Help Scout alternative
A Help Scout alternative for small teams
Help Scout covers support. A team that also sells, takes calls and sends marketing email needs a CRM, a phone system and an email tool beside it. ContactRoll has a shared queue of support cases and those three, on one record of each customer.
Help Scout and ContactRoll, need by need
Help Scout sells a shared inbox for support email, with knowledge base sites (Docs), live chat and in-app messages, priced per user. Calling comes through an integration. [1]
| What a small team needs | Help Scout | ContactRoll |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts, companies and a deals pipeline | Contacts and, from Plus, companies; no deals pipeline on its pricing page. [1] | Every plan, Free included; Free has one pipeline. |
| Support email as cases in a shared queue | Yes: a shared inbox (two on Standard). [1] | Every plan, Free included: each email opens a case anyone can take. Free has one support address of your own. |
| Knowledge articles and a public help center | Docs sites: two on Standard, with unlimited articles. [1] | Every plan, Free included. |
| Calls in the browser, with recording and transfer | Through an integration, such as Aircall. [1] | Every plan, Free included, through your own Twilio account: call groups, voicemail, recording, hold and transfer. |
| A phone menu for callers | Depends on the phone system integrated. [1] | Plus, from ready-made templates, with owner-first ringing and warm transfer. |
| Marketing email to about 2,000 people | Not offered; its Messages send targeted messages on a website or in an app. [1] | Every plan: 500 marketing contacts and 500 emails a month on Free, 2,000 marketing contacts on Standard, 10,000 on Plus. |
| Automation | Workflows: 150 on Standard. [1] | Plus: automation flows. Standard and Plus: sequences started by what a customer does. |
| Roles and who sees what | Advanced permissions and teams from Plus. [1] | Every plan: nine ready-made roles and scopes. Plus: roles of your own. |
| An API and webhooks | From Standard. [1] | Plus. |
What it costs a team of five, and of ten
Help Scout Standard for the shared inbox and knowledge base, with Aircall Essentials for calls with a phone menu. A CRM with deals and marketing email would be two more products, not priced here. List prices, per month, paid yearly, in US dollars, before tax.
| What the team buys | 5 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|
| Help Scout Standard, $25 a user [1] | $125 | $250 |
| Aircall Essentials, $30 a license (3 at least) [2] | $150 | $300 |
| A CRM with deals, and marketing email [1] | Not sold | Not sold |
| Help Scout, for its part, about | $275 | $550 |
| ContactRoll Plus, $59 a person | $295 | $590 |
| ContactRoll Standard, $29 a person: the CRM, support cases, calling with call groups, recording and cold transfer, and marketing email to 2,000 | $145 | $290 |
Covers support, a knowledge base and calls only. Help Scout’s charge for its Aircall add-on has no price on its page and is not included, nor are taxes. ContactRoll’s calls are billed by Twilio to your own account, with no markup: for example, 2,000 minutes a month in the browser, half of them recorded, with one number, come to about $34 at Twilio’s published US rates (a call put on hold or transferred also pays Twilio’s conference minutes). Try your own numbers in the calling cost calculator.
For a team of 3 people or fewer, ContactRoll Free costs nothing: 1,000 contacts, one pipeline, one support address, calling through your own Twilio account, and 500 marketing emails a month (Free’s limits). Help Scout’s free plan is for up to 5 users, with 1 inbox and 100 contacts a month. (Help Scout’s pricing page, read .)
Where Help Scout is strong
- A free plan for up to 5 users, and a 15-day trial with no card. [1]
- Live chat, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram on Standard, and unlimited contacts on every paid plan. [1]
- HIPAA compliance, an add-on on Plus and included on Pro. [1]
Switching from Help Scout
Help Scout’s reports export as CSV or XLSX files. On request, Help Scout gives an account owner a CSV file of every customer’s name and email address; anything else comes out through its API. [3]
Then import the file into ContactRoll as a CSV file (save it as CSV first if it came out in another format). Each column is matched to a field by its name, and you can change any match before importing. ContactRoll shows, row by row, what the import would do before it writes anything, and people who unsubscribed stay unsubscribed.
Import your contacts from a CSV file walks through it, and the CSV contact cleaner merges repeated addresses first if your file has them.
Questions
Is ContactRoll a Help Scout alternative?
For a small team that wants its support inbox, a CRM with deals, calls and marketing email in one product, yes. For support alone, Help Scout’s Standard plan costs less per person and it has a free plan.
Can I bring my Help Scout customers to ContactRoll?
Yes. Ask Help Scout for the CSV file of your customers’ names and email addresses, and import it into ContactRoll, matching each column to a field.
Sources
Every Help Scout figure above, with the page it was read from and the date. Prices change, so check Help Scout’s own pages before deciding. Help Scout and every other product named here are trademarks of their owners, named only to say which product is described.
- Help Scout, pricing (its plan data): https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Aircall, pricing: https://aircall.io/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Help Scout Docs, data export options: https://docs.helpscout.com/article/466-data-export-options, read 2026-10-14.