Freshdesk vs Kayako Comparison 2024: Which Is Better?

In the arena where customer support and help desk software battle it out, we have two major names going against each other today in this Freshdesk vs Kayako comparison. We will look at their pricing plans, their free options, and set many of their main tools side by side to see which reigns supreme.

What is the difference between Freshdesk and Kayako?

The main difference between Kayako and Freshdesk is that Kayako puts more emphasis on being help desk software to help support teams more efficiently handle tickets and resolve issues, while Freshdesk is more of a full customer service solution that aims at providing a better customer experience.

If you come across a Freshdesk review, you will see many people talk about the pros of this system being easy to use, affordable, and offering a wide range of tools for many areas of support. Very few reviews highlight the cons of Freshdesk, with perhaps one of those being the lack of an on-premise option, as it is solely a cloud-based customer service software.

On the other hand, a typical Kayako review will often praise this system's incident ticket tracking toolkit, among other things like its powerful live chat feature, its many self-service tools, as well as its social media channels. 

If you've ever tried Kayako, you may have remarked on how simple it is for this platform to sign-up new customers and start using this software to generate support workflows and improve customer relationships.

Freshdesk vs Kayako comparison chart

This table will briefly lay out all the categories and the winner of each category. You also get quick links to their pricing and sales page if you feel ready to get signed up.

Freshdesk vs Kayako Pricing

Freshdesk has three pricing packages. The Growth plan is $15 per agent per month billed annually, or $18 billed monthly. The Pro plan, which is the most popular, costs $49 per agent per month billed annually, and $59 billed monthly. The Enterprise plan is $79 per agent per month billed annually, and $95 when paid on a monthly basis.

Meanwhile, Kayako does not list their pricing on their website. There are two plans, with Kayako Cloud having a five-seat minimum, and Kayako Classic On-Premise having a ten-seat minimum and it also comes with Engine Yard, which is an application deployment platform. Visit Kayako to request a demo or other pricing information. 

Winner: Not determined

Since there are no publicly listed pricing details for Kayako software, we leave this category undetermined. You may find pricing details on third-party sites for Kayako, but those cannot always be vouched for as current.
 

Kayako vs Freshdesk Free versions

Once again, Kayako does not list information about pricing or free versions on their site, however, one can assume by this that Kayako does not offer a free plan for its customer support software, whether we are talking about the cloud-based version of the on-premise.

Freshdesk does offer a free plan for its cloud-based customer service system. It is good for up to 10 customer support agents. You get free features like ticketing across email and social media, knowledge base tools, out-of-the-box analytics and reporting, and 24/7 email support, among other tools. 

Winner: Freshdesk

In the free help desk software category, it obviously goes to Freshdesk for offering a no-cost version of its customer service platform that helps small teams of fewer than 10 provide support without having to pay anything.
 

Customer support and knowledge base

Freshdesk offers a knowledge base and community forums for all of its users, including people on the free plans. For actual customer service, there is email support, phone support, and chat support, although the times and availability differ depending on the subscription plan. 

Kayako offers both a standard support plan as well as a platinum support plan, both of which are available on either Kayako package. However, additional collaborator support is only for the cloud-based version of their customer service desk solution. As for self-service tools, there is a Kayako blog, case studies, ebooks, and webinars for users to help themselves.   

Winner: Kayako

This category goes to Kayako because they have fewer differences in the degree of customer service based on which package you subscribe to, therefore making this system more egalitarian.

Kayako vs Freshdesk features & functionality

Ready to compare the tools and features of Kayako vs Freshdesk? Here is what we will cover:

• Ease of use

• Online and desktop versions

• Ticketing

• Channels

• Collaboration

• Self service

• Workflow automation

• Mobile apps

• Integration
   

Freshdesk or Kayako for ease of use

When we compare Freshdesk vs Kayako for user-friendliness, it is always a tough call to declare a winner. Kayako is a customer support software that helps businesses improve customer satisfaction without requiring too much time and effort on the part of the support reps to learn the ins and outs of its feature set, making it quite efficient due to its ease of use.

Freshdesk is similar. Its tools permit users to manage customer queries and offer solutions with relative simplicity. Freshdesk also makes it a snap to customize many of its tools.

Winner: Freshdesk 

In the case of these two competing help desk and ticketing systems, ease of use is also a close call, but Freshdesk wins by a hair's breadth due to how easy it is to set up custom attributes for the user experience. 
 

Freshdesk vs Kayako Online and desktop versions

Freshdesk is 100% cloud-based SaaS. This means that all your data is secure with them, and you do not need to worry about server upkeep or system upgrades. There is no on-premise version, nor does there even seem to be a desktop version.

Kayako, as was explained in the pricing category, has a cloud-based web version as well as an on-premise app. Kayako also had desktop versions for MacOS and Windows.

Winner: Kayako

This category is simple to determine a winner. Kayako offers the desktop app, as well as more robust on-premise options, as opposed to Freshdesk's emphasis on website apps and cloud-based software.
 

Ticketing

Ticketing systems allow users to register issues which can then be tracked and solved by support teams. Freshdesk has a shared team inbox that allows for easy ticket tracking. There is a ticket field suggester, custom ticket status, and automatic ticket dispatch, to name a few features. There is also an intelligent ticket assignment feature.

Kayako has a lot of the same functionality, like automatically assigning tickets to the right agents based on metrics like skill or availability. Customers can also get access to see the status of their tickets based on factors like SLAs. 

Winner: Freshdesk

Freshdesk feels more like a support ticket management solution than Kayako, although those who use Kayako can learn to leverage its features to be just as good as Freshdesk.
 

Channels

When users need customer support, the more ways they can reach out and get it, the better. This is why multi-channel support, or omnichannel support, is such a big deal. This normally includes email support, live chat support, telephone support, as well as being able to get in touch over social media sites like Facebook.

Kayako has a great Single View dashboard to unify some of the communication channels, including live chat, Facebook, Twitter, and email. Freshdesk, meanwhile, also lets its users reach out via phone, chat, email, social media, website forms , and even WhatsApp.

Winner: Freshdesk

When it comes to support channel options, Freshdesk offers more avenues. However, special mention should go to Kayako's Single View dashboard, which may lack some channels but is still very well designed. 
 

Collaboration

Freshdesk's team collaboration tools include shared ownership of tickets and the ability to link tickets together so that reps can combine their efforts. You can also collaborate with experts outside of your team or organization. The team inbox is useful, as well as the agent collision detection tool.

Kayako is also designed to support team collaboration. Team members can add notes and comments to tickets to help one another, and there are features for seasoned reps to aid rookie ones. The Kayako collaborator feature is also useful for bringing in external experts to help in handling trickier interactions.   

Winner: Kayako

Here is another close race, but Kayako is the winner. While both platforms have very similar team communication and collaboration tools, Kayako is a help desk that can deliver slightly better teamwork functionality.
 

Self-service

Whereas one customer might ask for immediate human assistance, another customer likes to help themselves. Self-service is definitely a hot trend. Kayako has tools for you to create a help center with a knowledge base, rich text articles, automated search suggestions, comments and ratings. Customers can access the portal through a Google or Facebook login.

Freshdesk's self-service help desk features get you AI-powered chatbots, a help widget for your website or mobile app, and automatic solution suggestions. More advanced tools include a feedback mechanism, solution article analysis, and the ability to link tickets to forum topics.

Winner: Freshdesk

The number of self-service capabilities of Freshdesk's help desk system is slightly higher than those you'd get with Kayako when it comes to users who aim to resolve issues on their own with as few clicks as possible.
 

Kayako or Freshdesk for workflow automation?

Kayako is great for workflow automations. You can automate ticket assignments, SLAs, and macros. Workflows can be set up based on conditions like events that trigger a response, or based on time settings. There is solid customization for their workflows too.

Freshdesk also offers many productivity automations. These work with ticket dispatch, time-triggered automations, automatic email notifications, and even an automated "omniroute" feature for incoming communications.   

Winner: Kayako

Both of our competing help desk tools have pretty great workflow automation capabilities with enough customization. However, Kayako takes this category.
 

Mobile apps

Both of these platforms have mobile apps for iOS and Android. Kayako's native mobile app has a sleek UI, and it is especially useful for customer support team members to communicate with one another and get all updates in real-time. 

The Freshdesk native mobile apps are also available from the Apple App Store or the Google Play store. You get nice overviews of all your help desk work, ticket management, and real-time update notifications.

Winner: Freshdesk

Both the Freshdesk and Kayako mobile apps are crucial for superior customer engagement and for running your customer service operations, but Freshdesk is just a bit better to boost the productivity and quality of your mobile support team.
 

Integrations

It is key these days to be able to integrate your SaaS with other digital tools. Freshdesk has a huge integration library, including Whatsapp, Slack, Shopify, Salesforce, MS Teams and Mailchimp, to name a few. Freshdesk NEO is an app-building platform with a rich API.

Kayako aims to make it easy to build your own integration tools without needing to know any code. They also make their API public.  You can also use connector systems like Zapier to create workflows between different apps, and there are also webhooks.

Winner: Freshdesk

While you can almost always get any integration you need with Zapier, when it comes to ready-made integrations, Freshdesk has got you covered in ways Kayako does not.

A note on Freshdesk Kayako integration 

One more thing to note, what about a Kayako Freshdesk integration? Does this exist? Well, as a native integration it does not. However, if you find yourself wanting to have some automated functionality between these two systems, it is always possible through third-party tools, like Zapier or Workato, which allow you to create your own workflows between platforms, often using ‘if this then that’ commands.

For example: if I get an incoming message in Kayako, send me a notification in Freshdesk. 

Is Freshdesk better than Kayako? Our conclusion

Well, you've already seen the table, so you know the answer. According to our review, Freshdesk is better than Kayako. Maybe not for every single category nor for every business need, but for the sake of this article, Freshdesk does come out on top. 

Now, it is clear that these two are not the only contenders for the category of customer service and help desk systems. You can compare Freshdesk vs Kayako vs Zendesk vs Help Scout if you like, or visit one of these articles dealing with the best help desk software. 

In the end, whether you are in finance, e-commerce, IT, or any other industry, please choose at least one of these software solutions, and do not make the error of leaving your users and customers out in the cold.