Crisp vs Help Scout
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Crisp is the stronger AI pick in Live Chat & AI Support: it has a visibility score of 22.9 versus 4.7 for Help Scout, and ranks ahead in 100% of the answers that name both.
Choose Crisp if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (22.9 vs 4.7)
- AI answers describe it more positively (57% vs 38% positive)
- Flat tiers pricing suits your budget better than per seat
- Free plan for two seats
Choose Help Scout if…
- You want a lower entry price ($25 vs $45)
- You need SOC 2 Type II or HIPAA coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (201–500 employees)
- Per seat pricing suits your budget better than flat tiers
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Crisp | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 22.9% | 4.7% |
| Change vs last week | down−1.4% | up+2.1% |
| Rank in Live Chat & AI Support | #7 | #14 |
| Share of voice | 6.6% | 2.2% |
| Mentions this run | 32 | 10 |
| Positive in AI answers | 57% | 38% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Crisp −1.4000000000000021pp · Help Scout +2.1pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Crisp leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
6 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Crisp | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|---|
| What are the best Live Chat & AI Support tools in 2026? | ChatGPT | #7 | #9 |
| What are the best Live Chat & AI Support tools in 2026? | Perplexity | #5 | #12 |
| Top live chat tool options for B2B SaaS companies | AI Mode | #5 | #6 |
| Alternatives to the most popular live chat tool | Perplexity | #6 | #8 |
| Is there a free live chat tool for small teams? | Perplexity | #4 | #8 |
| Official website of the top live chat tool vendors | ChatGPT | #8 | #14 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Crisp | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat tiers | Per seat |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $45 / mo | Free; paid from $25 per seat / mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Hosted cloud software (SaaS) | Cloud (hosted on AWS) |
| Integrations | 100+ | 100+ |
| Compliance | — | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA |
| Support | Help center, Dedicated onboarding and personalized SLA on the Enterprise plan | Email, Dedicated onboarding specialist, Strategic account manager |
| Founded | 2015 | 2011 |
| Headquarters | Nantes, France | Boston, MA, United States |
| Employees | 11–50 | 201–500 |
| Funding | Bootstrapped | Series B1 |
| Best for | Small and medium-sized businesses looking for AI-powered omnichannel customer support software | Small businesses, growing companies and non-profits that want simple, multichannel customer support |
Plans side by side
Crisp
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Crisp
- Free plan for two seats
- Shared inbox for small teams
- Flat per-workspace pricing
- AI-powered support and ease of use
- Modern, clean interface
- Contact and automation limits on free tier
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, “Crisp vs Help Scout”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/crisp-vs-help-scout, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.