Best Free Help Desk Software (2026)

This is an honest, researched roundup of the best genuinely free (or free-tier) help desks you can run in 2026. For each one, we spell out what's actually free versus paywalled, the real limit that bites first (agents, contacts, conversations, time windows), who it fits, and its G2 or Capterra rating as a real-user signal. We verified every free-tier term and rating via web research in June 2026 and cite where the numbers come from — but free tiers in this category get re-cut more often than paid ones, so confirm on each vendor's page before you commit. If you also want the full paid landscape, our companion best help desk software guide ranks the premium options in depth; this post is strictly about staying free.

Is help desk software actually free in 2026? (the honest answer)

Yes — genuinely free options exist, and several have no expiry date. But the headline catch is real: the most "generous" free plans are often the ones with the steepest upgrade. Freshdesk's free program, for example, used to be an open-ended plan for up to 10 agents; in 2026 it's up to 2 agents for the first 6 months only, then you upgrade. HubSpot's free tools are excellent but cap you at 1,000 contacts and stamp HubSpot branding on everything. Open-source tools like Chatwoot and FreeScout have a $0 license but hand you the hosting bill and the on-call pager.

So the right question isn't "which one is free?" — several are. It's "which free wall can I live with?" The sections below sort the options by what kind of free they are, so you can match the wall to your situation.

How we compared

We looked only at help desks (plus the close-enough live-chat and open-source tools) that a small team could realistically run on a free tier today. For each, we pulled the current free-plan terms from the vendor's own pricing or docs pages, noted the hard limit that bites first (agent caps, contact ceilings, conversation quotas, time windows), and recorded the G2 or Capterra rating with approximate review count as a real-user signal — plus, where we found them, attributed reviewer quotes. Where a "free" plan is really a short trial, an open-source download you host yourself, or a chat widget rather than a full help desk, we say so plainly. All figures are approximate, vendor-set, and current as of mid-2026.

Best free help desk software at a glance

Free-tier terms and ratings are approximate and vendor-set as of mid-2026 — verify before relying on them.

The free-forever SaaS plans

These stay free with no expiry date — until you hit a seat, contact, or feature cap.

1. Zoho Desk — the most capable genuinely free help desk

What's free: Zoho Desk's Free plan supports up to 3 agents with email ticketing, a Help Center / knowledge base, ticket tags and history, response drafts, advanced web forms, mobile apps, and basic reporting — with no time limit and no credit card required. What's paywalled: Live chat, social and messaging channels, automation rules, SLA management, and real-time collaboration all need a paid tier (Express $7, Standard $14, Professional $23, Enterprise $40 per agent/month). Who it fits: Small teams that want a real ticketing system — not just a chat widget — for free, especially anyone already in the Zoho ecosystem. Rating: G2 4.4/5 across roughly 6,500 reviews (Capterra ~4.5) — one of the largest review bases in the category. Honest watch-out: The free plan is deliberately a proof of concept. The moment you need live chat, automation, or SLAs you're upgrading, and reviewers note the jump from free to paid can feel abrupt.

2. HubSpot Service Hub — free if you want the CRM too

What's free: HubSpot's Free Tools give you $0 for up to 2 users with basic ticketing, a shared inbox, live chat, conversational bots, canned snippets, and email templates — all sitting on HubSpot's free CRM, so tickets live on the same record as contacts and deals. What's paywalled: New free accounts are capped at about 1,000 contacts, one deal pipeline, and minimal automation (roughly one follow-up email per form), and every email, chat widget, and page carries HubSpot branding. Removing branding and unlocking real workflows means Service Hub Starter or above. Who it fits: Early-stage teams that want support and a lightweight CRM in one free place. Rating: G2 ~4.4/5 across ~2,500 reviews. Honest watch-out: Most teams hit the contact ceiling or the branding limit within 6–12 months. The free CRM is the real draw; the support tooling is basic.

3. Jira Service Management — free for small IT teams

What's free: JSM's Free plan supports up to 3 agents with a ticketing system, a customer/self-service portal, a basic knowledge base, ITSM and customer-service templates, alerts and on-call schedules, 2 GB storage, 100 email notifications/day, and 500 automation runs/month. What's paywalled: More agents, advanced automation, SLAs, audit logs, branded help-center customization, and Atlassian support all require Standard or above; the free plan has Atlassian Community support only. Who it fits: IT and internal-support teams already living in the Atlassian/Jira ecosystem, handling structured ITSM-style requests. Rating: G2 4.3/5 (~900 reviews), Capterra 4.5/5 (~700). Honest watch-out: It's ITSM-flavored — powerful for IT and internal tickets, heavier than you need for simple customer email support, and you'll outgrow the 3-agent cap the moment you add a fourth person to the rotation.

The free-plan-plus-trial route

4. Help Scout — clean inbox, free plan plus a generous trial

What's free: Help Scout has a Free plan capped at 5 users, 1 shared inbox, 1 Docs site, and 100 contacts/month (past which it blocks outgoing replies until the next cycle) — plus a 15-day trial of a paid tier and 3 months of free AI Answers resolutions when you sign up. What's paywalled: Past the free tier it's Standard $25, Plus $45, Pro $75 per user/month (16% off annually), with AI Answers billed at $0.75 per resolution after the trial credits run out. (Note: Help Scout raised these list prices in 2026 from the older $20/$40/$65 — verify current numbers.) Who it fits: Tiny, email-first teams that want Help Scout's famously clean, human inbox and can live within 100 contacts. Rating: Capterra 4.7/5 (G2 ~4.4), consistently praised for ease of use. Honest watch-out: That 100-contact cap is the real ceiling — it's a "test it" plan more than a "run on it forever" plan. The trial, by contrast, is genuinely useful for evaluating the paid product.

5. Freshdesk's own free program — honest about a popular incumbent

What's free: Freshdesk's Free program now gives you up to 2 agents for the first 6 months, with email and social ticketing, a knowledge base, basic ticket dispatch, and basic reporting. What's paywalled: Automations, SLAs, collision detection, the marketplace, more than 2 agents, anything in Freshdesk Omni — and the whole thing after month six (paid Growth starts at $19/agent/month). Who it fits: Teams that want Freshdesk and are using the free window as an extended trial before paying. Rating: G2 4.4/5 (~3,700), Capterra 4.5/5 (~3,400) — but a notably low Trustpilot ~2.5/5, where billing and auto-renewal complaints cluster. Honest watch-out: Don't build a long-term workflow on this expecting it to stay free. It won't — it's an extended trial in everything but name. (For the genuinely free Freshdesk substitutes, see our best free Freshdesk alternatives guide.)

The free live-chat tiers (chat-first, not full ticketing)

6. Crisp — free live chat with unlimited conversations

What's free: Crisp's Free plan gives you 2 seats, a live chat widget, ~100 customer profiles, and — unusually — unlimited conversations, with no time limit. What's paywalled: Shared-inbox depth, more channels, chatbots, a knowledge base, and AI live on the paid tiers (Essentials $95/month for 10 seats, Plus $295/month for 20 seats). Who it fits: Startups and small sites that mainly need a free, no-expiry chat widget rather than a full ticketing system. Rating: Capterra 4.5/5 (~148 reviews). Honest watch-out: It's chat-first. If your support is email- and ticket-driven, this is a chat add-on, not a full help desk — and reviewers note the jump to paid (and the per-seat profile limits) can feel steep.

7. Tidio — free chat with an AI taster

What's free: Tidio's Free plan includes live chat with around 50 conversations per month, basic flows for up to 100 unique visitors, and a one-time allotment of 50 Lyro AI conversations to try its AI agent. What's paywalled: Beyond 50 conversations/month you upgrade, and ongoing Lyro AI is a separate, renewable add-on (packages from 50 up to 1,000 conversations/month). Who it fits: Low-volume small sites that want a polished chat widget and a taste of AI. Rating: G2 and Capterra both ~4.7/5 (1,800+ G2 reviews) — one of the better-loved chat tools. Honest watch-out: The 50-conversations/month cap is tight; a single busy week can blow through it. And the 50 Lyro conversations are one-time and non-renewing — once they're gone, AI stops until you buy a package.

The open-source, self-hosted route ($0 license, you run it)

The license is genuinely free here. Your servers, updates, security, and uptime are not.

8. Chatwoot — open-source, conversation-first

What's free: Chatwoot is open-source (MIT-licensed) — self-host the Community edition and the software license is free, with an omnichannel inbox (web widget, email, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram), canned responses, labels, assignments, a help center, and basic reporting. What costs money: Your own servers and maintenance — or Chatwoot's hosted Cloud plans (paid tiers plus Captain AI credits) if you'd rather not run infrastructure. Who it fits: Teams with engineering resources that want a conversation-first help desk with no per-agent license fee. Rating: G2 4.5/5 (small review base, ~15), with reviewers praising ease of setup. Honest watch-out: "Free" here means free license, not free effort. You own hosting, updates, security, and uptime.

9. Zammad — open-source, structured ticketing

What's free: Zammad is open-source and free to self-host, with a more traditional, structured help desk: omnichannel inbox, triggers and schedulers, text modules, SLA management, and knowledge-base workflows — closer in feel to a classic ticketing tool than Chatwoot. What costs money: Infrastructure and operations — Zammad expects a Postgres + Elasticsearch stack and 4 GB+ RAM, so it's heavier to run. Who it fits: Teams that want queue discipline and SLAs without a license bill, and have the ops capacity to maintain it. Rating: Well-regarded on G2 among self-hosters, on a smaller review base than the SaaS names. Honest watch-out: The most infrastructure-hungry option here. Budget real engineering time, not just server cost.

10. FreeScout — a free, self-hosted Help Scout clone

What's free: FreeScout is open-source (PHP/Laravel/MySQL) and built explicitly as a self-hosted Help Scout / Zendesk alternative: a shared mailbox with conversation threading, collision detection, private notes, customer profiles, and mobile apps — with no limits on users, tickets, or mailboxes and it runs even on cheap shared hosting. What costs money: Your server, plus optional one-time paid modules (knowledge base, API, extra channels) you can pick and choose with lifetime updates. Who it fits: Small, email-first teams that want a clean shared inbox they fully own, without a per-agent fee. Rating: Capterra 4.8/5 (G2 ~4.4) — the highest-rated tool in this roundup, with reviewers loving the data ownership and low cost. Honest watch-out: Support is community-led: when something breaks, you fix it. Some features (KB, API) live behind those paid modules rather than the core download.

11. osTicket — the long-running classic

What's free: osTicket is open-source and free to self-host, a no-frills classic that's been around since 2010: email-to-ticket conversion, ticket automation, SLA management, custom fields, and reporting — the default choice for straightforward ticketing on a budget. What costs money: Your server (it's light — runs on 1–2 GB RAM), or osTicket Cloud (~$10/agent/month) if you don't want to host it. Who it fits: IT and high-volume support teams that want a battle-tested, structured ticketing system and don't care about a modern UI. Rating: Capterra ~4.2/5 — solid for reliability, marked down for a dated interface. Honest watch-out: The UI feels its age next to newer tools, and setup is more hands-on. It works; it just won't win design awards.

"Free" isn't free forever — the honest part

Every option above is genuinely free in some form, but each has a wall you'll hit. Knowing which wall comes first is the whole game:

• Time walls. Freshdesk's own free program expires after 6 months. Trials (Help Scout's 15 days, various AI credits) are evaluation windows, not permanent plans.
• Seat walls. Zoho Desk and Jira Service Management cap at 3 agents; HubSpot and Crisp at 2; Help Scout at 5. A growing team blows past these fast.
• Volume walls. Tidio's 50 conversations/month, HubSpot's 1,000 contacts, and Help Scout's 100 contacts/month bite the moment you get busy.
• Feature walls. Free tiers almost universally exclude automation, SLAs, advanced reporting, and AI — exactly the features that make a help desk save time at scale.
• Branding and effort walls. HubSpot stamps its branding on free communications; the open-source tools hand you the license for free but the hosting, security, and upkeep bill is yours.

The practical takeaway: free is excellent for starting and for small, stable operations. Model the cost at your real volume and team size before you commit, because the tool that's free today is often the one with the steepest upgrade tomorrow. Our best help desk software roundup covers what happens when you outgrow free.

A note on AI: a layer on top, not another free help desk

One honest aside, and a disclosure: we make an AI product, so we'll be upfront about where it does and doesn't fit here.

If your reason for shopping free help desks is AI cost — you want deflection but balked at paying for AI on every seat — note that swapping to a different free tier rarely fixes that, because most free plans exclude AI entirely or meter it tightly (Tidio's one-time 50 Lyro conversations; Help Scout's 3 free months, then per-resolution billing). Macha isn't a help desk and isn't a free help desk replacement. It's an AI agent layer that runs on top of whichever help desk you land on — it connects to Zendesk and Freshdesk today — reading the customer's question, pulling from your connected data and help center, and resolving routine tickets inside your existing workflow before handing off to a human with context. The point is simply that the AI layer is a separate decision from the help desk you pick. If you're curious, see how the layer works — there's a 7-day free trial, no credit card required. But if your real problem is the help desk itself, one of the eleven free options above is the right move, not a layer on top.

What users say about going free

Ratings give the average; reviews give the why. A couple of attributed notes from reviewers:

"This software is incredibly easy to use!" — Stacey B., Customer Support Manager, Consumer Services (on Help Scout), Capterra

"For the cost it meets the basic needs that I am looking for." — Katie Z., Owner, Marketing and Advertising (on Zoho Desk), Capterra, March 2026

The recurring theme across free-tier reviews is consistent: people love that these tools cover the basics at no cost, and the friction shows up exactly where you'd expect. For the open-source tools (FreeScout's 4.8 Capterra score, the highest here), reviewers prize data ownership and zero license fees but flag community-only support — "when it breaks, you fix it." For the SaaS free tiers, the complaints cluster around limited features, contact caps, and a sometimes-jarring jump from free to paid. Free plans deliver real value for small, steady operations; the grumbles begin when you try to scale out of them.

How to choose the right free help desk

1. Decide if you need a help desk or a chat widget. Real ticketing → Zoho Desk or Jira Service Management. Mostly live chat → Crisp or Tidio.
2. Count your team and your volume. Three agents fit Zoho Desk and JSM; two fit HubSpot and Crisp; five fit Help Scout. High chat volume rules out Tidio's 50/month cap.
3. Check whether you want a CRM too. If yes, HubSpot Free Tools bundle support with a free CRM.
4. Be honest about engineering capacity. Only choose Chatwoot, Zammad, FreeScout, or osTicket if you can actually host and maintain them — the license is free, the operations aren't.
5. Treat Freshdesk's own free plan as a 6-month trial, not a permanent home.
6. Model the upgrade path now. The wall you'll hit first (time, seats, volume, features) tells you what you'll pay later — decide if that price is acceptable before you build on the free tier.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free help desk software? For a real, no-expiry help desk, Zoho Desk's Free plan (3 agents, email ticketing, knowledge base) is the most capable SaaS option. If you want a free CRM bundled in, HubSpot Service Hub Free Tools. For free live chat, Crisp (unlimited conversations) or Tidio. For a $0 license you self-host, FreeScout, Chatwoot, Zammad, or osTicket.

Is there genuinely free help desk software, or is it always a trial? Both exist. Zoho Desk, HubSpot Service Hub, Jira Service Management, Crisp, and Tidio all have free-forever tiers (with seat or volume caps), and the open-source tools (FreeScout, Chatwoot, Zammad, osTicket) are free to self-host indefinitely. Freshdesk's "free" program, by contrast, is time-limited to 6 months — effectively an extended trial.

Is the best free help desk software open source? It can be. FreeScout (Help-Scout-style shared inbox, Capterra 4.8), Chatwoot (conversation-first omnichannel), Zammad (structured ticketing with SLAs), and osTicket (classic email-to-ticket) are all open-source and free to self-host. You pay nothing for the license but cover your own hosting, security, and maintenance — so they suit teams with engineering resources.

Do free help desk plans include AI? Mostly no. Free tiers typically exclude AI or meter it tightly (Tidio offers a one-time 50 Lyro conversations; Help Scout gives 3 months of free AI Answers, then charges $0.75 per resolution). If AI deflection is your goal, an AI layer like Macha on top of your help desk is a separate decision from the free tier you choose.

What's the catch with free help desk software? Every free plan has a wall: a time limit (Freshdesk's 6 months), a seat cap (2–5 agents), a volume cap (Tidio's 50 conversations or HubSpot's/Help Scout's contact ceilings), missing features (no automation, SLAs, or AI), vendor branding, or — for open source — the hosting and maintenance burden. Model your real volume and team size before committing; free is best for starting and for small, stable teams.

The bottom line

The best free help desk software depends on the wall you can live with. Zoho Desk is the most capable genuinely-free SaaS help desk; HubSpot wins if you want a free CRM too; Jira Service Management fits IT teams on Atlassian; Help Scout is a clean tiny-team option with a useful trial; Crisp and Tidio cover free live chat; and FreeScout, Chatwoot, Zammad, and osTicket give you a $0 license if you can self-host. Just remember the headline finding: the most generous-looking free plan (Freshdesk's) is now a 6-month window, not forever — so if "free" is a hard requirement, pick one of the options that actually stays free at your size. And if your real frustration was AI cost rather than the help desk itself, an AI layer on top of your help desk is a separate, additive choice. For the full paid landscape, see our best help desk software roundup.

Free-tier terms, pricing, and ratings verified via web research, June 2026. Free plans in this category change often — confirm current terms on each vendor's site before you rely on them.