One place where customer emails and website chats become tickets that your team can assign, answer with saved replies, and back up with a public help center.
A small business usually starts support in a shared inbox, and a help desk becomes useful once questions get lost or two people answer the same email. The tools here turn email and chat into tickets, let you assign them, and add a knowledge base. They differ mostly in price model and how much AI is included. EngageBay offers a free plan for up to 15 users with a help desk and live chat. HubSpot has free service tools, with ticketing and bots on its Starter plan. BoldDesk sells one plan built around AI credits with 5 human agents included. MyLiveChat is chat-first with ticket follow-up and a free single-agent plan. When choosing, check the free-plan limits, whether pricing is per user or per plan, which channels become tickets, and how AI usage is billed. The steps set up EngageBay's free help desk. All facts come from official vendor pages, checked on 2026-10-20.
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BoldDeskEngageBay's free plan covers up to 15 users with helpdesk and live chat; MyLiveChat is free for 1 agent; BoldDesk's base tier includes 5 human agents and AI credits.
Its free plan includes a helpdesk and live chat for teams of up to 15 users, without a credit card. Emails forwarded to the Service module become tickets, and a help center can be published.
When to pick it: If you want to start with no software cost and may later use its CRM or email marketing in the same account.
Help desk tools are part of Service Hub, with some functions free. Starter adds ticketing, conversational bots and higher limits, and everything links to HubSpot's CRM records.
When to pick it: If you already use HubSpot's CRM, or want support tickets tied to contacts and deals.
One plan includes unlimited tickets, email, live chat, a knowledge base, SLAs and an AI agent, with 5 human agents on the 1,000-credit tier.
When to pick it: If you want AI to answer and act on routine requests and have a team of around five agents.
Website live chat is the core, with offline capture, email-to-ticket follow-up, macros, a knowledge base and an optional AI chatbot in the same workspace. One agent is free.
When to pick it: If most support happens in website chat and you want tickets only for follow-up.
None of these tools has a free plan.
| Criterion | EngageBay | HubSpot | BoldDesk | MyLiveChat | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emails become tickets | Yes — forward your support inbox to the Service module source | Yes — team email channel; the help desk workspace article applies to Service Hub Professional and Enterprise source | Yes — email ticketing source | Yes — email-to-ticket follow-up in a shared inbox source | |
| Live chat on your website | Yes — included in the Free plan source | Yes — Free plan shows HubSpot branding on live chat; Starter removes it source | Yes — included source | Yes — core product source | |
| Knowledge base / help center | Yes — Help Center with collections and a drag-and-drop design editor source | Yes — built-in knowledge base source | Yes — public and private, multilingual source | Yes — public help center that also trains the AI source | |
| AI answers | AI chatbot trained on links, PDFs or the knowledge base; 20 AI conversations/month on Free source | AI customer agent; AI features use HubSpot Credits (500 per month on Starter) source | AI Agent on all channels; 1,000 AI credits per month on the base tier source | AI chatbot; Managed AI from $29 per site/month or Own-Key AI $15 per AI agent/month source | |
| Users on the free plan | Up to 15 users source | 2 users source | No free plan (free trial) source | 1 agent source | |
| From (official pricing) | Basic $14.99 per user/month (monthly tab); $13.79 on yearly and $12.74 on biennial billing source | Starter $20/month per seat list price; new-customer offer $7/mo per seat billed annually or $10/mo billed monthly source | $99/month billed yearly ($1,188/year) or $116 on monthly billing, 5 human agents included source | Starter $15/month (1 agent); Basic $29/month (2 to 4 seats) source |
Facts from the vendors' official pages, checked on the date in the last column. Prices are what the vendor published on that date.
Sign up for the Free plan. The pricing page says it is free for up to 15 users and needs no credit card; helpdesk and live chat are part of it.
Log in and go to the Service dashboard. This is where you create and view tickets and set up service automation.
In Service Dashboard > Settings, copy the forwarding address. In your mailbox settings, add it as a forwarding address. From then on, emails that reach that inbox arrive in EngageBay as tickets.
In Account Settings > API & Tracking Code, copy the tracking code and paste it into your site. Then open the Live Chat module, click Chat Widget, switch on Enable Live Chat and click Save Changes. Incoming chats appear under Live Chat > Conversations.
When you create a ticket from the Service dashboard, pick an assignee from the user list; that person is notified. Save common replies as canned responses (the Free plan allows 10) so agents do not retype them.
In the Service dashboard, open the three-dot menu and choose Help Center. Create collections, add articles, adjust the design under Preferences > Design, then switch the help center live under Preferences > Settings and save.
It depends on budget and team size. EngageBay's Free plan covers up to 15 users with helpdesk and live chat. HubSpot's free tools allow 2 users, with ticketing on Starter. BoldDesk starts at $99/month billed yearly for 5 agents with AI included. MyLiveChat is free for 1 agent.
HubSpot describes a help desk as a central tool for managing incoming customer issues: it records tickets, routes them to the right person, tracks response and resolution times, and offers a knowledge base customers can search. All four tools on this page include tickets, live chat and a knowledge base.
All four. BoldDesk includes an AI agent with monthly AI credits. HubSpot offers an AI customer agent that uses HubSpot Credits. EngageBay's AI chatbot is trained on your links, PDFs or knowledge base, with 20 AI conversations a month on Free. MyLiveChat sells AI as managed reply packs or with your own AI key.
BoldDesk's pricing page gives examples by effort: answering from the knowledge base, summarizing a ticket, drafting or translating a reply (1–2 credits); checking an order or creating an issue in another system (3–5 credits); and multi-step work such as deciding and processing a refund (8–12 credits).
HubSpot's help desk documentation says you connect a chat channel to add chatflows to your website pages, where you also set team availability and branding. That article applies to Service Hub Professional and Enterprise; conversational bots are also listed in HubSpot Starter.
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