Ticketing system for small business: 10 options

A ticketing system for a small business gives every customer request an owner, a status and a record, and the ten options below do that in two ways. Six are help desks that turn each request into a ticket, three of them with a free tier. Four are shared inbox tools that keep the mail in Gmail, Outlook or IMAP and add the owner and status on top. Prices start at free for two to five users and run to $29 per seat a month, and the larger difference between them is how each one bills AI.

What a ticketing system does for a small business

A ticketing system takes requests from email, a web form, live chat or a phone call and turns each into an item with an owner, a status and a history. It answers the three questions a shared mailbox cannot: who is handling this, is it waiting on us or on the customer, and what was said last time. Rules, service level targets and reports sit on top of that record.

A small business rarely needs the full ticket model. Its customers are often known by name and its requests arrive mostly by email. A numbered ticket in an automated reply reads as cold to a customer who wrote to a person. That is why the list below includes shared inbox tools, which give the owner, the status and the reports without turning the customer into a requester. What is a shared inbox explains the difference.

Ticketing systems for small business compared

How to choose a ticketing system for a small business

The first filter is where the business's requests arrive. A business whose customers email can use any of the ten. One whose customers write on WhatsApp or website chat needs a tool with those channels on its entry plan. A store on Shopify is served by Gorgias or by a help desk with a Shopify connection. The second filter is the free tier, which matters for a business of two to five people. Three vendors offer one with real limits: 3 users at Zoho Desk, 2 at HubSpot and 5 at Help Scout.

The third filter is how AI is billed, because it decides the bill after the first year more than the seat price does. Zendesk, Intercom, Help Scout, Hiver, Front and HubSpot charge per conversation their AI agent resolves, at $0.50 to $2.00. Freshdesk charges per session and Gorgias per interaction, and Zoho Desk and Sektra include AI in the plan. A business that expects an AI agent to answer a share of its questions should multiply that share of monthly conversations by the vendor's rate before comparing seats. Shared inbox pricing comparison does that arithmetic for five users at fourteen vendors.

Ticketing systems with a free tier

1. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is the help desk in the Zoho suite, built around tickets with assignment rules, workflows and escalations. Its Free edition covers 3 users at no cost. Express, the entry paid plan, covers email, social media and web forms for up to 5 users at about $7 per user a month on annual billing. AI is included in the per-user price with no fee per resolution. It fits a small business that already runs its books, CRM or projects in Zoho.

2. HubSpot Service Hub

Service Hub is the support product on HubSpot's CRM, so tickets sit on the same customer record as sales and marketing. Its free tools include ticketing and team email for up to 2 users, and Starter adds live chat and simple ticket automation at $20 per seat a month. The Customer Agent is paid in credits at $0.50 per resolved conversation. It fits a business that already runs sales or marketing on HubSpot.

3. Help Scout

Help Scout is built around a shared email inbox, with its Docs knowledge base and live chat beside it. The Free plan covers 5 users with 1 inbox and 100 contacts a month. Standard, from about $25 per user a month on annual billing, includes 2 inboxes, live chat and the WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger channels. Envoy, the AI agent that answers customers directly, is $0.75 per resolution. It fits a small business whose requests arrive mostly by email, and Sektra vs Help Scout has the row-by-row view.

Ticketing help desks priced per agent

4. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is the ticketing help desk from Freshworks, priced per agent from $19 a month on annual billing. Growth, the entry plan, covers email ticketing, a customer portal and a knowledge base, and Pro at $55 adds several SLA policies, balanced assignment, CSAT surveys and custom dashboards. Freddy AI Agent comes with 500 sessions once and then costs $49 per 100, and Freddy AI Copilot is $29 per agent on Pro and Enterprise. Live chat is sold separately as Freshchat, with its own pricing. It fits a support team that wants a ticket queue and a portal, and Freshdesk pricing has the plans in full.

5. Zendesk

Zendesk is a ticketing suite priced per agent from $19 a month on annual billing for Support Team, which is email ticketing alone. Suite Team at $55 adds messaging, live chat, voice and social channels with a help center, and Suite Professional at $115 adds SLAs, skills-based routing and CSAT surveys. It fits a business that wants phone, live chat and email in one queue, and Zendesk pricing works through the totals.

6. Gorgias

Gorgias is a help desk for ecommerce, with Shopify and WooCommerce connections on every plan, and it prices by tickets a month instead of by agent. Starter covers 50 tickets a month and 3 user seats for $10 a month, and Basic covers 300 tickets at about $50 a month on annual billing. The AI Agent is sold as a monthly allowance of automated interactions at about $0.90 to $1.00 each, with $1.50 for each one past the allowance. It fits a store whose support is mostly order questions and whose bill should follow volume rather than headcount.

Shared inbox tools that do the ticketing jobs

7. Hiver

Hiver is a help desk that runs inside the Gmail interface or in its own workspace. Plans start at about $25 per user a month on annual billing, with a minimum of 2 seats, and the entry plan caps at 10 users. Pro at $55 adds SLAs and CSAT surveys, and automated AI resolutions are billed at $0.80 each on every plan. It fits a small business on Google Workspace that wants owners, notes and reports without leaving Gmail, and Sektra vs Hiver compares the two.

8. Front

Front is a customer operations platform built around shared inboxes and routing rules between departments. Starter covers one channel type for up to 10 seats at about $25 per seat a month on annual billing, with ticketing, 10 rules and basic analytics. Professional at $65 adds omnichannel work and more rules for up to 50 seats, and AI comes as two add-ons. It fits a business with several departments routing conversations between them, and Front pricing has the worked totals.

9. Intercom

Intercom is built around its website Messenger and the Fin AI agent, with Essential at $29 per seat a month on annual billing for one shared inbox. Fin costs $0.99 per outcome on every plan, with at most one outcome charged per conversation, and Copilot is $29 per agent. It fits a website-first business that wants an AI agent answering a share of questions from the first month, and Intercom pricing sets out the plans.

10. Sektra

Sektra, which we build, is an AI shared inbox that keeps the mail in Gmail, Outlook or IMAP and runs WhatsApp Business and website chat beside it. Each conversation has an owner, a status and notes. Rules route and tag conversations as they arrive, service levels count in the inbox's working hours, and satisfaction surveys go out when a conversation closes. The assistant ranks each conversation with the reason, summarizes threads and drafts replies that a person sends. Lens, the relationship panel beside each thread, keeps what was promised to each customer. The seat price is $18 per seat a month on Starter or $29 on Team, billed yearly, with the assistant included, and importers bring tickets in from Zendesk and Freshdesk. Email ticketing from a shared inbox describes how the ticket jobs are done without tickets.

How to pick

A business of two to five people that wants to pay nothing yet starts with the free tier at Zoho Desk, HubSpot or Help Scout. A business that wants a full ticket queue with phone and live chat pays $19 per agent at Freshdesk or Zendesk. It chooses between them by the plan where its SLA and channel needs are met, and an online store takes Gorgias and pays by ticket. A business that answers named customers from shared mailboxes compares Hiver, Front, Intercom and Sektra on the channels its customers use and on how each bills AI. Whichever it picks, the first week should go on one rule, one service level target and one report, since those three are what the system is for.