In short
- Help Scout's free plan covers 5 users, 1 inbox and 100 contacts a month; Kommio Cloud is free with no user, inbox or contact cap enforced.
- Kommio adds custom roles with visibility scopes and field masking, SLA policies and multi-step automations.
- Help Scout is simpler and has a very low training cost; Kommio has more settings to learn.
- A Help Scout importer is planned; today contacts move by CSV and history through the API.
What Help Scout costs, and what Kommio costs
Help Scout is priced per user per month: a Free plan with 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts a month, then Standard $25, Plus $45 and Pro $75 per user per month. AI Answers is an add-on at $0.75 per resolution. (Help Scout's pricing page, checked 20 October 2026.)
Kommio Cloud is free: no seat pricing, no plan tiers, every feature and every channel, under the fair-use limits. The limits enforced today are request rates (600 API requests a minute per key) and file rules (25 MB per attachment); the published reference levels, such as 50,000 new conversations a month or 20 GB of files per workspace, are where Kommio would talk to you, not cut you off. Sign-up is self-serve at app.kommio.io.
Where Help Scout is stronger
- A simple, well-liked shared inbox that small teams learn in an afternoon.
- Docs and the Beacon widget for self-service, with a usable free plan for very small teams.
- A good fit for teams whose support is mostly email.
Where Kommio is different
Room to grow without changing tools
Teams with auto-assignment and capacity, saved views, priorities, snooze, business hours with holidays and SLA policies by inbox and priority, so the inbox still works at twenty agents and three brands.
Messaging on the same thread
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, SMS and Slack Connect arrive in the same list as email and website chat, each conversation with one owner and one history.
Roles that go down to the field
Custom roles decide which conversations each person sees and whether emails, phones and fields you tag as personal data are shown, masked or hidden; the Access page lists it per person.
Many brands, one sign-in
People who work in several workspaces get an All brands inbox, one list across them, each read with their role in that workspace, and every website chat inbox can carry its own brand colour and logos.
Choose Help Scout when
- A small team wants an inbox that feels exactly like email, with light chat and docs.
- You value the lowest possible training cost over control and channels.
- Five users and a hundred contacts a month cover your volume.
Choose Kommio when
- You are growing past one inbox and need teams, roles and SLA targets.
- Customers also write on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram or Slack.
- You want everything free without a contact cap.
Kommio and Help Scout, feature by feature
Checked against Help Scout's public documentation and pricing page on 20 October 2026; Help Scout is a trademark of its owner and Kommio is not affiliated with it. Plans change, so check their site before you decide, and tell [email protected] if a mark is out of date.
| Feature | Kommio | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Core | ||
| Conversation model | One conversation model with data-driven statuses (chat speed plus ticket states) | Conversations |
| Channels | ||
| Shared email inboxKommio: IMAP and SMTP, or Microsoft 365 and Google sign-in | ✓ | ✓ |
| Website live chat | ✓ | ✓ |
| WhatsAppKommio: your number on the WhatsApp Business Cloud API, through your own Meta app | ✓ | — |
| Messenger, Instagram, TelegramKommio: Messenger and Instagram through your own Meta app, Telegram through a bot; Slack channels shared with business customers too | ✓ | ◐ |
| Two-way SMSKommio: through your own Twilio account, with MMS and STOP opt-outs | ✓ | — |
| Deployment | ||
| Self-hosted option | ✓ | — |
| Choice of data regionKommio: cloud region or your own infrastructure | ✓ | — |
| Access control | ||
| Custom roles and permissions | ✓ | ◐ |
| Conversation visibility by team, inbox or assignment | ✓ | ◐ |
| Per-role field masking (show, mask or hide an email, phone or payment field)Kommio: also on custom attributes you tag as ID, payment or other personal data | ✓ | — |
| Audit trail with before and after values | ✓ | ◐ |
| Productivity | ||
| Automation rules and macros | ✓ | ✓ |
| SLA policies and business hoursKommio: first-response and resolution targets by inbox and priority, wall clock or business hours with holidays, attainment in reports and a breach trigger | ✓ | ◐ |
| Visual chatbot flow builder with hand-off to a personKommio: several bots and flows per inbox, in order, with conditions | ✓ | — |
| Full-text search across every message | ✓ | ✓ |
| Knowledge | ||
| AI reply suggestions and summaries for agentsKommio: on your own Anthropic or OpenAI-compatible key | ✓ | ✓ |
| Help center and knowledge baseKommio: versioned articles in your languages, public or internal, and a Help tab in the chat | ✓ | ✓ |
| Developers | ||
| No-code data pulls from your own systems into the conversationKommio: data connectors with recipes for Stripe, Shopify and HubSpot | ✓ | ◐ |
| Public REST API and webhooks | ✓ | ✓ |
| Versioned OpenAPI contract with a generated client | ✓ | ◐ |
| Plugins or apps inside the agent screen | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reporting | ||
| Reporting with medians and p90Kommio: backlog, SLA attainment, staffing and channel mix too, with saved views, CSV and Excel exports and a Reports API for BI tools | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys with reportsKommio: by agent, team, inbox, tag and channel, with the responses and comments behind every number | ✓ | ✓ |
| Branding | ||
| Brand theming by tokens across the chat widget and the agent app | ✓ | ◐ |
✓ Included◐ Partial, add-on or higher plans— Not offered◷ On the Kommio roadmap
What Kommio does not do yet
- No Help Scout importer yet: it is planned together with the Freshdesk importer.
- Acting on conversations straight from the All brands list is planned; today a row opens the conversation in its workspace.
- Help centers on a custom domain are not offered on Kommio Cloud yet.
- Cc on email replies is planned.
Moving from Help Scout to Kommio today
A Help Scout importer is planned. Until then:
- Mailboxes. Connect the same support addresses as email inboxes, with Microsoft 365 or Google sign-in (shared mailboxes included) or IMAP and SMTP. Kommio reads new mail without moving or deleting anything.
- Customers by CSV. Export customers from Help Scout and import them in Contacts › Import with a preview first.
- Docs to the knowledge base. Recreate Docs articles as knowledge-base articles (versioned, per language, public or internal); the widget's Help tab shows them next to the chat.
- History through the API. Past conversations can be written through the REST API, with help from [email protected].
Email inboxes: Microsoft 365, Google and IMAP setup
Frequently asked questions
Is Kommio's free plan limited like Help Scout's?
Kommio Cloud has one free plan with no user, inbox or contact cap enforced. The limits enforced today are request rates and 25 MB per attachment; published reference levels per workspace are where Kommio would talk to you first.
Does Kommio work with Microsoft 365 shared mailboxes?
Yes. A person with Full Access and Send As on the shared mailbox signs in with Microsoft, and the inbox answers as the shared mailbox; no mailbox password is stored.
Can I import from Help Scout?
Not with a one-click importer yet; a Help Scout importer is planned. Contacts come in by CSV and history through the API today.
Does Kommio have a knowledge base like Help Scout Docs?
Yes: versioned articles per language, public, internal or for the AI agent only, a server-rendered public help center with search, and a Help tab in the chat widget.
Facts on this page describe Kommio as it is on the date above; anything marked planned is on the roadmap, not shipped. Corrections to [email protected].