Freshdesk vs Freshservice
We give Freshdesk and Freshservice the same GPA: 2.4 out of 4.0. They get the same grade on all five counts.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Freshdesk
Email ticketing help desk with a knowledge base and AI agents
Freshservice
IT service desk for employee requests, assets and changes
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAFreshdeskFair | 2.4GPAFreshserviceFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CGrowth is $19 an agent a month billed yearly, a little under this category's middle of $24, and paying monthly loses the 20% yearly discount. A portal and knowledge base are included, but chat means Freshdesk Omni from $29. | 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 14-day free trial of the Enterprise plan with no card needed, so you see everything. There's no free plan, and the 500 free AI agent sessions come once per account, not every month. | 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 | CEmail ticketing, a shared inbox, a portal and knowledge base, routing, SLAs, reports and an email AI agent. The gap is named in the listing: chat and messaging channels aren't in Freshdesk at all, they're sold as Freshdesk Omni. | 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 | B4.5 from 2,996 App Store ratings for the agent app. Emails turning into tickets is a simple idea to pick up, and occasional helpers can come in on day passes instead of full seats. | 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, iPhone and Android, with Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, Jira, Slack, Microsoft Teams and Stripe. There's no desktop app, so it stops at a B. | 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 | email support with a help center from day one | 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: Freshdesk and Freshservice. How we grade
Price against what you get
Freshdesk starts at $19 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.
On this chart the two sit in the same place: the same score for the same starting price. Of the other help desk and live chat tools on the chart, 1 scores higher than Freshdesk 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
- Freshdesk starts at $19 per agent / month, billed annually. Freshservice starts at $19 per agent / month, billed annually ($29 billed monthly).
- Freshdesk also covers shared inbox and reports.
- Freshservice also covers workflow automation.
At a glance
| Freshdesk | Freshservice | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free trial |
| Starts at | $19 per agent / month, billed annually | $19 per agent / month, billed annually ($29 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial of the Enterprise plan, no credit card needed | 14-day free trial with access to every Freshservice feature |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Freshworks Inc. | Freshworks Inc. |
| Price read from | freshworks.com | freshworks.com |
| Checked | Oct 17, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Freshdesk
- Support teams that work mainly from email
- Teams wanting a help center and ticket portal on the entry plan
- Companies that bring in occasional helpers on cheap day passes
Freshservice
- IT teams handling employee incidents, requests and changes
- Companies that want ITIL processes and asset tracking in one tool
- Service providers running IT support for several client companies
Worth knowing
Freshdesk
- Freshdesk plans are built around email; chat and messaging channels come with Freshdesk Omni, from $29 per agent / month billed annually.
- Only 500 AI agent sessions are free, once per account; after that sessions cost $49 per 100.
- Freddy AI Copilot costs $29 per agent / month billed annually ($35 monthly) and is not offered on Growth.
- The pricing page shows annual prices only; monthly billing costs more, as the page offers 20% off for paying annually.
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
Freshdesk
- Ticketing and shared inbox
- Incoming emails become tickets that can be prioritized, assigned and tracked, with internal threads and linked tasks for teammates.
- Freddy AI Agent for email
- An email AI agent replies to customers and works through back-and-forth threads. Each account gets 500 sessions once; more cost $49 per 100.
- Customer portal and knowledge base
- Customers submit tickets and read help articles in a portal. Pro adds portal branding, community forums and article versioning.
- Routing and SLAs
- Business rules dispatch tickets on every plan. Pro adds round-robin and load-balanced assignment and multiple SLA policies; Enterprise adds skill-based routing.
- Freddy AI Copilot
- A paid add-on from Pro up that drafts replies, summarizes long threads, translates in 60+ languages and suggests similar tickets.
- Reports and dashboards
- Standard reports and real-time dashboards on all plans, with custom dashboards on Pro and conversational AI insights on Enterprise.
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
Freshdesk
Growth$19
per agent / month, billed annually
Email ticketing and a shared inbox, a customer portal and knowledge base, standard reports, threads and tasks, and roles.
Pro$55
per agent / month, billed annually
Adds a multilingual help desk, custom dashboards, round-robin routing, multiple SLA policies, community forums and 5,000 outside collaborators.
Enterprise$89
per agent / month, billed annually
Adds Freddy AI Insights, skill-based routing, a sandbox, audit logs, IP allowlisting and an approval step for knowledge base articles.
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
Freshdesk
- Annual discount
Save 20% with annual billing
Freshdesk's pricing page offers 20% off when plans are paid annually rather than 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.
