# Zammad review (2026): is the free plan enough?

> Open-source help desk, hosted in Germany or run on your own server

Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA.

Zammad is an open-source ticketing system that collects email, web forms, SMS, chat, Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp requests in one place. It can be bought as a hosted service run in German data centers, or downloaded and self-hosted for free, with paid support subscriptions for self-hosted installs.

- **Category:** Help Desks & Live Chat
- **Made by:** Zammad GmbH
- **Website:** https://zammad.com
- **Runs on:** Web
- **Who should skip it:** Tight if you grow: Starter stops at 5 agents and Professional at 35.
- **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026

## Pricing

As of Nov 12, 2026, Zammad has a free plan, and paid plans start at €7 per agent / month, billed annually (€9 billed monthly).

- **Pricing model:** Free plan
- **Free plan:** The open-source software is free to download and run on your own servers; you handle updates, backups and availability.
- **Free trial:** 30-day free trial of the hosted service on the Professional plan.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Starter v2 | €7 per agent / month, billed annually (€9 billed monthly) | Hosted. Up to 5 agents; email, web form and SMS channels, text modules, macros, triggers and 20 GB of disk space. |
| Professional v2 | €16 per agent / month, billed annually (€18 billed monthly) | Hosted. Up to 35 agents; adds chat and Telegram, SLAs, individual roles, a monolingual knowledge base and 50 GB of disk. |
| Plus v2 | €25 per agent / month, billed annually (€27 billed monthly) | Hosted. Unlimited agents; adds Facebook and WhatsApp, a multilingual knowledge base, GitHub/GitLab links and reporting. |
| Self-hosted | €0 | Download Zammad and host it yourself under its open-source licence, with no vendor support included. |
| Self-hosted support | €2,999 per year (Business); Enterprise €5,999, Corporation €9,999 | Support subscriptions for self-hosted installs, with response times of 6, 4 or 2 hours and 15, 45 or 95 service requests a year. |

Read from https://zammad.com/en/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Zammad before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **Save 10% with annual billing** (Annual discount): The hosted pricing page offers a lower per-agent price on annual billing than on monthly billing, labeled as a 10% saving. Source: https://zammad.com/en/pricing

## Key features

- **Multichannel tickets:** Email, web forms and SMS on every hosted plan, chat and Telegram from Professional, and Facebook and WhatsApp on Plus.
- **Automation tools:** Text modules, macros, triggers, schedulers and business hours are in the Starter plan; SLAs and custom roles start at Professional.
- **Knowledge base:** A monolingual knowledge base is included from Professional and a multilingual one from Plus.
- **Hosted in Germany:** Hosted instances run in an ISO 27001-certified German data center with SSL encryption and two-factor authentication.
- **Optional AI features:** Professional and Plus can switch on AI features such as ticket summaries, charged at €0.03 per AI call.
- **Open source, self-hostable:** The full code is public under a GPL v3 licence, so a team can run it on its own servers.

## Good for

- Teams that must keep ticket data in Germany or on their own servers
- IT teams comfortable running and updating a server
- Small teams that want a low per-agent price on a hosted plan

## Worth knowing

- Prices are in euros and exclude value-added tax; hosted plans cap agents at 5 on Starter and 35 on Professional.
- Annual billing runs for a full year and needs notice at least two months before the term ends.
- AI features are optional and cost €0.03 per AI call on top of the plan price.
- Self-hosting makes you responsible for updates, backups and availability.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.8 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Zammad collects email, web forms, SMS, chat, Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp requests in one place, as free self-hosted software or a hosted service from €7 an agent. Starter stops at 5 agents, prices exclude VAT, and self-hosting leaves updates and uptime to you.

- **Value for money: B.** Starter is €7 per agent a month billed annually, under the $11.40 mark, but it stops at 5 agents, and chat and SLAs need Professional at €16. Prices exclude VAT.
- **Free plan and trial: B.** The open-source software is free to run yourself and the hosted service has a 30-day Professional trial. Self-hosting means updates, backups and uptime are yours.
- **Features: B.** Email, forms, SMS, chat, Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp, with macros, triggers, SLAs and a knowledge base across the plans. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in core ticketing.
- **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record, and channels, triggers and roles need setting up.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web only, with 6 listed integrations including GitHub and GitLab links. No phone or desktop app on record.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Zammad's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among help desk and live chat tools

- Zammad's GPA of 2.8 is higher than 59 of the 66 other help desk and live chat tools we grade, and level with 4.
- It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 53 of 66) and worst on ease of use (C, above 5).
- Its paid plans start at about $7.82 a month for each person, against a middle price of $29 for the category: 4 of the 57 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. 1 tool scores higher and costs less.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/customer-support

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace Zammad 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. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.8 is higher than 59 of the 66 other help desk and live chat tools we grade. It costs $93.84 a year. Zammad is open source, so there is a third way: take its code and run it yourself.

- You could make: Help desk: an app builder makes this well.
- You could not: One mailbox that several people work at once.
- You could not: A chat box on your site that reaches you the moment a customer types.
- You could not: It is priced for each person, which means accounts and billing for a team.
- You could not: It plugs into other products, Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp among them.
- You could not: AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself.
- You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## Works with

Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp, GitHub, GitLab, Grafana

**Tags:** Help desk, Open source, Self-hostable, Shared inbox, Live chat, AI features

## Alternatives

- [FreeScout](https://toolgpa.com/tools/freescout): Free open-source help desk and shared mailbox you host yourself. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/freescout-vs-zammad)
- [UVdesk](https://toolgpa.com/tools/uvdesk): Open-source help desk for online stores with hosted Pro and Enterprise. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/uvdesk-vs-zammad)
- [Chatwoot](https://toolgpa.com/tools/chatwoot): Open-source support inbox you can self-host or use in the cloud. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/chatwoot-vs-zammad)
- [Freshdesk](https://toolgpa.com/tools/freshdesk): Email ticketing help desk with a knowledge base and AI agents. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/freshdesk-vs-zammad)
- [Zendesk](https://toolgpa.com/tools/zendesk): Ticketing, messaging, help center and AI agents for support teams. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/zammad-vs-zendesk)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026:

- https://zammad.com/en/pricing
- https://zammad.com/en/company/open-source

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/zammad
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).