The short answer
- FreeScout's community migration guide moves 2 kinds of data in full and 1 partly; 3 things stay behind. What moves
- 3 public accounts of making this switch: 3 switched. Read them
What Help Scout and FreeScout 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. |
- 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
FreeScout's plans aren't in the Stackcut catalog yet; check FreeScout's own site.
Moving from Help Scout to FreeScout
What FreeScout's importer carries over, what it leaves behind, and any help it offers switchers.
To FreeScout
Community guide wpfusion.com · Tools: FreeScout + API & Webhooks module, Help Desk Migration, Gmail (IMAP) + Amazon SES
Moves: Conversations (full); Customers (full); Tags (partial). wpfusion.com
Doesn't move: Help Scout reports and analytics; Beacon/docs content; Help Scout workflows (FreeScout Workflows module must be reconfigured). wpfusion.com
Watch out for:
- FreeScout is not an email host: you must bring and connect your own IMAP inbox and SMTP sender wpfusion.com
- Gmail+IMAP inbound can break when Gmail flags hosting-provider IPs as spam (Gmailify fixed it) wpfusion.com
- FreeScout's API & Webhooks module is required to import Help Scout tickets wpfusion.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 FreeScout
3 public accounts of leaving Help Scout: 3 switched. Summaries are ours; each links the original, and each was checked against its page before it appeared here.
Piwigo left Help Scout after price hikes and UX decline, self-hosting FreeScout on a sub-€5/month OVH server; they criticize Help Scout's missing export options and FreeScout's lack of a native importer, which forced a $1,100 third-party script. Piwigo
Watchful moved its support desk from Help Scout (used since 2015) to self-hosted FreeScout in under an hour of setup, citing price creep past $400/month and vendor lock-in; they miss Help Scout's auto-assign/auto-close workflows and buy $4-10 lifetime modules for extras. Watchful
WP Fusion left Help Scout ahead of its 2023 price doubling, self-hosting FreeScout with ~$155 of lifetime modules; they paid Help Desk Migration ~$1,204 to move 24,000 conversations in ~12 hours and break even within a year. WP Fusion
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 FreeScout?
FreeScout's community guide moves: Conversations; Customers; Tags. It doesn't move: Help Scout reports and analytics; Beacon/docs content; Help Scout workflows (FreeScout Workflows module must be reconfigured). wpfusion.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
Keep reading
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find_alternatives({"vendor": "Help Scout"})