Freshdesk

Support teams land on Freshdesk when a Zendesk quote comes back at three times the budget. Freshworks sells the same suite shape and, unusually, publishes a price for every add-on it lists.

Growth is $19 per agent per month billed annually and $23 billed monthly, Pro $55 and $66, Enterprise $89 and $107. The banner above the cards says "Save 20%" and the real discount is 16.7% to 17.4%. Freddy AI Agent is metered by session, not by resolution. Every plan includes 500 sessions, then $49 buys another 100. A session is a 72-hour window from the customer's first email, and every reply inside it counts once.

Resolution is not the billing trigger, so nothing adjudicates whether the AI helped. Freshworks publishes no non-billable escalation case, meaning a session that hands off to a human still consumes one. Audit logs, IP allowlisting, sandbox and skill-based routing are Enterprise only, and Freddy AI Copilot cannot be bought on Growth. The account export returns XML that Freshworks tells you to have converted by developers at your end, and it excludes automations, dispatch rules, SLA policies and AI Agent Studio configuration. Seat count cannot be reduced mid-term.

Zendesk charges the same $19 at entry for email ticketing only, where Growth includes the help centre and 500 AI sessions. Intercom bills $0.99 per resolution it judges successful, so its meter tracks outcomes where this one tracks contact time. Zoho Desk is the third name on most shortlists here. All are help desk software.