Help desk software is a powerful technology that enables businesses to provide top-notch support, smooth customer service, and effective communication between employees and customers.
Whether you run a large-scale enterprise or a small business, this software can be an important bridge between you, your customers, and your employees.
There are many free help desk software, but we’ve researched and narrowed it down to the best ones you’d be happy with.
The Best Free Help Desk Software (Overview)
We’ve included an overview of our top picks below. For detailed information on each pick, scroll down.
More About Free Help Desk Software: An Easy Way to Manage Your Business Flow
If you’re seeking an effective solution for reducing your workload, maintaining customer satisfaction, and avoiding burnout without breaking the bank, look no further.
Free help desk software is the perfect solution for you.
With this software, you can save time, effort, and money while running a successful business—pretty cool, right?
So, how does it work? This ticketing system transforms customer or employee complaints, problems, or requests into tickets.
These tickets are then forwarded to the help desk inbox of your support agents, who work together with other team members to resolve the issues promptly.
The tickets are attended to based on priority, with the most pressing and urgent needs addressed first.
This way, you can ensure that your customers and employees receive the attention they deserve.
Best 5 Free Help Desk Software in 2023
It’s important to consider factors such as the size of your business, cost, and reliability when choosing the best free ticketing system.
The following free help desk software options are highly recommended based on these considerations.
1. Spiceworks
Spiceworks is an excellent software option for business owners, especially those just starting, as it’s cost-effective.
In addition, the software provides a free support ticket system that can streamline your support operations, making things run much more smoothly.
It’s free and accessible to all users.
With this software, you can create a customized self-service platform that allows your end-users to access information, submit support tickets, and track the progress of your support team.
This saves your support team time and provides your end-users with a convenient and efficient way to get the help they need.
Notable Features
- Workflow: The Workflow feature allows users to route tickets based on values of specific fields, changes to ticket status, and time-based conditions. It streamlines the support process, ensuring that tickets are assigned to the right support agent or team and are handled efficiently.
- Ticket Prioritization: The software sorts the tickets in order of importance according to user preferences. With this function, urgent requests for help are given the focus and attention they require. In addition, it helps support staff prioritize their work, increase their output, and guarantee that all inquiries are answered immediately.
- Automated Response: This function allows users to pre-write answers to frequently asked questions. Having a stock answer ready for the most commonly asked queries is a huge time saver for customer service teams.
- SLA Management: The SLA Management feature provides tools for managing and tracking service-level agreements (SLAs). It enables users to monitor and ensure that SLAs are being met and support requests are being addressed within the specified time frame.
Pros
- Completely free for all users
- A community platform for questions
- Comments addressed to each ticket are kept private
- Automated ticket routing feature to save time
Cons
- Requires viewing of ads and receiving promotional emails
Pricing & Plans
The Spiceworks software is free for all users without any required payment.
Our Take
Spiceworks is free, but users may have to deal with ads and promotional emails.
Hence, this software is a good option if you’re looking for a simple and inexpensive solution.
Still, if you prefer to avoid ads, other options may be worth considering.
2. Kayako
The Kayako help desk software offers a comprehensive set of features that makes customer interaction, management, and service a breeze.
Its chat tool allows you to engage and support your customers 24/7, ensuring they receive prompt and efficient assistance.
The software also allows you to stay connected with customers who haven’t replied to your chats and keep track of them with automatic follow-up emails.
Notable Features
- Email to the Case: This feature allows customer service agents to communicate with customers via email. It also ensures that all email conversations are automatically recorded in a ticket. This makes it easy to keep track of all support requests and ensure no inquiry goes unanswered.
- High Potential for Expansion: Kayako is a cutting-edge help desk solution that scales quickly from a small company to a multinational conglomerate, offering a wide range of functions at every level of operation.
- Accessibility: Kayako’s ease of use and accessibility are significant benefits that may save you money. All the different controls, menus, dashboards, conversations, and toggles are laid out intuitively and efficiently.
- Live Chat Support: This feature enables customer service agents to interact with customers in real time through live chat. This provides a fast and convenient way for customers to get the help they need and for agents to solve problems on the spot.
Pros
- Provides unique insight into the customer journey
- Keeps you updated on the customers’ interactions
- Saves time by creating an automatic workflow
- Organizes all email conversations with a shared inbox
Cons
- Relatively costly compared to other options
Pricing & Plans
Kayako offers a 14-day free trial, after which you can choose the best plan for your needs.
Some of the options include:
- $30 per agent per month (Growth Plan)
- $60 per agent per month (Scale Plan)
Our Take
Kayako is packed with powerful features that offer reliable customer service support.
It effectively monitors all activities, but it’s costly.
It may be the right choice if you want quality software to streamline your workflow.
However, if you’re on a tight budget, it might be better to consider other options on the market.
3. ProProfs Help Desk
An industry leader in ticket tracking, ProProfs Help Desk has won several awards for its innovative design.
It’s a comprehensive free software that offers advanced desk ticketing systems, a self-service portal, and integrated knowledge management.
The desk ticketing system has all the tools necessary for efficient teamwork.
Agents can use internal notes to discuss tickets amongst themselves and keep track of who’s working on what.
Your clients will enjoy wonderful support experiences when your representatives work together efficiently.
The complexity of your support requests may be reduced by using help desk features like ticket priority, labels, tags, etc.
This way, you can be assured that no pressing issues will be overlooked since all critical tickets will always be front and center.
Notable Features
- Create Web Forms: With ProProfs Help Desk, you can create web forms that allow customers to submit their issues with relevant information. This makes it easier to get the information you need to resolve the problem quickly and efficiently.
- Manage Support Queries on the Move: The dedicated mobile app makes it easy to manage support queries on the go. So whether you’re at a client site, in a meeting, or simply away from your desk, you’ll always be able to stay on top of support requests.
- Share Automated Surveys: ProProfs Help Desk includes the option to share automated surveys with customers. This allows you to monitor their support experience and make any necessary changes to improve their overall satisfaction.
- Monitor Ticket Response Time and Resolution Time: The software provides robust metrics that allow you to monitor ticket response time, resolution time, and agent ratings. This helps you stay on top of support requests and ensure that your customers get the service they deserve.
Pros
- 15-day free trial
- Complete customer service system for your company
- Great user experience in navigating the help desk
- Optimized for small businesses and enterprise use
Cons
- No integration of social media accounts in the ticketing system
Pricing & Plans
After the 15-day free trial, you have two options:
- $10 per agent per month (Essentials)
- $15 per agent per month (Premium)
Our Take
The ProProfs Help Desk software has excellent customer service features.
As a result, this program is highly recommended for organizations of all sizes.
Unfortunately, it’s missing several capabilities that’d make it more useful for businesses, such as social media integration.
4. LiveAgent
To better manage your company’s customer service, LiveAgent provides a centralized platform for all client communications.
With robust reporting and data analysis, you can easily include your preferred tools, set priorities for essential tasks, automate your processes, and improve the quality of your service.
LiveAgent is a free online helpdesk ticketing system that includes a live chat widget you can customize to increase user interaction.
When a consumer spends a significant amount of time on a single page, you may send them a proactive invitation to chat.
Also, you may assist customers in making educated purchasing selections by answering their fundamental questions, all in a bid to improve customer satisfaction.
Notable Features
- Distribute Tickets Automatically: This function lets you route support requests to the best available agent, taking into account the agent’s specific set of skills and expertise. If a customer experiences tech difficulties, for instance, their ticket can be instantly routed to an employee trained to resolve such issues.
- Create Multiple Ticket Fields: Ticket fields are customizable data fields that allow you to collect and store specific information about a support ticket. For example, you could create a custom field to capture the product version, operating system, or other relevant details about the customer’s issue.
- Add Tags for Sorting Tickets: Attaching labels called “tags” to tickets allows you to organize them by their subject matter or purpose. Using tags, you may easily filter and search through your support tickets to locate the ones that are relevant to you.
- Allow Customers to Rate Your Service Reps: With this feature, you can gather customer feedback on the quality of service they received from your support agents. This can help you identify areas for improvement and monitor the performance of individual agents.
Pros
- Facebook and email in one box for easy accessibility
- Department functionality and out-of-the-box automation
- Smart tools available for improving online communication
- Real-time tracking of cases being worked on by your team
Cons
- Limited customization choices for the chat and knowledge-based panes
Pricing & Plans
This desk system has a forever-free plan that has limited features.
If you want the next-level versions, you have three options:
- $15/month (Ticket)
- $29/month (Ticket+Chat)
- $49/month (All-Inclusive)
Our Take
Compared to its rivals, LiveAgent offers superior functionality and more flexible integration.
In addition, it stands out from other chat solutions because of its wide variety of capabilities, such as automated messages and AI-driven customer assistance.
5. Zendesk
Several Zendesk features can help your company promote self-service among its clientele.
For example, you could construct a unified help center where clients can handle their problems independently.
Also, to facilitate communication between consumers and potential buyers, you can establish a hub for your product or service by launching an online community.
This free ticketing software can help your team collaborate more effectively by reducing the time wasted on ineffective processes.
In addition, Zendesk’s shared inbox allows your team to collect the information they need to assist customers better.
It also helps chat workers reply more effectively to customers by employing in-built processes, automation, and macros.
Notable Features
- Integrate With Other Popular Apps: Zendesk is designed to integrate with various other apps, including code and no-code functionality. This can make it easier to incorporate Zendesk’s ticketing system into your existing workflows and customize the tool to meet your specific needs and customer requests.
- Using AI-Powered Bots: Zendesk’s free helpdesk software offers AI-powered answer bots that can handle low-priority tickets. This means that some simple, common customer requests can be automatically handled without requiring a human agent to step in, freeing agents to focus on more complex or urgent issues.
- Escalate Issues Automatically: Companies and their clients use SLAs to establish the quality of service the clientele may count on from the firm. When the SLAs aren’t met, Zendesk’s free help desk ticketing software automatically escalates the issue, alerting the appropriate personnel and giving the request top priority.
- Keep Self-Help Data Updated: Zendesk also allows agents to contribute to help articles and keep self-help customer data updated. This can improve the quality and accuracy of your self-help resources, making it easier for customers to find the answers they need and potentially reducing the number of customer support requests your team needs to handle.
Pros
- 14-day free trial
- Third-party app integration for seamless operations
- Shared inbox for team members to track interactions
- Private knowledge base for easy accessibility of information
Cons
- Might be too expensive for small businesses
Pricing & Plans
After the 14-day free trial, you can choose the best plan for your needs. Some of the options include:
- $49/month (Suite Team)
- $79/month (Suite Growth)
- $99/month (Suite Professional)
Our Take
Zendesk’s reporting features allow businesses to create custom reports and dashboards tailored to their specific needs.
These reports can be used to gain insights into individual support agents, teams, or the organization.
This desk software is perfect for enterprises and big companies.
What to Consider When Choosing a Free Help Desk Software
Need help choosing a help desk program? Here are some factors to think about.
Budgeting
Even though this is a relatively simple factor, it deserves careful thought.
In this day and age of outsourcing and Software as a Service (SaaS), even the smallest businesses can afford sophisticated customer support systems.
Since the help desk is such a vital point of contact between the company and the client, selecting the best SaaS help desk solution is crucial in terms of cost and functionality.
Also, don’t be misled by meager costs.
There’s no correlation between price and quality.
Instead, choose a tool that provides your group’s required functions without breaking the bank.
Scalability
It’s important to consider how scalable the support desk software is before making a purchase.
Ask the solution’s sales and support teams if they can handle a high volume of users.
Your ability to handle customer communications and facilitate effective teamwork while preserving all client inquiries is greatly enhanced by using a scalable and future-proof program.
The help desk administrators can relax knowing that their software is prepared to keep up with the company’s rapid expansion should the need arise.
Integration
Amongst the most crucial features of a reliable help desk system is the ability to integrate with third-party applications.
Help desks are a treasure trove of information, from product bugs and user demographics to service requests and history.
You can’t afford to let something sit at the service desk without addressing its implications for the rest of the company.
Several customer-facing applications can be seamlessly integrated with popular help desk systems.
For example, the data collected by ecommerce platforms, customer relationship management (CRM), and point of sale (POS) systems can be beneficial for the help desk when assisting a customer.
Premises-Based or Web-Based Service
Software as a service solution is hosted and maintained in the cloud, while on-premises software is installed locally on a server that must be purchased individually.
The cloud is becoming the choice for most small enterprises due to its low upfront costs and scalability.
Nonetheless, there are scenarios where an on-premises solution is preferable, and both have advantages and disadvantages.
So choose the one that’ll work best for your business.
Security
Help desk software should have adequate security measures to protect your customer data and other sensitive information.
Ensure that the software complies with security standards, such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and ISO 27001, depending on your industry and location.
Also, multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds an extra layer of security to protect against unauthorized access.
Ensure that the software supports MFA for both agents and customers.
Wrapping Up
Owning a business or company is undoubtedly a challenging task that can be both stressful and expensive.
Even so, satisfying customers is of utmost importance.
To achieve this, you can turn to free help desk software, which can streamline customer support operations and improve customer satisfaction.
However, with numerous help desk software options available, choosing the right one can be overwhelming.
However, we’ve narrowed it down for you—you only have to look at the best features that suit your company and choose accordingly.
