Desk365 vs Freshservice (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Desk365 grades higher than Freshservice: 2.6 against 2.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 2, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Desk365 grades higher on value for money and features. Freshservice grades higher on ease of use. They get the same grade on the free plan and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Desk365
Help desk built around Microsoft Teams, with a lifetime free plan
Freshservice
IT service desk for employee requests, assets and changes
Which one is for you
Pick Desk365 if
- Fits if your IT or support team already works in Microsoft Teams and 365
- Works for small teams that want asset tracking beside the help desk
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you stay free, with 50 tickets a month
- Watch out: the AI agent is $50 per 1,000 credits, and Plus and Premium include only a few
- Skip it if you want round-robin assignment or CSAT surveys, which start on Plus at $22
- Watch out: asset management, audit logs and PII encryption need Premium at $32
Pick Freshservice if
- Fits if your IT team handles staff requests like password resets and drive access
- Works for IT teams that track laptops and software licenses alongside the tickets
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you're answering customers rather than staff, which is what Freshdesk is for
- Pricey if you need change, problem or release management, which start on Pro at $99 an agent a month billed yearly
- Tight if you lean on automations: actions in other apps cap at 1,000 a month on Starter, and more cost $250 per 1,000
- Watch out: the service catalog and SLAs need Growth at $49, and Copilot AI is $29 an agent on top from Pro
- Watch out: there's no free plan after the 14-day trial, and Enterprise is priced only through sales
How we grade them
| 2.6GPADesk365Good | 2.4GPAFreshserviceFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | B$12 an agent a month billed yearly ($16 monthly), under the category's $19 cheaper quarter. | CGraded against its own alternatives, as it's an IT desk for staff. Starter is $19 an agent a month billed yearly ($29 monthly), level with Freshdesk and Zendesk. But a service catalog and SLAs need Growth at $49, and change and problem management need Pro at $99. |
| Free plan and trial | CA free plan up to 50 tickets a month for one person, after a 21-day trial. A busy inbox will pass 50 quickly. | CNo free plan, but a 14-day free trial with every feature switched on. That's long enough to put a week of real IT requests through it. |
| Features | BTickets, automation, SLAs, a knowledge base, reports, an AI copilot, and asset management on Premium. Nothing in the listing is missing. | CIt does the IT desk job fully: tickets from email, chat, a portal or Teams and Slack, asset tracking, on-call, and problem, change and release management on Pro. But it's built for your own staff rather than customers, which is a different job from this category's. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. Automations, SLAs and Microsoft connections to set up. | B4.54 from 2,440 App Store ratings. Expect some setting up, though: portals, service catalogs, approvals and asset records all need building before IT runs on it. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with Microsoft Teams, 365, Entra ID, Intune, Power BI, Jira, Asana and Azure DevOps. No phone apps are listed. | BWeb, iPhone and Android, with Microsoft Teams, Slack, Jira, TeamViewer, Azure AD and SecPod. There's no desktop app, which keeps it off an A. |
| Best for | a ticketing help desk for Microsoft Teams shops | IT teams handling their own staff's requests |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Desk365 and Freshservice. How we grade
Price against what you get
Desk365 starts at $12 a month for each person and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Freshservice starts at $19 a month for each person and scores 2.7.
They score the same, and Desk365 starts $7 a month lower. Of the other help desk and live chat tools on the chart, 1 scores higher than Desk365 for less, and 1 scores higher than Freshservice for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Desk365 also covers shared inbox.
At a glance
| Desk365 | Freshservice | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | $12 per agent / month, billed annually ($16 billed monthly) | $19 per agent / month, billed annually ($29 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | Up to 50 tickets a month, for solo use or personal projects. It starts automatically at the end of the trial and has no end date. | None |
| Free trial | 21-day free trial | 14-day free trial with access to every Freshservice feature |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Desk365 | Freshworks Inc. |
| Price read from | desk365.io | freshworks.com |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 2, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Desk365
- The free plan stops at 50 tickets a month.
- The AI agent is an add-on at $50 per 1,000 credits; Plus and Premium include only limited free credits.
- Asset management, audit logs and the encrypted PII and PHI fields need Premium; the vendor says a BAA is offered on qualifying annual contracts.
- The page shows other currencies as well; the dollar prices are quoted here.
Freshservice
- It is an IT service desk for a company's own staff, narrower than the customer help desks here; Freshworks sells Freshdesk for customer support.
- There is no free plan: a 14-day trial, then Starter at $19 per agent / month billed annually. Enterprise is priced through sales.
- Problem, change and release management start on Pro at $99 per agent / month billed annually; Freddy AI Copilot is $29 per agent / month on top.
- Orchestration past the monthly allowance costs $250 per 1,000 actions. Occasional agents use Day Passes from $3 after 3 free ones.
Key features
Desk365
- Tickets from Teams, email and web
- Handle requests from Microsoft Teams, an email inbox, a support portal and web forms or widgets in one helpdesk.
- Automation and SLAs
- Workflow rules, SLA reminders and escalations, and canned responses on every paid plan; time-based triggers start at Plus.
- AI copilot and AI agent
- Plus drafts replies, summarizes tickets and turns a ticket into a help article. An AI agent is a separate add-on.
- Asset and change management
- Premium tracks assets and software licenses from purchase to retirement; Plus has change approval workflows.
- Knowledge base and portal
- A visual editor for articles and a self-service portal, which can run on your own domain.
- Reports and dashboards
- Productivity, ticket trend and agent performance reports, with multiple dashboards and scheduled exports from Plus.
Freshservice
- Incident and request tickets
- Employees raise issues by email, phone, chat, a portal widget or a ServiceBot in Microsoft Teams and Slack, and agents work them as tickets.
- Service catalog and portal
- From Growth, a shopping-style catalog for requests such as hardware or access. Starter and Growth have one support portal; Pro and Enterprise up to 50.
- ITIL processes
- Pro adds problem, change, release and major-incident management, with a change advisory board, change calendars and service health monitoring.
- IT asset management
- A configuration database tracks hardware and software, licensed in asset units sold in packs of 500. The mobile app adds assets by scanning barcodes and QR codes.
- Workflow automation
- A drag-and-drop Workflow Automator with multi-step approvals. Actions in other apps are capped from 1,000 a month on Starter to 20,000 on Enterprise.
- Freddy AI
- Copilot drafts replies, ticket summaries and help articles for $29 per agent a month on Pro and Enterprise; Enterprise includes the Freddy AI Agent for chat.
Plans
Desk365
Free$0
Up to 50 tickets a month; starts automatically when the trial ends.
Standard$12
per agent / month, billed annually ($16 billed monthly)
Email, Teams, portal and web-form tickets, workflow automation, SLA reminders, canned responses, custom fields and roles, a knowledge base and custom reports.
Plus$22
per agent / month, billed annually ($28 billed monthly)
Adds approval workflows, round-robin and load-based assignment, time tracking, CSAT surveys, Entra ID sync, multiple dashboards and AI drafting, summaries and article generation.
Premium$32
per agent / month, billed annually ($39 billed monthly)
Adds asset and software management, Intune sync, audit logs, scheduled tickets, encrypted PII and PHI fields, data redaction and group management.
Freshservice
Starter$19
per agent / month, billed annually ($29 billed monthly)
Incident, knowledge and task management, one support portal, a ServiceBot in Teams and Slack, and 1,000 orchestration actions a month.
Growth$49
per agent / month, billed annually ($59 billed monthly)
Adds a service catalog, SLA policies, MSP mode for several clients, on-call and cloud management, time tracking and 2,000 orchestration actions.
Pro$99
per agent / month, billed annually ($119 billed monthly)
Adds problem, change, release and major-incident management, workload management, employee journeys, a status page and up to 50 portals.
EnterpriseCustom
Sold through sales. Adds a sandbox, audit logs, Freddy AI Insights and the Freddy AI Agent with 1,200 sessions per license a year.
Ways to pay less
Desk365
- Annual discount
Save up to 25% with yearly plans
The pricing page says yearly billing saves up to 25%; Standard is $12 per agent a month yearly against $16 monthly.
Freshservice
- Annual discount
Lower per-agent price with annual billing
The pricing page lists Starter at $19 per agent a month billed annually against $29 monthly, Growth at $49 against $59 and Pro at $99 against $119.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Desk365 or Freshservice?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Desk365 is cheaper to start with: $12 a month for each person, against $19 a month for each person for Freshservice. Desk365 starts at $12 per agent / month, billed annually ($16 billed monthly), and Freshservice starts at $19 per agent / month, billed annually ($29 billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, Desk365 or Freshservice?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Desk365 has a free plan. Freshservice does not, though it has a free trial.
Which platforms do Desk365 and Freshservice run on?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Freshservice lists iOS and Android apps. Both list a web app. A platform missing from a listing is one its maker's pages did not mention.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.