Helply (formerly Groove) vs Plain
A side-by-side comparison of Helply (formerly Groove) and Plain on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
Capability by capability
Nothing we track differs between them.
Channels
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| IncludedIncluded. One of the eight channels feeding Helply's single queue, and on every Classic Groove plan. | Included2 email addresses on Foundation, 10 on Horizon, 25 on Frontier | |
| Live chat | IncludedIncluded. In-app widget on Helply; branded chat widget for web and mobile on every Classic Groove plan. | IncludedListed on the integrations page and available from Foundation |
| In-app messenger | IncludedIncluded. | Not published |
| Voice | NoHelply enumerates eight channels and voice is not one of them. Classic Groove offers call logging, which records a call against a conversation rather than carrying one. | Not published |
| SMS | IncludedIncluded. | Not published |
| IncludedIncluded. | Not published | |
| Instagram / Facebook | IncludedClassic Groove only, on every plan, and counted against the plan's channel allowance at $10 per extra channel. Helply's published channel list is Slack Connect, Microsoft Teams, Discord, email, WhatsApp, SMS, in-app widget and a webhook API, and does not include Instagram or Facebook. | Not published |
| Slack Connect | IncludedIncluded, and threaded into the same queue as email rather than mirrored. Named as a first-class B2B channel: "Slack Connect threading". | Included25 Slack channels on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon and Frontier. Slack Enterprise Grid is Frontier only. |
| Microsoft Teams | IncludedIncluded, alongside Discord. | IncludedHorizon and above. Not available on Foundation. |
| Community forum | Not published | IncludedUnknown. A Discourse integration is listed on the compare table, but the per-plan checkmarks are images and could not be read. Plain ingests an existing forum rather than hosting one. |
Ticketing
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | IncludedIncluded, with unlimited seats. "Bring your whole team. Engineers triaging bugs, AEs reading churn signals, PMs scanning feature requests." | Not published |
| SLA policies | IncludedIncluded on Helply, with per-account SLAs called out for enterprise. Classic Groove gates SLA management to Plus and Pro. | IncludedSLAs and business hours start on Horizon |
| Business hours | Not published | IncludedHorizon and above |
| Macros / saved replies | IncludedIncluded. Saved replies on Helply; instant replies on every Classic Groove plan, though instant replies that carry actions are Plus and above. | IncludedDocumented as Snippets, with full API read and write on all plans |
| Custom fields | IncludedClassic Groove: customer overview with custom fields on every plan, plus company fields and field categories. | Not published |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| Round-robin assignment | IncludedIncluded on both products. Classic Groove offers round robin with load balancing on every plan for assignment, but gates chat routing with load balancing to Plus and Pro. | Not published |
| Workflow builder | IncludedIncluded. "Workflow rules with conditions" on Helply. Classic Groove ships a custom rule builder on every plan but gates time-based rules and advanced rule automations to Plus and Pro. | IncludedUp to 5 workflows on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon and Frontier |
| Escalation rules | Not published | IncludedEscalation paths start on Horizon |
AI resolution
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedIncluded at no extra charge. "The AI agent loads full account context, your KB, past tickets, CRM, Stripe, product usage, and only resolves a ticket when it has high confidence in a complete, correct answer." | IncludedAri, the customer-facing AI agent, is free on all workspaces and consumes no credits. Bring-your-own AI agent is Frontier only. |
| Resolution over knowledge base | IncludedIncluded, and trained on resolved tickets and macros as well as articles. | Not published |
| Action-taking (API calls) | IncludedIncluded. Refunds, plan changes, seat provisioning, password resets and rate-limit increases executed across Stripe, the CRM and the auth provider, chained across multiple steps with failure handling. | Not published |
| Handoff to human | IncludedIncluded, on customer-set thresholds. "You set the thresholds, Helply respects them, and the agent log shows every decision it made and why." Handoffs carry the issue, customer history, resolution attempts and full thread. | Not published |
| Guardrails & citations | IncludedIncluded. Guardrails, brand tone and answer format are configurable, with a preview mode for reviewing answers before they go live, and drafts cite account context inline. | Not published |
AI assist
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | IncludedIncluded on Helply. On Classic Groove this is Copilot at $49 per account per month, or the AI assist row, which is blank in the Standard column. | Not published |
| Summarization | IncludedIncluded on Helply. Classic Groove gates AI summarize to Plus and Pro. | Not published |
| Auto-tagging | IncludedClassic Groove AI tag suggest, Plus and Pro only. Included on Helply. | Not published |
| Sentiment analysis | IncludedClassic Groove Plus and Pro. Helply replaces it with signal detection: churn language, upsell asks, competitor mentions and plan-limit hits tagged in real time and attributed to the account and its ARR. | Not published |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | IncludedIncluded on Helply. Classic Groove includes a knowledge base per plan allowance, with additional ones priced but not published. | Not publishedKnowledge bases are plan-limited (1 on Foundation, unlimited above) and a Help center API section is documented, but nothing states whether they are publicly hosted. The headless portal starts on Horizon. |
| Custom domain | IncludedClassic Groove supports a custom domain on the knowledge base, with either Groove's SSL or your own. Custom HTML and CSS are not supported. | Not published |
Reporting
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| CSAT / NPS | IncludedIncluded. Customer satisfaction surveys on Helply; CSAT ratings, customisable rating wording and CSAT reporting on every Classic Groove plan. | Not published |
Collaboration
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| Internal notes | IncludedEvery plan on both products, with @mentions. Lite users on Classic Groove can add notes but cannot reply. | Not published |
| Collision detection | IncludedClassic Groove, every plan. | Not published |
Enterprise
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | Not publishedNot published for Helply, which has no plan matrix. Classic Groove's Security & Permissions matrix lists exactly four rows, two-factor authentication, mailbox access permissions, teammate roles and public downtime reporting, and SAML SSO is not one of them. | IncludedFrontier only. Neither publicly priced plan includes SSO. |
| SCIM provisioning | Not publishedNot mentioned on either product's published material. | IncludedFrontier only |
| Custom roles | Not publishedClassic Groove publishes "teammate roles" and mailbox access permissions with no detail on what roles exist or whether they can be defined. Helply publishes nothing on roles at all, which is a notable gap for a product whose selling point is putting the whole company in the inbox. | IncludedUnknown. A Custom roles row exists on the compare table but the per-plan checkmarks are images and could not be read. |
| SOC 2 | IncludedNot plan-gated. SOC 2 Type II, with the report and pen-test summaries "available on request" through the Vanta-hosted trust centre. | IncludedUnknown. A SOC2 Type II Report row sits under Services and compliance; per-plan gating is not readable. A live trust center is published with dated subprocessor notifications. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated. GDPR is named on the security page, a DPA is offered on request, and Groove publishes a named DPO contact at dpo@groovehq.com. | IncludedNot plan-gated. A DPA is published at /legal/dpa, and the terms forbid training AI models on Subscriber Data without written consent. |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | IncludedNot plan-gated. "Request deletion anytime. We maintain formal retention and disposal procedures to ensure your data is securely purged when you leave." Groove puts a figure on it: removal takes up to 30 days after cancellation. | Not published |
Developer
| Capability | Helply (formerly Groove) | Plain |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedGroove Classic, no longer sold, ships a documented v1 REST API on every plan. Helply lists "API access" as included in the $1 ticket price and exposes a webhook API as one of its channels, but publishes no endpoint reference. | Not publishedOnly a GraphQL API is documented. No REST surface appears in the docs navigation. |
| GraphQL API | Not publishedGroove Classic, no longer sold, ships a GraphQL v2 API that can "both read and write all of your data", with the Inbox and Knowledge Base halves flagged as still being built. Helply names "API access" as included in the ticket price and publishes no reference for it, so whether a GraphQL surface exists on the product sold is not documented. | IncludedAll three plans. Plain is built on the same GraphQL API it exposes. |
| Webhooks | IncludedEvery Classic Groove plan. Helply exposes a webhook API as one of its eight channels. | IncludedWebhooks and Events are shown on all three plans |
| Published rate limits | Not publishedHelply publishes no rate limit, and no API reference to carry one. Groove Classic, no longer sold, publishes 200 calls per minute on Standard, 400 on Plus and 800 on Pro. | NoNo rate-limit figure on the GraphQL Introduction or Authentication pages, and no rate-limit page in the docs navigation. |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What Helply (formerly Groove) costs
- Billing unit
The only plan Helply sells - Free tier
No - AI pricing
$1 per ticket - Vendor calls it
Ticket - Human handoff
Still billed - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
None published - Automation export
Not published
3 of 9 not published by Helply (formerly Groove), checked
What Plain costs
$35/seat/month
2 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
$35/month - Free tier
No, 7-day trial - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
Sidekick credit - Human handoff
Not billed - Reopened chat
Refunded - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Partial
2 of 9 not published by Plain, checked