Helpdesk and support inbox
Open-source alternatives to Help Scout, priced
1 open-source tool that can replace Help Scout, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. Help Scout on the Standard tier costs $300 a month at that size.
The cheapest way to replace Help Scout here is FreeScout, at $45.54 a month against $300, with your own time already counted.
Start here
Help Scout's Free plan covers up to 5 users with one inbox and one Docs site. A small team that fits inside it pays nothing.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Help Scout | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FreeScout | $8.04 | $45.54 | +$9,011 | easy | AGPL-3.0 |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
FreeScout 4,532 stars
Laravel and MySQL. A shared mailbox rather than a full support suite, which is exactly what most small teams are overpaying Zendesk for.
At 10 people it needs 1.4 GB of memory and 13 GB of disk, which fits the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $6.70 a month. Setting it up is roughly 2 hours of work, then 0.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Help Scout versus FreeScout breakdown · FreeScout at every team size
How the pricing was established
Help Scout pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-14. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.
Related
- All helpdesk and support inbox compared
- Alternatives to Zendesk
- Alternatives to Intercom
- Alternatives to Freshdesk
- Where to host it
What you would be running
| Tool | Licence | Written in | Setup | Upkeep | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FreeScout | GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 | PHP | 2 h | 0.5 h a month | 4,532 |
Questions people actually ask
Is there a free open-source alternative to Help Scout?
There are 1 on this page, and every one of them is free of licence cost: they are published under AGPL-3.0. Running one is not free, though. The cheapest of them, FreeScout, costs $45.54 a month at 10 people once the server, backups and the time to look after it are counted.
How much does Help Scout cost?
Help Scout Standard costs $300 a month at 10 people: USD 30.00 per seat per month; free for up to 5 users. That figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-14.
What does it cost to self-host FreeScout?
$45.54 a month at 10 people. That is $6.70 for the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud, plus backups, plus 0.5 hours a month of your own time priced at the published hourly rate.
How long before FreeScout is cheaper than Help Scout?
Under a month, counting $150 of first-time setup. Over 36 months the difference is $9,011.
Which Help Scout alternative is the easiest to run?
FreeScout, rated easy: about 2 hours to set up and 0.5 hours afterwards.