Customer service software lets businesses engage their customers, receive and track inquiries, and improve the delivery of their services. The best products are affordable and come with a vast set of tools for ticketing, monitoring service performance, and communicating via email, live chat, text, phone, and artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Based on our evaluation, we’ve identified the eight best customer service software for small business:
- Best for free customer support tools: Freshdesk
- Best for ease of use: HubSpot Service Hub
- Best for monitoring service performance: Zoho Desk
- Best for internal support management: Jira Service Management
- Best for managing clients: Bitrix24
- Best for engaging customers on digital channels: Help Scout
- Best for managing support tickets: Zendesk Support
- Best for help desk collaboration: ProProfs Help Desk
Best Customer Service Software for Small Business Compared
Provider | Top Customer Service Use Cases | Our Software Rating Out of 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Free (2 users) to $15 per user |
| 4.51 |
 | Free (5 users) to $15 per user |
| 4.48 |
 | Free to $7 per user |
| 4.47 |
 | Free (3 users) to $54 per user |
| 4.30 |
 | Free (unlimited users)’ to $49 (5 users) |
| 4.28 |
 | $20 per user |
| 4.22 |
 | $19 per user |
| 4.12 |
 | Free (1 user) to $19.99 per user |
| 3.86 |
Freshdesk: Best Free Software for Customer Service
Pros
- Free plan that has a highly robust ticket management system
- Great customer service software for getting insights on operational performance, ticketing trends, and customer satisfaction
- SLA tracking is included on Growth plan ($9 per user, monthly) to ensure service expectations are delivered by your team
Cons
- AI features are available locked in the Enterprise plan ($79 per user, monthly)
- Users can’t create and distribute customer surveys until Pro plan ($49 per user, monthly)
- Separate product from the customer relationship management (CRM); users must subscribe to native software for sales features (free or starting at $9 per user, monthly)
- You’re looking for the best free small business customer service platform: Any small business seeking a free option can look no further than Freshdesk. The freemium plan allows up to 10 agents and comes with ticket management tools like email-to-ticket, merge, activity tracking, tagging, and priority setting. You can also engage customers via email, live chat, and Facebook, and run ticket automations at no cost.
- You want a solid tool to get insights on your service operation: Starting on the Free plan, users get access to solid dashboard reporting tools to track ticket volume trends. These capabilities slowly expand on the paid plans to time tracking in ticket resolution, customer survey metrics, and how efficient customer service agents or teams are at handling inquiries.
- You need low-cost customer survey tools: While Freshdesk has customer surveying capabilities, these aren’t available until the Pro plan for $49 per user, per month.
- Alternative: Zoho Desk starts offering customer satisfaction surveys for just $7 per user, per month.
- You want more affordable AI features: AI in customer service lets you run in-depth analysis on your data and put tasks on auto-pilot, such as email drafting or customer communications via AI chatbots, by having a computer program do it for you. While Freshdesk does have these capabilities, they don’t start until the Enterprise plan for $79 per user, per month.
- Alternatives: Help Scout comes with an AI assist tool to help craft customer responses for just $20 per user, per month, and AI for summarizing customer conversations for just $40 per user, per month. If analytics are your priority, we recommend Zoho Desk which offers Zia for analytics for $40 per user, per month.
Freshdesk Monthly Pricing Plans*
Freshdesk Pricing Add-ons:
- Freshbots Engage with customers 24/7 across web channels using chatbots. : $100 for 1,000 chatbot sessions
- Freddy Insights Generative AI-powered performance analysis and recommendations for team leaders. : Starts at $29 per user, monthly
- Freddy CoPilot Personal generative AI assistant for support teams. : $29 per user, monthly
- Freshcaller Engage customers over the phone. : $15 to $69 per user, monthly
- Day Passes Add extra agents to your account for a day. : $2 to $12 per pass
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown, though monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Freshdesk offers a 21-day free trial on paid plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Freshdesk monitoring ticket statuses (Source: Freshdesk)
Our Expert Opinion
There is always a heavy market for the best “free” solution option, especially with a customer support management system. Freshdesk, primarily thanks to its robust ticketing system and wide range of support channels, is the top free option available. Additionally, the free ticket creation automations, collaboration tools, and dashboard reporting of ticket volume trends can add substantial value to a small business.
HubSpot Service Hub: Best for Ease of Use
Pros
- Highly rated for intuitiveness of system design; easy to learn, operate, and navigate
- Invoicing and payment processing tools included
- Free plan available for five users with ticket management, email and live chat engagement, and meeting scheduling
Cons
- Most advanced features like SLA and knowledge base management, surveying, and custom reports require Professional plan ($90 per user, monthly)
- Advanced automation like auto-emailing and ticket status updates are not available until Professional plan
- Automated ticket routing gets expensive; starts at $90 per user, monthly
- You need highly intuitive customer service management software: HubSpot is renowned for creating software tools that are easy to set up, learn, and operate. Additionally, the interface is crafted using a modern design and best-in-class UI/UX principles which make it a seamless experience while navigating the system—especially when compared to other products on this list.
- You want a system that can handle revenue collection: Certain businesses may find invoicing and payment processing to be a bottleneck in their customer service operation. If that’s the case, HubSpot Service Hub is the best solution for you. It has excellent features for creating one-time or recurring invoices with Stripe integration and a built-in automated clearing house (ACH) to collect and track payments from a single interface.
- You want more affordable knowledge base management features: HubSpot Service Hub, unfortunately, gets relatively expensive for certain service features such as SLA tracking, surveying, and most notably, creating a self-service knowledge base. These all start on the Professional plan for $90 per user, monthly.
- Alternatives: Zoho Desk’s Free plan lets you administer a knowledge base and community forum for free. Other options with free knowledge base management features are Freshdesk and Jira Service Management.
- You need better automation capabilities for a lower cost: Another expensive feature of HubSpot is the automation. While you can get basic workflows like sending out customer emails or receiving notifications based on ticket status changes for just $18 per user, monthly, more advanced functions like ticket creation and assignment, automated task management, or recurring emails for ticket activity require the Professional plan.
- Alternative: Zoho Desk’s Express plan ($7 per user, per month) has highly customizable automation to meet any workflow. ProProfs Help Desk also offers automatic ticket routing, canned responses, and auto-responses for free.
HubSpot Service Hub Monthly Pricing Plans*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown, though monthly billing is available for a higher cost. HubSpot also offers a Customer Platform product, which includes sales, marketing, customer service, content management, operations, and commerce management tools. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
HubSpot Service Hub emailing from a ticket (Source: HubSpot)
Our Expert Opinion
Software features are rendered useless if users aren’t able to learn and operate them. HubSpot Service Hub lets you get comfortable quickly with your customer software for small businesses. It does this by leveraging all the industry best practices for user experience management and interface design. The system looks modern, with simple menu options and a calming color scheme for superb navigability.
Zoho Desk: Best Customer Support Tool for Performance Monitoring
Pros
- Free plan that includes SLA monitoring
- Relatively low-cost dashboard features for customer happiness and ticketing performance for $7 per month
- Relatively low-cost and scalable plans with AI tools starting at $40 per user, per month
Cons
- Relatively expensive live chat communications ($40 per user, monthly with Enterprise plan)
- Decent learning curve required due to the many features and clunky interface
- Telephone channel not included until Professional plan ($23 per user, monthly)
- You primarily need insights for your service operation: Zoho Desk is an excellent customer intelligence platform and operational analysis tool with tons of data insights to improve service offerings. It comes with low-cost customer surveying and satisfaction monitoring that starts at just $7 per user, per month. Low-tiered plans also include ticket status, agent productivity, knowledge base usage, and ticket resolution reporting.
- You want free SLA tracking tools: While most customer service software tools will include SLA tracking on the high-tiered plans, Zoho starts offering basic functions at no cost. On the free plan, you can automatically monitor tickets to find ones that demand high-priority support based on whether they’re falling out of line with SLAs or contractual agreements.
- You need a more intuitive system for your customer service solutions: One issue with the Zoho products, including Zoho Desk, is that the interface appears clunky and outdated—making it hard to navigate and operate.
- Alternative: If you want the best customer service software for small businesses in terms of user experience and system operability, we recommend HubSpot Service Hub.
- You want more affordable live chat communication features: While Zoho Desk can be used as a multi-facet contact center, the live chat engagement features are relatively expensive compared to other customer service providers—starting at $40 per user, per month.
Zoho Desk Monthly Pricing Plans*
Zoho Desk Pricing Add-ons:
- Light Agent Light agent is a profile assigned to users who assist full-time agents but are not part of the customer service team; available starting with Standard plan (50 free light agents with the Enterprise plan). : $6 per light agent, monthly
- Additional Department For Enterprise plan only : $6 per department, monthly
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Zoho Desk offers a 15-day free trial on paid plans. Pricing reflects pricing info available at the time of publishing. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Zoho Desk customer happiness report by agent (Source: Zoho)
Our Expert Opinion
Performance monitoring in your service operation is vital for goal tracking, coaching, and capacity planning. Zoho Desk has excellent features for ensuring customer satisfaction and quality agent performance, such as feedback widgets, customer happiness rating, and performance monitoring. These features are not only advanced, but they’re cost-effective—with a majority of the analytics tools available on the free and low-tiered plans.
Jira Service Management: Best for Internal Support Management
Pros
- Free plan includes automations and SLA management
- Offers customizable workflows and support queues across all plans
- All plans include multilanguage support with up to 24 language options
Cons
- Specialized platform for internal support and ticketing only
- AI tools are locked in with higher tiers (starting with Premium plan at $125 per user, monthly)
- Steep learning curve due to complex configurations that require technical expertise
- You need a dedicated ITSM for your business: Jira Service Management is a purposely designed software for IT support, development, and operations teams. It also offers a free ITSM project template for managing service requests, incident resolutions, and deploying changes.
- You want a service software with asset management features: When you subscribe to Jira Service Management’s Premium plan ($125 per user, monthly), you get access to its asset and service repository. This enables you to track and manage the lifecycle and ownership of company assets or services for inventory or audit purposes.
- You’re seeking an easy-to-use ticket management system: Jira Service Management has a complex interface and configuration that requires technical assistance:
- Alternative: If you’re looking for ticket management systems with simple interfaces that are easy to use, consider using HubSpot Service Hub, Freshdesk, or Zendesk Support.
- You need a customer-facing ticketing and help desk system: Jira Service Management is a dedicated ITSM platform that is best for IT support and development teams:
- Alternative: Zoho Desk is our top recommended small business help desk software for external customers. Its Free plan includes ticket management, ticket collaboration, and SLA management. The Express plan ($7 per user, monthly) offers social media support and dashboard metrics for customer happiness and ticketing performance.
Jira Service Management Pricing Plans*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown, though monthly billing is available for a higher cost.. Help Scout offers a seven-day free trial on paid plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
**The Free plan is available for monthly subscription only. Meanwhile, the Enterprise plan is only available for annual subscription.
Jira Service Management ITSM template (Source: Jira)
Our Expert Opinion
Jira Service Management provides IT, development, and operations support teams with a single platform for managing service requests, resolving issues, and deploying changes. Its Free plan for three users also includes a self-service portal, service automations, and customizable support queues. In addition, its Premium plan ($125 per user, monthly) offers features for asset discovery, tracking, and management.
Bitrix24: Best for Client Management
Pros
- Solid free plan available for unlimited users and customer queue management from the contact center
- Offers unique project management features for businesses that deliver services via projects
- Robust contact center with a built-in phone system, email integration, and live chat communications
Cons
- Reporting performance for customer service operations requires Standard plan ($99 per month)
- Bulk email and text communications get expensive; start at $99 per month
- Not an intuitive platform; there is a steep learning curve
- You are a client-based business: Bitrix24 is a sales CRM software that also has built-in customer service tools for small businesses. It’s great for client-based businesses that sell services to other businesses or consumers. Plus, it has a dedicated client profile module for storing contact data, tracking projects, monitoring account activity, and scheduling video conference calls.
- You need a complete contact center to handle support: As one of the top customer service platforms, Bitrix24 has a robust contact center system to receive inquiries and communicate with customers. The channels available include a phone system, email, live chat, video calling, and web form submission all manageable from the CRM.
- You need an easy-to-use customer service tracking software: Bitrix24 has a lot of modules in its system to handle sales, marketing, service, operations, projects, human resources, and other business functions. Additionally, the pages often contain large amounts of buttons and menu options—ultimately making the platform tricky to learn and navigate:
- Alternatives: HubSpot Service Hub is the best customer service platform for small businesses that prioritize ease of use in software.
- You want more robust ticketing tools: While Bitrix24 does have a queue system to receive and track customer inquiries, it’s limited mostly to managing communications as opposed to actual issues. It doesn’t offer more advanced ticket management capabilities like cloning, auto-assignment, splitting, or priority setting:
- Alternatives: Freshdesk and Zendesk Support are the top two customer service software companies in terms of robust, multi-functional ticketing capabilities.
Bitrix24 Monthly Pricing Plans*
Bitrix24 Pricing Add-ons:
- Landline calling: Starts at 5/10ths of a cent per minute (check all the rates here)
- Rent local number: $4 to $11 per month
- Rent toll-free number (United States and United Kingdom): $6 per month
- Rent session initiation protocol (SIP) connector: $49 per month
- Call transcription: 5 cents per minute
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown, though monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Bitrix24 offers a 15-day free trial on paid plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Bitrix24 client profile (Source: Bitrix24)
Our Expert Opinion
Bitrix24 is a great option for bundling customer support tools in a sales CRM system. Any service-based business can get tons of value from the client profiles, project management, and activity-tracking capabilities of this platform. We also like how the contact center is integrated into the system to easily receive inquiries and maintain customer conversations from the same place you’re closing deals, storing data, and collaborating on customer projects.
Help Scout: Best for Communicating With Customers on Digital Channels
Pros
- Great system for engaging and tracking conversations on digital channels, such as email and social media platforms
- Comes with unique AI tools to help craft customer responses and summarize long conversations
- Solid set of knowledge base and website widget management tools to automate support through self-service
Cons
- No free plan
- Ticketing system is limited to just tracking email, live chat, or social media conversations in an inbox
- Lacks telephonic contact center features
- You exclusively want to provide digital customer support: Help Scout lets you provide an excellent digital support experience to your customers. It is equipped with a contact center with email, live chat, and social media channels and lets you centralize your conversations in a single inbox to help track, assign, and collaborate on service inquiries.
- You want to adopt AI and automation in your service operations: With Help Scout, teams can use AI to craft service responses for your reps and summarize support conversations. It has excellent features for administering self-service resources to customers like a knowledge base or website content pages. You can also deploy easy-to-use workflow automation to keep agents on track and streamline resolutions.
- You want a more robust ticketing system: Help Scout is mostly a digital contact center in that all inquiries come in the form of “conversations” as opposed to tickets:
- Alternatives: If you prefer a ticketing system with a solid range of functions like email-to-ticket, merge, cloning, or auto-assignment, we recommend using Freshdesk or Zendesk Support.
- You need a freemium customer care software: Help Scout, unfortunately, does not offer any free-forever plan for users to try out the features long-term in a risk-free environment:
- Alternatives: Freshdesk is the best overall customer service software small business can have in terms of freemium options. HubSpot Service Hub is another solid option if you want great email tools to stay connected with customers, while Bitrix24 is excellent for free client profile tracking capabilities.
Help Scout Monthly Pricing Plans*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown, though monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Help Scout offers a 15-day free trial on its plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Help Scout customer inquiry inbox (Source: Help Scout)
Our Expert Opinion
Help Scout has fully adapted to customer preferences of seeking support via email, live chat, and social media channels. We like the centralized conversational inbox for teams to collaborate and stay on top of customer issues in real time. We also can’t overlook the sophistication of the platform through its unique AI capabilities and workflow automation options.
Zendesk Support: Best for Easy Ticket Management
Pros
- Robust ticketing capabilities with ability to route tickets to the right agent based on availability, capacity, skill, and conversation priority
- All plans include workflow and basic automation tools
- Reporting and service analytics tools available across all plans
Cons
- Does not offer a free plan
- Sharp learning curve due to robust and advanced features
- AI-powered insights and triage require add-on ($50 per user, monthly)
- You’re looking for an easy way to manage support tickets: While Zendesk Support has a sharp learning curve because of its advanced features, it employs a traditional approach to ticket management. You can use the same platform to collect requests from different channels, including email and chat. From the same system, you can access a shared inbox, track customer interaction history, and respond to issues quickly.
- You want to leverage conversation routing to improve service quality: Regardless of your Zendesk Support plan, you can automatically route customer conversations based on their availability and capacity. The Professional plan ($55 per user, monthly) allows you to route conversations based on ticket priority, while the Enterprise plan ($115 per user, monthly) unlocks the skill-based routing feature.
- You need a free ticket management system for your small team or business: Unfortunately, Zendesk Support does not currently offer a free plan. Its entry-level plan costs $19 per user, monthly—an amount that could be costly for teams with tight budgets and those who are not yet ready to scale up:
- Alternative: Freshdesk is our best recommended free customer service software. Its Free plan supports up to 10 agents and has a robust feature set that includes ticket management, automatic ticket routing, a knowledge base, ticket trend reports, and out-of-the-box reporting and analytics tools.
- You’re seeking a solution with built-in AI tools: Zendesk Support’s AI tools come at an additional cost that starts at $50 per user, monthly:
- Alternative: Zoho Desk’s AI-powered dashboards and insights are available with its Enterprise plan ($40 per user, monthly). Help Scout’s Standard plan ($20 per user, monthly) also comes with unique AI tools to help you craft customer responses and sum up long conversations.
Zendesk Support Pricing Plans*
Zendesk Support Pricing Add-on:
- Advanced AI: $50 per user, monthly
- Advanced Data Privacy and Protection: $50 per user, monthly
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown, though monthly billing is available for a higher cost. There are also Zendesk Suite plans with support, live chat, calling, and help desk tools bundled in a single product. Zendesk Support offers a 14-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Zendesk Support skill-based ticket routing (Source: G2)
Our Expert Opinion
Zendesk is considered the grandfather of help desk tools and has already mastered the art of streamlining customer support. Zendesk Support’s unified agent workspace makes it easy for customer service teams to manage and respond to tickets. It provides you with a single platform for viewing customer interaction history, sharing tickets, conversation routing, and sending predefined responses.
ProProfs Help Desk: Best for Agent Collaboration
Pros
- Free plan for a single user supports collaboration between multiple departments and teams
- Supports both customer-facing service and IT service management
- Simple user interface despite robust feature set
Cons
- Customer satisfaction ratings (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys are locked in with the Enterprise plan ($99 per user, monthly)
- Automatic ticket routing does not include skill-based routing
- No social media support channel
- You want free help desk software with tools for interdepartment collaboration: ProProfs Help Desk’s Free plan enables startups and small businesses to create multiple inboxes for different teams, such as sales, support, and billing. In addition, this platform supports department-based ticketing, enabling businesses to send tickets to specific departments or teams.
- You’re looking for a single platform that supports both internal and external customer support: Customer-facing service teams, billing departments, and IT teams can all use ProProfs Desk to provide support via email, live chat, and help center. This platform also has automation capabilities for streamlining your workflow, such as ticket routing and auto-response messages.
- You provide customer support via social media: ProProfs Help Desk does not offer an option to provide support to customers via social media sites and messaging channels:
- Alternative: Help Scout is our top option for digital support, which includes social media communication channels with its Plus plan ($40 per user, monthly). If you run a team with five members or less, consider using Zoho Desk Express ($7 per user, monthly), which enables you to provide social media support via X, Facebook, and Instagram.
- You need small business customer service software with skill-based routing features: Skill-based ticket assignment results in better first-time resolution rates since the requests are routed to the agent best-suited to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, ProProfs Help Desk’s automatic ticket routing is limited to round-robin ticket assignments:
- Alternative: If you want to improve your call times and first-time resolution rates through skill-based routing, subscribe to Zoho Desk’s Enterprise plan ($40 per user, monthly). Freshdesk also offers the same feature with its Enterprise plan ($79 per user, monthly).
ProProfs Help Desk Pricing Plans*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown, though monthly billing is available for a higher cost. ProProfs Help Desk offers a 15-day free trial on paid plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
ProProfs Help Desk shared inbox (Source: ProProfs Help Desk)
Our Expert Opinion
ProProfs Help Desk is perfect for startups and small businesses needing a free or low-cost solution for ticket collaboration and internal service management. It serves as a single platform for managing multiple inboxes, such as @support, @billing, or @info. Agents can also use internal notes to collaborate on tickets and to avoid task collisions. Plus, it has a pleasantly simple user interface despite its robust feature inclusions.
How We Evaluated the Best Customer Service Software for Small Business
To determine the best customer service system, we evaluated the specific features relevant to assisting and communicating with customers. For instance, a ticketing system lets you track incoming inquiries or issues while a contact center lets you engage customers via phone, email, and live chat. We also looked at other critical product attributes, including price, available third-party integrations, product ease of use, and customer support availability by the provider.
The tabs below offer insight into our process of evaluating and choosing the best customer service management software:
25% of Overall Score
We first looked at overall features crucial to any customer service software for small business, regardless of its primary use case or function served. These include workflow management tools, communication channels, ticketing systems, shared inboxes, and email templates. We also wanted to see mobile customer service functionality, a wide range of third-party integrations, and robust reporting and analytics tools available.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at niche features specifically useful for customer service teams. Gamification tools, for instance, help agents become more engaged and effective through friendly competition. We also checked the availability of predefined responses, chatbots, CSAT, and performance metrics.
20% of Overall Score
To assess ease of use, we checked if the provider has built-in templates or automations. We also searched reputable review sites to gauge general user sentiment regarding its learning curve and ease of setup. In addition, we considered its plan options to see if it is easily scalable.
15% of Overall Score
Pricing considered the costs of the subscription plans for the customer service platforms for small businesses. We wanted to see freemium, low-priced, and scalable options available. We also considered the billing flexibility in terms of being able to save on price by subscribing annually.
10% of Overall Score
Extensive user support helps prevent poor experiences while operating these customer service software products. We wanted to see customer service applications that offer channel availability via phone, email, and live chat, at any time of the day so you can access them 24/7 or during extended business hours. We also considered the self-service resources available like a community forum and knowledge base articles.
10% of Overall Score
In addition to first-hand experience with these customer service management platforms, we evaluated what actual users say about each product according to online reviews. This allowed us to see how real users felt about the product in terms of features and whether it’s worth the price paid. It also helped us better evaluate the product usability in terms of setting up, operating, and navigating the software system.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Customer service software helps businesses provide excellent support to their customers. It has tools for receiving and tracking tickets, creating self-service resources for customers, and managing conversations via phone, email, live chat, chatbot, text, or social media channels. These products will also include data management features for storing and tracking information on their customers, plus performance reporting on service activity.
Customer service can be best managed using customer service, help desk, or contact center software. You can also use a CRM solution, such as Bitrix24, that comes with service tools such as queue and conversation management and client profile storage. Essentially, you want to find any software that lets you manage support tickets, communicate with customers, and track activity in your service operation.
While there is no clear data to identify the most popular customer support software, many providers have products that are highly acclaimed and adopted by small businesses. HubSpot’s Service Hub, Zoho’s Zoho Desk, and Freshworks’ Freshdesk, for example, are all popular business software providers with solid service platforms.
Bottom Line
The best customer service software for small business offers centralized systems to manage tickets, store customer data, engage customers, and track performance metrics. While we ranked Zoho Desk as the best overall small business service software for performance monitoring, other providers could be a better choice based on your needs. HubSpot Service Hub, for example, is great for ease of use while Freshdesk offers the best freemium option.
