plan to the robust enterprise tier, making it a great option for customer support teams of all sizes.
Who Freshdesk Is a Good Fit For
- Companies needing free customer service software: Freshdesk offers a free Support Desk plan with ticket management, agent productivity, workflow automation, and reporting tools that can be used by an unlimited number of agents. Find out more about why its one of our top picks for the best free customer service software .
- Support teams with remote agents: The Field Service Management add-on makes Freshdesk a viable option for distributed teams or companies with remote-hybrid employees. You can track agent performance and service status, contact customers, and see how much time agents spend using their mobile apps for service tasks.
- Businesses that use multiple support channels for ticketing: Freshdesks omnichannel functionality provides a single platform for managing all incoming tickets from multiple support channels. These channels include email, phone, chat, and social media. This is one of the reasons why Freshdesk made it to our list of the top customer service platforms .
Freshdesk Is Not a Good Fit For
- Small businesses looking for basic, easy-to-use customer service software: While Freshdesk is easy enough to use for mid-level users, beginners might find the learning curve challenging. It also comes with a robust set of ticket management features that may not appeal to small businesses preferring a more straightforward solution like Insightly Service .
- Companies needing robust voice support features for call center operations: While Freshdesk integrates with Freshcaller, its main feature is ticket management. If a call center is an important part of your business operations, its better to purchase a comprehensive solution that can handle large volumes of incoming calls. To find a good alternative, check out our list of the best customer relationship management (CRM) call center software .
- Organizations wanting free customer service software with 24/7 support: Freshdesks Free plan gives you access to a knowledge base and community support only. Its 24/7 email and 24/5 support options are only available to paid plan subscribers.
Freshdesk Overview
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Offers a free plan that supports an unlimited number of agents | Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered agent assistant is available only in the highest-cost tier |
| Lowest-tier Growth plan includes basic reporting, collaboration, and help widget tools | The Free version and Growth plan lack team dashboards, chatbots, and social ticketing |
| Integrates with apps in the Freshworks ecosystem and 1,000+ third-party tools | Third-party integrations are available only with paid plans |
| Omnichannel supportcommunicate with customers via email, phone, chat, and social media | Customer support in the Free plan is limited to a knowledge base and community forums |
| In-app collaboration tools make it easy for team members to work together on complex issues | The added cost for Omnichannel Suite and advanced features like service level agreement (SLA) management gets expensive |
Freshdesk Pricing
In addition to the Free Support Desk plan, Freshdesk pricing includes three paid plans that range from $15 to $79 per agent, per month when billed annually, or $18 to $95 when billed monthly. The main differences between the plans as reflected in Freshdesk pricing include the availability of features such as advanced workflow automation, service level agreement (SLA) management, custom reports, artificial intelligence (AI) -powered tools, and third-party integrations.
| Support Desk Plans | Free | Growth | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Pricing ($/Agent/Month) | $0 | $18 | $59 | $95 |
| Annual Pricing ($/Agent/Month) | $0 | $15 | $49 | $79 |
| Email Ticketing and Outbound Emails | ||||
| Canned Responses and Basic Automations | ||||
| Knowledge Base and Help Widget | ||||
| Mobile App (Android and iOS) | ||||
| Event and Time-triggered Automations | ||||
| SLA Management | ||||
| Round-robin Ticket Assignment | ||||
| Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Surveys | ||||
| Freddy AI | ||||
| Reporting and Analytics | Default dashboard | Default dashboard and help desk in-depth reports | Custom dashboard, help desk in-depth reports, agent and group performance, and team dashboards | Custom dashboard, help desk in-depth reports, agent and group performance, and team dashboards |
| Help and Support | Knowledge base and community forums | Knowledge base, community forums, and 24/7 email support | Knowledge base, community forums, 24/7 email support, and 24/5 phone and chat support | Knowledge base, community forums, 24/7 email support, and 24/5 phone and chat support |
Click on the drop-down tabs below for more information about each of Freshdesks Support Desk plans and complementary products such as Messaging, Contact Center, and Customer Success:
Free
The Free Support Desk plan comes with a basic email and social media ticketing system for an unlimited number of agents. It converts email and social media queries into tickets you can track, prioritize, route, and respond to. Its productivity tools include shared canned customer service responses , public and private notes in tickets, personalized automated emails, to-do lists, and tags.
You can automate actions that run on ticket creation, such as ticket assignment, prioritization, triggered emails, and deleting tickets. The Free version of Freshdesk also offers basic social media support, letting you track brand mentions and participate in conversations involving your brand on Facebook and Twitter. Customer support for Free plan users is limited to answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) in the knowledge base and access to community forums.
In addition, you can reach out to your teammates through Freshdesks integration with ticket collaboration tool Freshconnect . You get access to a default dashboard and ticket volume trends. Other features under this plan are customer and company fields, mobile apps for Android and iOS, and customization options for your customer portals logo and icon.
Growth
Growth plan subscribers get access to additional help desk and ticket management tools like multiple shared inboxes, in-app smart notifications, undo email sending, reply time tracking, and conversation sorting. In addition to the basic productivity tools in the Free plan, this plan includes personalized canned responses, agent collision detection, custom ticket views, and filtered search. It also comes with time- and event-triggered workflow automation.
Starting with the Growth plan, subscribers can use service level agreement (SLA) management tools and customize status and fields for ticket forms. Other added features include auto-suggest solutions and interlinking articles for the knowledge base, as well as help desk in-depth reports, export and save report functions, and time sheet summary reports. You can also start accessing the Neo Marketplace and integrate Freshdesk with third-party applications.
Pro
With the Pro plan, you get advanced ticket management tools like ticket templates and customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys . Its workflow automation features now include round-robin ticket assignment and an out-of-office scheduler. Even the SLA policies are more comprehensive and cover reminders, escalation emails for violations, multiple SLA policies, and an SLA for every response.
The knowledge base under this plan features community forums, multiple-product content management, knowledge base analytics, and article templates. The help widget comes with sophisticated tools like frustration tracking, customer journey, appearance customization, a multi-lingual knowledge base, and ticket fields. It also includes advanced collaboration tools such as linked tickets, parent-child ticketing, and shared ownership of tickets.
This tiers customer service reports and analytics are also more robust with the addition of agent and group performance reports, satisfaction survey reports, ticket drill-down, performance distribution, top customer analysis, ticket lifecycle reports, custom reports, and team dashboards. You can also integrate Freshdesk with more apps at this level, including tools for surveys and feedback, time tracking , and invoicing.
Enterprise
At the top tier, the Enterprise package comes with the most advanced functionalities. Examples include quality assurance scores, skill-based ticket assignment, agent shift management, article approval workflow, and help desk change management. But one of the biggest advantages of subscribing to this plan is access to its smart customer service assistant Freddy AI, which we discuss in more detail throughout the features section below.
Freshdesk also offers plans for the following related products and add-ons:
Messaging
- Free plan for up to 100 agents
- Paid plans range from $15 to $69 per agent, per month when billed annually or pay monthly at a higher rate
- Features include chatbots, chatbot analytics, assignment rules, canned responses, user segmentation, CSAT survey and report, team performance and agent availability reports, auto-resolve, and co-browsing (screen sharing with audio)
Contact Center
- Free plan for an unlimited number of agents
- Paid plans range from $15 to $69 per agent, per month when billed annually or pay monthly at a higher rate
- Call charges start at $0.003 per minute
- Use Freshdesks Call Center Estimator to calculate the total cost of your agent licensing fee and inbound and outbound call charges
- Features include inbound caller ID, call metrics, number porting, call queues, voicemail, call recording, call barging, routing automation, interactive voice response (IVR) , voicebot, and service level monitoring
Customer Success
- Per-user pricing ranges from $79 to $129 per month*
- Platform cost ranges from $499 to $749 per month* (covers maintained data integrations, detailed user tracking, automation that constantly evaluates customer data, and customer emails)
- Features include health scoring, proactive alerts, reporting and analytics, goal and task management, email campaigns, email triggers, account management , team performance analysis, customer engagement for multiple products, and enterprise SLA
*Based on annual billing. Monthly pricing is also available at slightly higher rates.
Freshdesk also offers the following add-ons for its paid plans:
- Additional bot sessions: $75 for 1,000 bot sessions per month
- Field Service Management: $15 per field employee, per month*
- Omnichannel Suite: Ranges from $29 to $99 per agent, per month*; additional suite of messaging and telephony features for the Growth, Pro, and Enterprise plans of Support Desk, Messaging, Contact Center, and Customer Success products of Freshdesk
*Based on annual billing. Monthly pricing is also available at slightly higher rates.
Freshdesk Features
Freshdesk is equipped with smart ticketing and collaboration tools to simplify the customer request experience and agent workflows. Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots help your customers find answers to simple questions on their own and the platform provides a centralized platform where you can manage all customer requests from any support channel. All these features help increase customer satisfaction through the quick resolution of issues.
Click on the drop-down features below to find out more about each one:
Freddy AI
- Assist bot (email, voicebot, chatbot)
- Auto-triage tickets
- Robo-assist (automated support processes)
- Article suggester
- Canned response suggester
- Thank-you detector
- Social Signals (social mention detector)
- Freddy insights and reports
Freddy AI for customer service is a suite of smart assistant features built for Freshdesk . It allows you to build bots that automatically respond to customer queries and tickets for email, audio questions on Freshcaller , and chat. Freddy AI also handles smart transfers of conversations to agents, offers instant support on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and even creates tickets for social media posts that are detected to require assistance.
Aside from that, Freddy AI helps increase agent productivity by suggesting solution articles, automatically prioritizing tickets, and suggesting canned responses. It detects thank-you emails from customers and executes required actions through automation. Freshdesks reporting and analytics capabilities are also powered by this smart assistant.
Build AI-powered smart bots for the Freshdesk Support Desk with Freddy AI.
Ticket Management
- Team inbox
- Agent collision detection
- SLA management
- AI-powered ticketing
- Field service ticketing
- Canned responses
- Custom ticket views
- Merging tickets
- Smart ticket notification
- Thank-you detector
Freshdesk makes sure no customer conversation slips through the cracks by automatically converting issues from any channel into tickets. The Support Desks ticketing system comes with a team inbox where you can track and manage all incoming tickets from multiple channels.
It also has an SLA management feature that allows you to set expectations for response time with customers. In addition, Freddy AI can automate repetitive tasks such as ticket field suggestions and closing tickets.
The omnichannel ticketing feature unifies support requests from all channels (email, phone, social, and chat) into one platform.
Collaboration
- Team huddle
- Shared ticket ownership
- Linked tickets
- Parent-child ticketing
- Freshdesk-Freshservice integration
Agents using Freshdesks Support Desk software can loop in their teammates to collaborate in discussions on tickets and tasks. The parent-child ticketing functionality lets you split tickets into smaller tasks that one team can work on in parallel.
You can also link tickets that are similar to one another and send a single status update for all of them. The native integration with Freshservice lets your support team raise incidents and service requests with your internal service team for faster resolution.
Collaborate with teams and improve customer support even more with the Freshconnect-Freshdesk integration.
Automations
- Ticket dispatch
- Intelligent ticket assignment
- Time-triggered automation
- Event-triggered automation
- Automatic email notification
AI-powered help desk automations streamline your teams workflows by automatically scanning every inquiry and prioritizing and assigning tickets to the right agent based on skill and availability. It also uses Freddy AI to suggest solutions based on your past tickets. Plus, your system is constantly monitored for ticket updates and automatically notifies agents when customers get in touch with your business.
Automatically monitor and update tickets to streamline workflows and provide faster customer support.
Self Service
- AI-powered chatbot
- Help widget
- Automatically suggest solutions
- Email to knowledge base
- Solution article analytics
- Article feedback
- Forum moderation
- Link forum topic to ticket
Freshdesks self-service portal lets you provide answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) so customers dont have to wait for available agents. Agents are then free to address more complex questions. You can bring your knowledge base content to all support channels, including chat, mobile, and your business website, and your customers can also ask questions and engage in discussions in community forums.
Use bots to provide customers with the best answers from your knowledge base at any time.
Mobile App
- Android and iOS apps
- Ticket management
- Canned responses
- Mobile help desk
- Time tracking
- Access customer information
- Share tickets instantly
- Search tickets
- Email customers proactively
Freshdesks mobile app allows you to manage tickets from Android or iOS devices. You can easily delete, mark as spam, or close tickets with a quick swipe.
You can also use canned responses and solution articles to eliminate the difficulty of typing long replies on a small screen. Other functions you can access on mobile include ticket sharing, customer data, search articles, email to customers, push notifications, and time tracking.
View ticket details and provide customer support on the go using Freshdesk mobile.
Reporting & Analytics
- Ticket and volume trends
- Help desk in-depth report
- Time sheet summary report
- Agent and group performance
- Satisfaction survey report
- Ticket drill-down in reports
- Performance distribution
- Ticket lifecycle report
- Custom reports
- Team dashboards
Freshdesks in-depth reports allow you to see where tickets are and how efficient your team is in moving them across the ticket lifecycle. CSAT survey reports help you measure customer satisfaction, while Top Customer Analysis reports help you understand ticket trends and customer interactions with your agents. You can also gauge help desk performance by taking a look at resolution time and SLA metrics.
Performance distribution reports provide an overview of agents performance against key support metrics to better understand their strengths and areas for improvement. You can customize dashboards to display required metrics and see which tickets need immediate attention. You can also build customized reports from scratch using drag-and-drop widgets.
Monitor team performance and customer satisfaction with Freshdesks customizable dashboards and in-depth reports.
Third-party Integrations
- Slack
- Shopify
- Salesforce
- Microsoft Teams
- Mailchimp
- Zoom
- Apple Business Chat
- Freshdesk products
- 1,000+ apps on Neo Marketplace
Paid plan subscribers can integrate Freshdesk with third-party apps for email marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), cloud telephony, survey and feedback, time tracking, and invoicing software . You can also access more than 1,000 app integrations from the Freshworks Neo Marketplace.
Freshdesks featured integrations on the Neo Marketplace
Customer Service
Freshdesk offers tier-based customer service that includes access to its knowledge base and community forums for Free plan subscribers. You gain access to 24/7 email and 24/5 phone support by upgrading to the Growth plan. Pro and Enterprise subscribers are also entitled to 24/5 chat support in addition to the services offered in the lower tiers.
There are additional self-help resources you can access on the Freshdesk website for free. These include customer case studies, a resource library of tips and strategies, webinars, how-to videos, quizzes and productivity tools, and blog articles. You can even enroll your agents in the Freshworks Academy for additional certifications, skill upgrades, and training.
Ease of Use
Freshdesk has a fairly intuitive and user-friendly interface, though less tech-savvy users may find theres a learning curve. The main menu options are arranged conveniently and in plain sight, making it easy to navigate, and smart pop-ups give suggestions and instructions on how to use and customize the system. If you need more guidance, you can access its free library of resources or schedule a demo with a product consultant.
Freshdesk Alternatives
If youre not sure if Freshdesk is the right fit for your business needs, below are some of the best Freshdesk alternatives to consider. In addition, you may want to check out our guide to the best customer service software for more options.
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| Best For | Teams that prefer a native customer service-CRM software integration and want actionable insights on common customer issues | Companies wanting more affordable customer service software with customer self-service & AI capabilities | Businesses wanting a customer service system with voice over internet protocol (VoIP) functionality |
| Starting Price | $29 per agent, per month | Free for three (3) users or $14 per user, per month | Free for unlimited users or $63 per month for two (2) users |
| Visit Insightly Service | Visit Zoho Desk | Visit HubSpot Service Hub |
Looking for free options for your startup or small support team? Read our list of the best free customer service software .
What Users Say in Freshdesk Reviews
We scoured Freshdesk reviews online and found that the majority of its users are pleased with its ticket management capabilities. They also like how easy it is to use and appreciate the robust reporting and customization options. They say the Free plan is a great option for startups and small businesses and think that its paid plans are reasonably priced. Many also remarked on how responsive and efficient Freshdesks sales and support agents are.
As of this writing, Freshdesk reviews have earned the following average user ratings on these popular review sites:
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 based on 2,547 reviews
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 based on 2,388 reviews
- App Store: 4.5 out of 5 based on 1,600 reviews
- Google Play: 4.4 out of 5 based on 6,377 reviews
In less favorable Freshdesk reviews, users mentioned varying suggestions for improving the software, but one of the most common was in regard to third-party integrations. They wished for smoother integration with other apps, especially with telephony, CRM software, and invoicing tools.
Bottom Line
Freshdesk offers a wide range of customer service solutions with rich customization options. It has a free Support Desk plan with limited features thats best suited for startups or small support teams. However, with three paid tiers as well as ancillary products and add-ons, businesses of any size can easily scale up for the features they want and as their needs change. Sign up for a 21-day free trial or get started with its Free plan to see if Freshdesk is a good fit for you.
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Is Freshdesk really free
With Freshdesk’s free forever plan, we give you just that – a feature-packed customer support software, absolutely free !
How long is Freshdesk free
Start your 21-day free trial. No cancellation fees. No credit card required!
Which is better Zendesk or Freshdesk
If you need an all-in-one customer service solution, Freshdesk might feel simpler, easier, and more wholesome. Its live chat is also more advanced if compared to Zendesk. However, Zendesk wins by the number of third-party integrations and, in rare cases, by features .
How do I check my Freshdesk plan
Please navigate to Admin -> Account -> Plans and Billing , and you would be able to see your current plan and the number of agents you’re subscribed to. Kindly note that you would have to be an ‘Account Administrator’ in order to see the account settings.