Help Scout vs Whelp

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.

Whelp is a conversational customer support platform that combines AI agents with human support across customer channels. Its shared inbox brings WhatsApp, web chat, SMS, email, voice, Instagram, Messenger and Telegram into one workspace, alongside a unified customer profile and conversation history. AI agents learn from help center content, policies and catalogs; they can look up orders, bookings and accounts, then hand conversations to people with context. Listed channels also include LINE and Viber, and integrations include services such as Shopify, Stripe, Salesforce, Webex and Amazon Connect. Agents can use Whelp in a browser or through iOS and Android apps. The company says its cloud connections are end-to-end encrypted and offers two-factor authentication and secure access controls. Every plan includes unlimited conversations, though Meta bills WhatsApp Business Platform conversation fees separately. The Free plan has one seat. Standard costs $29 a month per seat, and Advanced costs $79 a month per seat.