Help Scout alternative
The Help Scout alternative priced per mailbox.
Help Scout is a friendly shared inbox and help desk, priced per user. Parly is priced per mailbox with unlimited teammates, connects your Microsoft 365 mailbox directly, is hosted in the EU, and lets the team reply to customer email from Slack and Teams.
What a team of 5 pays
Parly
€19/ month
One mailbox, the whole team. Replying to customers from Slack and Teams is included: no add-on, no per-agent seats. Helpdesk mode (€39 in total) only if you want assignment, customer companies and categories.
Help Scout Standard
$125/ month, billed annually
5 agents × $25. Billed monthly: $150 a month. Help Scout's Free plan covers up to 5 users but 100 contacts a month, one inbox, and no AI, views or workflows.
Prices as of October 2026, excluding tax, from Help Scout’s pricing page, in the currency it shows. Every sixth, seventh or tenth teammate costs the same on Parly: nothing.
Parly and Help Scout, side by side
| Parly | Help Scout | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per mailbox, unlimited teammates | Per agent, $25 (annual) or $30 (monthly) on Standard |
| Reply from Slack | Customer email arrives as a thread; Reply there sends real email from your address. Every plan. | Notifications in Slack only; conversations cannot be handled from Slack. |
| Reply from Microsoft Teams | Customer email arrives as a card in a channel; Reply sends real email from your address. Every plan. | No native integration found. |
| Reply to customers from Slack or Teams, team of 5 | €19 a month for the whole team, included in the mailbox: no add-on, no per-agent seats. | Not possible natively: Slack is notifications only, and no Teams integration was found. |
| Existing Microsoft 365 mailbox | Microsoft sign-in, or any mailbox over IMAP. No forwarding, no DNS changes. | Incoming mail is forwarded to a Help Scout address; Microsoft 365 sign-in for sending only. |
| EU hosting | EU hosted, every plan. | Hosted in the US. |
| AI | AI assist (drafts, summaries, translation) included while in preview. | AI Answers $0.75 per resolution; drafts and summaries on Plus ($45 per user) and up. |
| Getting started | First month free, no card needed. | Free plan (5 users, 100 contacts a month); free trial. |
Help Scout details from its own pricing and help pages, October 2026.
Why teams switch
- Your data has to stay in the EU: Help Scout is hosted in the US.
- You want to answer from Slack or Teams, not just get notified there.
- You would rather connect your Microsoft 365 mailbox directly than set up forwarding (which needs external forwarding enabled in Microsoft 365).
- AI drafts and summaries without moving to a higher per-user plan.
When Help Scout is the better choice
Very small, low-volume teams can start on Help Scout's Free plan. Help Scout also has a mature Docs knowledge base site, the Beacon widget, and CSAT and NPS surveys on its Standard plan.
Questions
- Is Parly cheaper than Help Scout?
- For a team, yes. Help Scout Standard is $25 per agent per month billed annually ($30 monthly), so 5 agents pay $125 to $150 a month. Parly is €19 per mailbox per month for the whole team, replies from Slack and Teams included. Helpdesk mode (€39 in total) is only needed if you want assignment, customer companies and categories. Prices as of October 2026, excluding tax.
- Can I reply from Slack and Teams like in Help Scout?
- Help Scout's Slack integration sends notifications only; you cannot handle conversations from Slack, and we found no native Microsoft Teams integration. In Parly the customer email arrives in Slack as a thread and in Teams as a card, and Reply sends real email from your address.
- Can I move my support@ from Help Scout to Parly?
- Yes. Parly connects to the mailbox itself: sign in with Microsoft for Microsoft 365, or connect any other mailbox over IMAP. Stop forwarding it to Help Scout, and new mail flows into Parly from the moment you connect. Your past Help Scout tickets stay in Help Scout; Parly does not import them.
- Is my data hosted in the EU?
- Yes, on every plan. Help Scout is hosted on AWS in the United States.
- Does Parly do everything Help Scout does?
- No, and it does not try to. Parly is a shared inbox for email, website chat, Slack and Teams, with assignment, SLAs, automation, reports and AI assist. Very small, low-volume teams can start on Help Scout's Free plan. Help Scout also has a mature Docs knowledge base site, the Beacon widget, and CSAT and NPS surveys on its Standard plan.
Try Parly instead of Help Scout.
Connect the mailbox you already have and invite the whole team. €19 per mailbox per month, unlimited teammates, first month free.