Helply (formerly Groove) review (2026): is it worth $99 a month, billed yearly?
Help desk with AI support agents, now sold as Helply
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Helply (formerly Groove) report card
Fair · out of 4.0 · graded Nov 12, 2026
Best for a small-team help desk with AI agents bundled in
Groove has been renamed Helply and now sells help desk plans with AI agents bundled in, from $99 a month for up to 2 human agents. AI credits are pooled and capped, and WhatsApp, SMS and SLAs wait on the $499 Team plan.
Who Helply (formerly Groove) is for
- Fits if you run a small B2B or SaaS support team that wants AI agents included
- Makes sense if you are a Groove customer, as the page says your current price is locked
Who Helply (formerly Groove) is not for
- Pricey if you are alone or a pair: Starter is $99 a month for up to 2 agents
- Watch out: AI credits are capped per plan, with top-ups at $40 per 1,000 on Starter, Plus and Team
- Skip it if you want WhatsApp, SMS, Discord or SLAs, which need Team at $499
- Watch out: Pro and Growth are bought through a demo, and Salesforce and SSO need Growth
Why Helply (formerly Groove) gets a 2.0
Five grades, each with its reason. The GPA is their average: an A is 4 points, an F is none.
- DValue for money$99 a month billed annually for up to 2 agents, and $199 for 5, in the dearest tenth by floor.
- DFree plan and trialA 14-day trial, but the page doesn't say whether a card is needed. No free plan.
- BFeaturesShared inbox, ticketing, chat, help centre and AI agents for support and the inbox. Nothing in the listing is missing.
- CEase of useNo store rating on record. AI agents, rules and a help centre to set up.
- BPlatforms and integrationsWeb, with Slack, Stripe, Zapier, HubSpot, Jira, Linear and GitHub.
What these grades rest on. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Helply (formerly Groove)'s own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. How we review and grade.
Make Helply (formerly Groove)? Put this grade on your site
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<a href="https://toolgpa.com/tools/groove#review"><img src="https://toolgpa.com/badge/groove.svg" alt="Helply (formerly Groove): 2.0 GPA on ToolGPA" width="196" height="56"></a>Where Helply (formerly Groove) stands among help desk and live chat tools
Helply (formerly Groove)'s GPA of 2.0 is higher than 15 of the 66 other help desk and live chat tools we grade, and level with 9.
It stands best on features (B, above 46 of 66) and worst on value for money (D, above 0).
Its paid plans start at $99 a month, against a middle price of $29 for the category: 52 of the 57 others that charge start lower.
On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. 4 tools score higher and cost less.
Each grade against the category
Every bar is all 67 help desk and live chat tools we grade, cut by the letter each got. Helply (formerly Groove)’s own letter is outlined.
- DValue for moneyAbove 0 of 66, level with 17
- DFree plan and trialAbove 11 of 66, level with 6
- BFeaturesAbove 46 of 66, level with 20
- CEase of useAbove 5 of 66, level with 56
- BPlatforms and integrationsAbove 6 of 66, level with 54
Price against what you get
Each dot is one of 59 help desk and live chat tools. Further left costs less, and higher up scores better on features, ease of use and platforms. Point at a dot to see which tool it is.
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
Keep Helply (formerly Groove), or make your own?
Keep it
To replace Helply (formerly Groove) you would be making one mailbox that several people work at once. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one.
That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 42 of the 66 other help desk and live chat tools grade higher. It costs $1,188 a year.
What you could make
- Help desk and help center: an app builder makes these well.
What you could not
- One mailbox that several people work at once.
- An AI model answering your customers from your own help articles.
- A chat box on your site that reaches you the moment a customer types.
- A chatbot builder hooked into the messaging apps.
- It plugs into other products, Slack, Stripe and Zapier among them, and has an API.
- The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.
What this rests on. Helply (formerly Groove)’s listing: what it does, where it runs, what it plugs into and what it costs. It is a judgement about the kind of software this is. We have not built a replacement for it, and making your own means looking after it too. How we decide, and every tool’s verdict.
What is Helply (formerly Groove)?
Groove, the help desk founded in 2011, now operates as Helply. It combines a shared inbox, live chat and a help center with AI agents that answer customers, assist human agents inside tickets and run in the background on customer accounts. Plans are flat monthly fees that bundle a number of human agents and a monthly pool of AI credits.
Worth knowing
- Groove has been renamed Helply; the product and its old Groove pricing have been replaced by the plans above.
- AI credits are pooled and capped per plan. Starter, Plus and Team can top up at $40 per 1,000 credits; Pro and Growth use a hard cap or an agreed overage rate.
- WhatsApp, SMS, Discord, SLAs and round robin routing need the Team plan at $499 a month; Salesforce and SSO / SAML need Growth.
- Pro and Growth are bought through a demo, and the page shows no self-serve sign-up for them.
Key features
- Support agent
- An AI agent that works with customers directly to resolve issues end to end. It is included on every plan and uses AI credits when it acts.
- Assist agent in the inbox
- A second agent that works alongside human agents inside each ticket. It is also included on every plan.
- Background agents
- Agents that watch customer accounts instead of single conversations. Churn, Knowledge, Revenue, Feature request and Insights agents are listed, with the number available rising by plan.
- Shared inbox and ticketing
- Views, tags, macros, notes, snooze and collision detection on every plan, with SLAs, escalations and agent teams starting on Team.
- Chat and help center
- Live chat and a knowledge base on your own domain, with AI article writing and AI answers on every plan.
- Skills, MCP and custom actions
- From the Team plan, agents can be given written skills, memory, MCP connectors and custom API actions, with AI QA and backtesting.
Helply (formerly Groove) pricing
As of Nov 12, 2026, Helply (formerly Groove) is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $99 per month for up to 2 human agents, billed annually.
- Starts at
- $99 per month for up to 2 human agents, billed annually
- Free plan
- None
- Free trial
- 14-day free trial
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $99per month for up to 2 human agents, billed annually | 2,500 AI credits a month, shared inbox, email and live chat, and a help center with AI article writing. One inbox and 5 rules. |
| Plus | $199per month for up to 5 human agents, billed annually | 5,000 AI credits a month, chat flows, ticket forms, Facebook and Instagram, CSAT surveys, 3 inboxes and 10 rules. |
| Team | $499per month for 10 human agents, billed annually | 15,000 AI credits a month, WhatsApp, SMS, Discord and Slack Connect, SLAs and round robin routing, HubSpot, Jira, Linear and GitHub integrations. Extra agents are $49 a month each. |
| Pro | $999per month for 25 human agents, billed annually | 50,000 AI credits a month, all Background agents, AI reports, up to 3 brands, a customer portal, custom roles and an audit log. Sold through a demo. |
| Growth | $1,999per month for 50 human agents, billed annually | 100,000 AI credits a month, unlimited brands, skills-based routing, account intelligence, SSO / SAML and Salesforce. Sold through a demo. |
Read from helply.com on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Helply (formerly Groove) before you buy.
Ways to pay less
- Annual discount15% off with annual billing
Every plan can be billed monthly or annually; the pricing page says paying annually saves 15%. The prices listed are the annual ones.
Stated on helply.com
Works with
Helply (formerly Groove) alternatives
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Common questions
Does Helply (formerly Groove) have an Android app?
No Android app was listed when its pages were read on Nov 12, 2026. Helply (formerly Groove) is listed for Web.
Does Helply (formerly Groove) have an iPhone app?
No iPhone app was listed when its pages were read on Nov 12, 2026. Helply (formerly Groove) is listed for Web.
Is Helply (formerly Groove) open source?
Helply (formerly Groove) is not described as open source on its own site, as read on Nov 12, 2026.
Does Helply (formerly Groove) have an API?
Yes. Helply (formerly Groove) offers a public API, according to its own site.
Sources for this page
The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026.