Help Scout vs Helpwise

Help Scout is customer support software that brings email, SMS, social, chat, and voice into a shared Inbox. It also provides ticket automation, SLA management, a customer portal, and Docs sites for searchable, branded help centers or knowledge bases. Teams can manage visibility and access with permissions at company, team, or user level, and connect the service to more than 100 tools or apps. Help Scout offers API access and a mobile app. Its Free plan costs nothing and includes five users, one Inbox, and one Docs site, with 100 contacts per month, 10 saved replies, and 10 tags. Paid plans start at $25 per user per month; annual pricing is shown as 16% lower than monthly pricing. Standard and Plus plans offer 15-day trials without a credit card. New accounts receive three months of unlimited AI Answers resolutions. Help Scout states that it is HIPAA and SOC 2 Type II compliant. Support options include email, onboarding, customer success management, and priority support on paid plans.

Helpwise brings customer queries from multiple channels into a Universal Inbox where teams can manage and reply to conversations. Team members can assign threads, mention colleagues in notes, share drafts, and use collision detection to see when someone else is replying. Custom rules can automate delegation, tagging, and replies; Smart Assign supports round-robin, load-balancing, or random assignment. Listed integrations include Gmail, Microsoft Office 365/Outlook, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twilio, HubSpot, Zapier, Pipedrive, and Shopify. Teams can connect an internal app or create custom channel inboxes using APIs. Helpwise runs on web, Android, and iOS. Its security information says data in transit uses HTTPS encryption, while uploaded files, email content, message metadata, and backups are encrypted at rest. Pricing is from $12/user/mo billed annually, and a seven-day trial is listed; there is no free plan. The monthly plan listings show Standard at $15 a month, Premium at $29 a month, and Advanced at $49 a month, each with different inbox, user, and automation limits.