Chatwoot vs Help Scout
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Help Scout is the stronger AI pick in Live Chat & AI Support: it has a visibility score of 4.7 versus 2.4 for Chatwoot, and ranks ahead in 50% of the answers that name both.
Choose Chatwoot if…
- You want a lower entry price ($19 vs $25)
- You need GDPR coverage
- Free self-hosted option
- Best open-source option
Choose Help Scout if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (4.7 vs 2.4)
- AI answers describe it more positively (38% vs 22% positive)
- You need HIPAA coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (201–500 employees)
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Chatwoot | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 2.4% | 4.7% |
| Change vs last week | up+0.5% | up+2.1% |
| Rank in Live Chat & AI Support | #19 | #14 |
| Share of voice | 1% | 2.2% |
| Mentions this run | 5 | 10 |
| Positive in AI answers | 22% | 38% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Chatwoot +0.5pp · Help Scout +2.1pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Help Scout leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
2 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Chatwoot | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is there a free live chat tool for small teams? | Perplexity | #5 | #8 |
| Official website of the top live chat tool vendors | ChatGPT | #15 | #14 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Chatwoot | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per seat | Per seat |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $19 per seat / mo | Free; paid from $25 per seat / mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Self-hosted or Chatwoot Cloud | Cloud (hosted on AWS) |
| Integrations | — | 100+ |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, GDPR | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA |
| Support | Live chat on the website, Email hello@chatwoot.com | Email, Dedicated onboarding specialist, Strategic account manager |
| Founded | 2020 | 2011 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | Boston, MA, United States |
| Employees | 11–50 | 201–500 |
| Funding | Seed · $2M raised | Series B1 |
| Best for | Support teams that want one inbox for chat, email and messaging, with the option to self-host. | Small businesses, growing companies and non-profits that want simple, multichannel customer support |
Plans side by side
Chatwoot
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Chatwoot
- Free self-hosted option
- Best open-source option
- Robust free plan with basic chat widgets
- Hosted free tier has usage limits
- Free plan limits agents, chat history, and advanced automations
Help Scout
- Shared inbox with email-like, human feel
- Simple, straightforward support for small teams
- Clean, intuitive interface
- Free plan for small teams
- Free trial with full feature access
- Costs more for extra inboxes and Docs sites
- Free plan limited to 100 contacts per month
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Chatwoot vs Help Scout”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/chatwoot-vs-help-scout, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.