Outgrowing Gmail or Outlook?
Switch to the shared inbox built for support
While basic email platforms make great personal inboxes, they’re not designed for teams that need to collaborate across customer conversations. You never know who’s handling what, context is buried in threads, and staying organized takes hours of manual work. Help Scout gives every conversation a clear owner, keeps customer history in view, and automates the tedious stuff that slows teams down.
Why teams choose Help Scout over Gmail & Outlook
The first thing you’ll notice in Help Scout is the questions you don’t have to answer. No one’s asking “Who’s got this?” or “What needs attention?” Every message has a clear owner and priority level. You can even see if someone’s already working on a reply. With everyone on the same page, inbox chaos turns into calm.
“With Help Scout, nothing slips through the cracks anymore. Our entire team has easy visibility into support issues, and it’s clear who owns what tickets.”
- Matt Renie, CSM at Castiron
Read about their switch from Gmail
When you open a message, you’re not just talking to a name and email address. The sidebar profile gives you all the details that make service faster and more personal — past conversations, company info, notes from teammates, activity from your CRM, and more. If your team has helped this customer with a similar issue in the past, you’ll know with just a glance.
“Our sales volume has significantly grown each year…but we have been able to continually operate as a lean service team with low costs because of the efficiencies Help Scout has allowed for.”
- Eryn Chesney, CX Manager at Mabel’s Label
Read about their switch from Outlook
Cut response time in half.
Companies switching from Gmail or Outlook typically double their per-agent response rate in their first year with Help Scout. Not only because of the added clarity and context, but because of all the time-savers they don’t know they’re missing.
Saved replies
Add templated answers to common questions so your team can reply quickly and consistently.
Workflows
Automate the tedious stuff that keeps everything organized, like tagging and assigning conversations.
AI Drafts
Instantly generate responses informed by your knowledge base and past conversations. Review, tweak, send.
I set up workflows so with a click an email gets tagged and moved to the correct Inbox. It also saves the team receiving the email time because the tag gives additional context, limiting the amount of investigating they need to do.
How does Help Scout compare to other support platforms?
Straightforward, affordable pricing
Help Scout puts the features your team reaches for daily in plans from $25 per user and keeps per-user costs well below average on higher tiers. Compared to platforms like Zendesk, Help Scout can be $19–$94 less per user.
Transition in days, not a quarter
Switching tools usually means a project plan, IT tickets, and a month or two where the team’s treading water in the queue. Not with Help Scout. Most teams are up and running within a day and fluent within a week.
Lower AI costs
Help Scout’s Compass AI agent costs $0.75 each time it resolves a conversation on its own, and nothing if it escalates to your team. Intercom charges $0.99 per resolution, Front $0.89, and Zendesk’s add-on resolutions start at $1.50.
Support you never have to chase down
Your team can reach support 24/6, no premium tier required. Independent review sites agree, with Help Scout support scoring a 9.1 out of 10 on G2 and 4.4 out of 5 for value on Capterra, both among the highest in the category.
Looking at a specific platform?
Compare prices, features, and more head to head.
How long does it take to move to Help Scout?
Most migrations happen within hours or a couple days, and teams become power users within a week.
Add your team
Before you kick off the migration, everyone can experiment on test conversations without the pressure of responding to real customers.
Connect your support channels
Point your email addresses, social accounts, and any other channels at Help Scout and messages will flow to your Inbox automatically. Most teams can do it in a few clicks without any help from IT.
Bring your history over
Help Scout imports your conversations, customer profiles, and tags automatically so you don’t have to start from scratch. You can even run a sample import of 100 conversations to see how everything looks before the full move.
Make it yours
Build workflows, add saved replies, and tailor your workspace to fit your support style. This is a great opportunity for all the housekeeping you haven’t had time to get to in your current system.
Take the next step.
Whether you want to go straight to a test drive or ease your way in, you have multiple options that simplify switching.
Frequently asked questions
No, your current support platform can keep running while Help Scout imports your conversation history in the background. This means your team can work without interruption right up until you connect your support email address so you’re not stuck juggling 2 systems at once. If any new conversations come in during your import, you can easily forward them.
Help Scout has 3 plans (Standard, Plus, and Pro) that each charge a per-user price on a monthly or annual basis. If you use Compass AI agent to handle conversations, you’ll pay a flat fee of $0.75 per resolution (with discounts available if you prepay).
Check out the Pricing page to see which plan is right for you.
Yes, all paid plans come with additional Inboxes and allow you to add even more for $10/month each. This comes in handy if you serve multiple customer bases, manage multiple email addresses, or want to give other departments their own Inboxes.
Yes, all plans come with at least one Docs site, our knowledge base that supports help articles, videos, custom code, and more. You can import existing articles automatically from certain platforms like Zendesk, or use the Help Scout API to bring them over.
You can manage email, live chat, Instagram, Messenger, SMS, and WhatsApp all from the same or multiple Inboxes. Phone support is also available via integration with Aircall.
All plans also allow you to create a knowledge base site with help articles for your customers.
Help Scout connects to over 100 popular platforms, including HubSpot, Jira, Linear, Salesforce, and more. Search the full directory.
Ready to go?
