Help Scout vs LiveAgent
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 Help Desk: it has a visibility score of 29.8 versus 4.6 for LiveAgent, and ranks ahead in 71% of the answers that name both.
Choose Help Scout if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (29.8 vs 4.6)
- You want a free plan to start
- You need SOC 2 Type II or HIPAA coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (201–500 employees)
Choose LiveAgent if…
- You want a lower entry price ($15 vs $25)
- You need more native integrations (200+ vs 100+)
- AI answers describe it more positively (39% vs 38% positive)
- You need GDPR coverage
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Help Scout | LiveAgent |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 29.8% | 4.6% |
| Change vs last week | up+1.5% | no change0% |
| Rank in Help Desk | #4 | #13 |
| Share of voice | 8.2% | 1.7% |
| Mentions this run | 42 | 9 |
| Positive in AI answers | 38% | 39% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Help Scout +1.6000000000000014pp · LiveAgent 0pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Help Scout leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
7 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Help Scout | LiveAgent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alternatives to the most popular help desk platform | ChatGPT | #5 | #10 |
| Most affordable help desk platform that is still reliable | Perplexity | #4 | #3 |
| Which help desk platform offers a free trial? | ChatGPT | #4 | #7 |
| Which help desk platform offers a free trial? | AI Mode | #4 | #3 |
| Which Help Desk tools offer annual discounts? | Perplexity | #5 | #10 |
| Official website of the top help desk platform vendors | ChatGPT | #4 | #13 |
| Official website of the top help desk platform vendors | Perplexity | #9 | #14 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Help Scout | LiveAgent |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per seat | Per seat |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $25 per seat / mo | $15 per seat / mo |
| Free plan | Yes | No · 30-day trial |
| Deployment | Cloud (hosted on AWS) | Cloud only |
| Integrations | 100+ | 200+ |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA | GDPR |
| Support | Email, Dedicated onboarding specialist, Strategic account manager | 24/7 AI chatbot with human escalation, Email support, In-app live chat (Mon–Fri), Dedicated account manager (Business from 20 agents, Enterprise) |
| Founded | 2011 | 2004 |
| Headquarters | Boston, MA, United States | Bratislava, Slovakia |
| Employees | 201–500 | 51–200 |
| Funding | Series B1 | Bootstrapped |
| Best for | Small businesses, growing companies and non-profits that want simple, multichannel customer support | Small and growing support teams that want email, chat, phone and social in one inbox |
Plans side by side
LiveAgent
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
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
LiveAgent
- Strong ticketing and help-desk depth
- Fast implementation with multi-channel routing and live chat
- 30-day free trial without a credit card
- Good value as a budget help desk
- Chat and ticketing in one suite
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Help Scout vs LiveAgent”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/help-scout-vs-liveagent, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.