Help Scout pricing and Help Scout cost per user, AI Answers and user caps

Help Scout pricing is $25 per user a month for Standard, $45 for Plus and $75 for Pro on annual billing, or about $30, $54 and $90 month to month. AI Answers is billed separately at $0.75 for each conversation it resolves without a person. For eight agents on Standard handling 2,000 conversations a month with 40 percent resolved by AI, the real Help Scout cost is about $800 a month, and three quarters of it is the AI line.

How much does Help Scout cost?

These figures come from helpscout.com/pricing, read on October 5, 2026. The pricing page defaults to annual billing with a 16 percent discount over paying monthly. All prices are US dollars per user a month.

The monthly figures are the annual price with the 16 percent discount removed, which is how the toggle on Help Scout's page works; several independent price trackers list the same $30, $54 and $90. Extra inboxes are $10 a month on annual terms ($12 monthly) and extra Docs sites $20 ($24 monthly), on every paid plan.

How much does Help Scout AI Answers cost?

$0.75 per resolution, on any paid plan. Help Scout defines a resolution as a single conversation that AI Answers closes without human help, so a conversation it hands to an agent is not billed. New accounts get three months of AI Answers free with unlimited resolutions, and you can set a monthly spending cap with email alerts as you approach it.

Because only resolutions are billed, your AI cost per conversation depends on how good your Docs are. At a 30 percent resolution rate AI Answers works out to about $0.23 per conversation it touches; at 40 percent, $0.30; at 60 percent, $0.45. Freshdesk's Freddy AI Agent, by comparison, bills $0.49 for every session whether it resolves or not, which is why Help Scout comes out cheaper per conversation unless Freddy resolves more than about 65 percent.

AI Drafts, which writes a reply for your agent to edit, and the AI inbox assistant are included in the seat price on Plus and Standard respectively. They do not add to the bill.

What does Help Scout cost per month for a real team?

Seats are the predictable part. The table below adds AI Answers on every conversation at a 40 percent resolution rate, annual billing, on the cheapest plan each team size is allowed to buy.

Two things stand out. Once AI is on, it is the bigger half of the bill at every size, so a better knowledge base raises your invoice even as it cuts agent workload. And the seat line jumps at the caps: 25 Standard users cost $625, while 26 users must buy Plus at $1,170.

Why does the 26th user cost so much on Help Scout?

Because Standard is capped at 25 users and the whole account moves plan together. You cannot keep 25 people on Standard and put the 26th on Plus. The step is $545 a month, an 87 percent rise in the seat line for one hire. The same thing happens at 51 users, when Plus runs out and Pro at $75 becomes the only option: $2,250 becomes $3,825.

Light users soften this for people who only read and comment, such as a product manager or an engineer pulled into a bug thread. Plus includes 15 and Pro up to 50. If your 26th person does not reply to customers, make them a light user before you upgrade anything.

Is Help Scout cheaper than Zendesk and Intercom?

Yes, on both lines. Help Scout Plus is $45 a user against $55 for Zendesk Suite Team and $85 for Intercom Advanced, and AI Answers at $0.75 per resolution is half of Zendesk's $1.50 committed rate and below Intercom Fin's $0.99. For eight agents at 2,000 conversations, Help Scout Standard comes to about $800 against about $1,624 on Zendesk Suite Team and $1,472 on Intercom Advanced. It also beats Front: the same team on Front Professional with Autopilot is about $1,300 to $1,700, because Front bills $0.39 for every conversation its AI hands to a person (see our Front pricing breakdown). HubSpot Service Hub is the one packaged tool that wins at volume, because its Customer Agent costs about $0.50 a resolution (our HubSpot Service Hub pricing breakdown adds the seats, onboarding fee and credit packs); our Help Scout alternatives page prices all of them for one five agent team.

When does a custom AI agent cost less than AI Answers?

At a 40 percent resolution rate, AI Answers costs about $0.30 for each conversation it handles. A custom agent running on a current model costs about $0.05 a conversation in tokens, so it saves about $0.25 per conversation. A lean build, roughly $440 a month of build cost, hosting and upkeep spread over two years, pays for itself at about 1,760 conversations a month. An expensive build at about $1,750 a month needs about 7,000.

The better reason to build is usually scope, not price. AI Answers replies from your Docs and the sources you add. It does not check whether an order shipped, read a customer's plan, or reset an account in your own product. A custom agent does all three and writes back to Help Scout through its API, so your agents keep the inbox they know. Help Scout has changed its plan lineup more than once in the last few years, so if you budget on its list prices, it is worth setting up competitor price tracking on the vendors you depend on rather than finding out at renewal.

If your volume is past those lines, describe it in a hire brief along with the systems the agent must read and get matched with chatbot developers, with their rates and delivery location up front. Before anything goes live, run it on a few hundred past conversations; our guide to evaluating an AI agent before you ship it explains how to build that test set.

Help Scout pricing questions buyers ask

Does Help Scout charge per user or per contact?

Per user. Paid plans charge for every full user and include unlimited contacts. Only the Free plan limits contacts, to 100 a month. Older Help Scout plans priced by contacts helped, so some reviews still describe that model, but the current pricing page sells seats.

Is there a free trial of Help Scout?

Yes. Standard and Plus come with a 15 day trial without a credit card, and AI Answers comes with three months of unlimited resolutions at no charge. Pro is sold through a demo with Help Scout's team.

Can I cap Help Scout AI Answers spend?

Yes. Set a monthly spending cap and Help Scout emails you as you approach it. Once the cap is hit, conversations go to your team instead of the AI for the rest of the month, so a cap protects the budget at the cost of agent workload.

How much is Help Scout for a team of 10?

$250 a month on Standard, $450 on Plus or $750 on Pro with annual billing, before AI. Ten users is also exactly the Pro minimum. Add AI Answers at $0.75 per resolution: a ten user team whose AI resolves 1,000 conversations pays $750 more.