The short answer
- Chatwoot's official migration guide moves 1 kind of data in full and 2 partly; 4 things stay behind. What moves
- 1 public account of making this switch: 1 switched. Read them
- Switching help: Chatwoot Cloud offers a 15-day free trial plus a permanently free Hacker plan: up to 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, 30-day data retention (voice and Teams features not included). chatwoot.com
What Help Scout and Chatwoot cost
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, as stored in the Stackcut catalog. Each price links its source.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Help Scout Standard | $30/user/mo | $25/user/mo | Up to 25 users; 2 Inboxes (extra Inbox $12/month, $10 paid yearly); live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger; 2 Docs sites; 150 basic workflows; 1 basic SLA policy; unlimited saved replies and tags; API at 200 calls/minute. AI Answers extra at $0.75 per resolution. |
| Help Scout Plus | $54/user/mo | $45/user/mo | Up to 50 users; 5 Inboxes; round-robin routing; 500 advanced workflows; 2 advanced SLA policies; AI Drafts and Summarize; custom fields; Salesforce, Jira and HubSpot; 5 light users included. |
| Help Scout Pro | $90/user/mo | $75/user/mo | Unlimited users (minimum 10); 10 Inboxes; unlimited workflows and SLA policies; SSO/SAML; HIPAA; 15 light users included (up to 50); sales-assisted. |
| Chatwoot Startups cloud | $19/user/mo | not shown | All channels but voice (email, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, SMS, Telegram, API); help center; reports; 300 Captain AI credits a month ($20 per extra 1,000); no teams or automation rules; 1-year data retention; unlimited conversations under the fair-use policy. |
| Chatwoot Business cloud | $39/user/mo | not shown | Adds teams, automation rules, voice, SLAs, custom attributes and pre-chat forms; 500 Captain AI credits; 2-year data retention. |
| Chatwoot Enterprise cloud | $99/user/mo | not shown | Adds SSO/SAML, audit logs, agent capacity and branding removal; 800 Captain AI credits; 3-year data retention. |
| Chatwoot Premium Support self-hosted | $19/user/mo | not shown | Self-hosted with Captain AI, custom branding, agent capacity, roles and permissions, and priority email support. |
- Help Scout free plan: Free plan: up to 5 users, 1 Inbox, 1 Docs site with 10 articles, 100 contacts a month (people who got a reply), 10 saved replies and 10 tags, 30 days of reports; no live chat, workflows, API or AI tools. helpscout.com
- Chatwoot free plan: Hacker cloud plan: up to 2 agents, 500 conversations a month, website live chat only (no email or help center), 30-day data retention. The self-hosted Community Edition is free. chatwoot.com
Moving from Help Scout to Chatwoot
What Chatwoot's importer carries over, what it leaves behind, and any help it offers switchers.
To Chatwoot
Official guide chatwoot.com · Tools: Chatwoot conversation API, Help Scout Inbox API
Moves: Contacts (full); Conversations (partial); Canned responses (partial). chatwoot.com
Doesn't move: Workflows and automation rules (recreate manually); Help Scout Docs articles (recreate in Chatwoot Help Center); Reporting history; Beacon widget settings. chatwoot.com
Watch out for:
- Chatwoot's migration docs cover Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom and Front, but no Help Scout importer exists, so migration is DIY via the API or a paid service chatwoot.com
- Help Scout's built-in export excludes conversation thread contents; API access is required for the actual messages chatwoot.com
- Email-only teams may find Chatwoot's omnichannel UI heavier than Help Scout's (independent note) chatwoot.com
Community guide code-rho-dun.vercel.app · Tools: Chatwoot Docker image, Chatwoot conversations API, Help Scout API
Moves: Conversations (partial); Customers (full); Saved replies (partial). code-rho-dun.vercel.app
Doesn't move: Workflows and automation (recreate); Help Scout Docs knowledge base; Reporting history. code-rho-dun.vercel.app
Watch out for:
- Email-only workflows feel slightly heavy in Chatwoot's omnichannel UI; FreeScout is more focused if email is all you have code-rho-dun.vercel.app
- Core is MIT but some Enterprise features (SLA, custom roles) are gated code-rho-dun.vercel.app
- Postgres + Redis are the core ops surface to maintain code-rho-dun.vercel.app
Switching help: Chatwoot Cloud offers a 15-day free trial plus a permanently free Hacker plan: up to 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, 30-day data retention (voice and Teams features not included). chatwoot.com
Switching help: Chatwoot offers the Startups plan free of charge to open-source projects and nonprofits; claim by emailing hello@chatwoot.com with details of the project. chatwoot.com
Switching help: On its Help Scout comparison page, Chatwoot offers hands-on migration help: 'Try Chatwoot free and see the difference. Our team can help you migrate your data and get set up,' with a Book a demo call-to-action. chatwoot.com
From each destination's own migration docs and switching pages, plus community write-ups where no official guide exists, each checked against its page. Confirm terms on the linked page before you rely on an offer.
People who moved from Help Scout to Chatwoot
1 public accounts of leaving Help Scout: 1 switched. Summaries are ours; each links the original, and each was checked against its page before it appeared here.
NW Maids' owner replaced Help Scout ($94/mo) and Front ($153/mo) with self-hosted Chatwoot on a $51/mo Hetzner server, migrating 116 automations and 179 canned replies, cutting the total SaaS bill from $573 to $51/month across seven tools. Ilya Ornatov
How to leave Help Scout
Export first, then cancel. Every step links the vendor's own help page, checked on the date shown.
How to leave Help Scout
Export first
- Conversations, customers, users: Inbox API (rate limit by plan: 200/400/800 per minute) (JSON). docs.helpscout.com
- Knowledge base articles: Docs API (JSON). docs.helpscout.com
- Reports: Reports → Export (CSV, XLSX). docs.helpscout.com
What you lose
- SLA policies
- Satisfaction surveys
- Workflow auto-assignment
- Report history
Cancel
- Export conversations (Inbox API) and Docs articles (Docs API) first.
- Avatar → Your Plan (→ Manage your plan) → Delete Account (account owner only).
- Takes effect
- Immediately: access ends when you delete, so export first.
- Refunds
- 30-day money-back guarantee on your first payment; otherwise no refunds for partial or annual periods.
- Notice
- None.
- After you cancel
- Terms allow restoring data on written request within 14 days (the cancel doc says 60): plan around 14.
FAQ
Can I move my Help Scout data to Chatwoot?
Chatwoot's official guide moves: Contacts; Conversations; Canned responses. It doesn't move: Workflows and automation rules (recreate manually); Help Scout Docs articles (recreate in Chatwoot Help Center); Reporting history; Beacon widget settings. chatwoot.com
What do I lose when I leave Help Scout?
Per Help Scout's own pages, leaving or downgrading loses: SLA policies; Satisfaction surveys; Workflow auto-assignment; Report history. docs.helpscout.com
Does Chatwoot help people switch from Help Scout?
Chatwoot Cloud offers a 15-day free trial plus a permanently free Hacker plan: up to 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, 30-day data retention (voice and Teams features not included). chatwoot.com
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find_alternatives({"vendor": "Help Scout"})