Help Scout alternative

Help Scout's calm inbox, with your CRM inside.

Support email, website chat, an AI bot and a help center for your whole team, next to your customers, deals, calls and invoices, with unlimited users on every plan.

Start free

Free plan, no card. Bring your customers and Docs articles in an afternoon.

Alori's Conversations: Nadia is still typing on the website chat, and the team already reads her words

Northwind StudioConversationsWebsite chatAI botHelp centerAn agency's client support

Help Scout and Alori, side by side.

Help ScoutAlori

Price for a team of 5$125 to $225 a month in usersFrom $99 a month, everyone included

AI answers$0.75 for each resolutionNora uses your plan's credits

Free planUp to 5 users and 100 contacts a monthNo card, no limit on users

Shared inbox and website chatYes, a strengthYes, with calls, texts, Messenger and Instagram in the same thread

Help centerDocs sites, $20 a month for each extraOne help center, a main collection per product, English and French

Inbox reports and integrationsYes, manyFront desk KPIs, fewer integrations

Tickets with response timesThrough the inboxYes, per team and per priority

CRM, deals, calls and invoicesThrough integrationsBuilt in

From a client's question to an answer, in one inbox.

Nora answers what your help center covers, hands off the rest, and your teammate sees the whole account while they reply.

1The visitor asks in the chat
2Nora hands off what needs a person
3Your teammate sees the whole account

The website chat: the visitor asked about adding users, and dots show the team is typing an answer — The visitor asks in the chat

What changes on Monday.

01
BeforeThe free plan stops at 5 users, then every teammate is $25 to $75 a month
With AloriUnlimited users on every plan, free one included
02
BeforeAI Answers bill $0.75 every time they resolve a question
With AloriNora runs on your plan's credits
03
BeforeThe inbox is in Help Scout, the client's deal and calls are somewhere else
With AloriEmail, chat, calls and the deal on one customer record

See what they type, before they send it.

In Conversations, the visitor's words show up while they type. You read the question before it's sent, so your answer is ready the moment they hit Enter.

Nothing to turn on: it works on every website chat.
Your teammates' replies and notes show up live too, so two people never answer the same chat.
The visitor sees dots while you type back.

A website chat in Conversations: the visitor's next message appears faded with moving dots, under "Nadia Bouchard is typing…"

Your Docs, one link each.

Give Alori the links to your Help Scout Docs articles in Chat. Each one comes over with its text, links and pictures, saved in Alori, and Nora answers from it right away.

If you have several Docs sites, give each product its own main collection.
Ask Sam to translate an article to French.
Your own address, like help.yourcompany.com, on the Business plan.

Alori's own help center: a big search box and collections such as Getting started and Plans, credits and billing

Change it by asking.

Your app isn’t frozen on day one. Write what you need, the way you’d text it. Alori makes the change and shows you before anything goes live.

Turn on the chat on our website
Who is waiting on an answer from us?
Write a help article on how to read your monthly report
What do clients ask most this month?

The full guide

Everything above, in detail: how it works, what it replaces and what it does not.

Short answer: Alori is a Help Scout alternative for small software companies and agencies that like a simple shared inbox but want the CRM, deals, calls and invoices in the same place. Support email, website chat, an AI support bot, tickets and a help center come with unlimited users on every plan, and the bot runs on your plan's credits instead of a fee per answer. Switching is four steps: forward your support email, bring your customers and help articles, and turn on the chat.

Why teams leave Help Scout

Help Scout is a friendly help desk that many small teams love. They leave it when the team and the tools grow:

Paid plans run $25 to $75 per user a month, and the free plan stops at 5 users and 100 contacts a month.
AI Answers cost $0.75 for each resolution, so the bill grows in the months the bot answers the most.
The inbox is in Help Scout, the deal in a CRM and the calls in a phone app, so nobody sees the whole customer.

What you pay

Help Scout, as listed on its pricing page in November 2026:

Team of 5	Help Scout	Alori
Users	$125 a month on Standard, $225 on Plus	Unlimited users on every plan
AI answers	$0.75 for each resolution	Uses your plan's credits
Help center sites	2 on Standard, 3 on Plus, $20 a month for each extra	One help center, a main collection per product at no extra cost
Plan	Users plus AI	Free to start, Solo from $99 a month, Business from $249

See pricing for what each Alori plan includes.

What Alori replaces

Support email: forward support@ to Alori. Each email opens a conversation, and Nora answers by email or leaves it to your team.
Conversations is the shared inbox: email, website chat, calls, texts, Messenger and Instagram in one thread per customer, with internal notes and @mentions, saved replies and tags. Tabs show what needs you, what's unread and what's yours.
Website chat works like Beacon: turn it on in Front desk for your Alori website, or paste one line into any other site or web app. Visitors search your help articles right in the chat, and send photos and files.
To know who's chatting, Alori("identify") tells the chat who is signed in to your product, with their company and your own fields, signed with a user hash from your server.
An AI support bot: Nora answers first and hands off when she needs a person, backs you up after 2 minutes, or only suggests answers. She learns from your help center, Company memory and price list, and reads a signed-in customer's Stripe invoices when Stripe is connected.
A help center that works like Docs: articles with pictures and videos, sorted into sections, in English and French, at your own address on the Business plan. Give each product its own main collection in the same help center.
Tickets for work that takes more than one reply, with steps per team, response times per priority and an email to the customer as the ticket moves.
Deals, calls, quotes and invoices on the same customer record.

What Alori doesn't do yet

Alori doesn't have Help Scout's polished inbox reports or its large list of integrations, and its help center is only in English and French. If you only need a calm shared inbox for a few people and your CRM is somewhere else, Help Scout's free plan may be all you need.

How to switch

Start free. Describe your business. Alori builds your app with customers, Conversations and Front desk.
Bring your customers. Help Scout sends its account owners a CSV of customer names and emails on request. Open Ask Sam and paste the list after "Add these customers:". Alori adds them, with an Undo button.
Bring your Docs articles. In Chat, give Alori the links to your Help Scout Docs articles. Each one comes over with its text, links and pictures, and Nora learns from it right away.
Forward your support email and turn on the chat. Copy your Support email address in Front desk and forward support@ to it. Then swap the Beacon script for the line under Install.

There is no one-click Help Scout import yet: past conversations stay in Help Scout, so keep it open read-only for a few weeks.

Questions

Another question? Ask it when you start.

Yes for small teams that want a shared inbox, chat, an AI bot and a help center next to their CRM, deals and phones, with unlimited users. If you only need a shared inbox for a few people, Help Scout is simple and does it well.

Yes. A team of 5 pays from $99 a month on Alori's Solo plan, everyone included, against $125 to $225 a month in Help Scout users before AI answers. Alori also replaces your CRM, phones and invoices.

Alori has a free plan that needs no card, with credits to try your AI team and no limit on users.

Your customers' names and emails, from the CSV Help Scout sends on request and you paste into Ask Sam, and your Docs articles, one link each. Past conversations don't come over yet.

Small software companies and agencies, usually under 50 people.

See all →

Your turn.

Describe your business in a sentence. Alori builds the app.