11 Best Email Ticketing Systems for 2024

Did you know that almost 91% of customers are more likely to buy again after having a great customer service experience?

To achieve this, you might need a top-notch customer support system that ensures customer satisfaction. 

Having a reliable system is crucial. It helps you respond to customer needs quickly and efficiently, which keeps them happy and coming back. For this reason, we’ve come up with the 11 best email ticketing systems that can be the perfect solution for your business in 2024.

Why is an email ticketing system important for business?

Imagine you’re using a shared inbox that multiple support agents access, leading to duplicate responses and confusion. Or, picture one person trying to manage thousands of emails at once. This makes it hard to track each email and know who is helping which clients.

That’s why an email ticketing system becomes essential for support agents. It turns customer emails into tickets, making it easier for support agents to manage customer queries. Thus, you’ll have a more organized support system that simplifies support management.

Moreover, it offers a well-organized dashboard to monitor tasks, assign agents, track productivity, automation, and more.

Criteria of the best email ticketing system

Selecting an ideal ticketing system for your business is not easy. There are some key factors that you need to take into consideration to streamline your support. For example,

• User-friendly interface: As your support team has to use a ticketing system 24/7 to handle customer queries, an intuitive, fast, organized, and reliable interface will help your support reps to work better.
• Integration capability: To prevent data segregation, you should have some key integrations such as CRM, Email, WhatsApp, Slack, Telegram, Twitter, and similar tools.
• Scalability and flexibility: Suppose your business is at its peak and you are dealing with thousands of customers daily. Therefore, make sure your ticketing system is versatile and responsive to new challenges like getting millions of queries, and recurring different channels and user manuals.
• Cost-effectiveness: A cost-effective system is necessary to balance between versatility and affordability. So that you get the most return on investment to justify your expense.

So, these are some crucial things to keep in mind before choosing the right customer support ticketing system for your business. Without further ado, let’s get into the list and find out which solution works best for you.

11 best email ticketing systems of 2024

If you’re in a hurry, click here for a brief overview

1. Fluent Support

Fluent Support is an absolute gem for a self-hosted helpdesk plugin. It is ideal for users who are seeking affordable, user-friendly, and well-maintained solutions. It’s a powerful self-hosted email ticketing system with versatile features and an intuitive interface. 

The ticketing system is designed to do many repetitive tasks like agent auto-assigning, ticket prioritization, and automated replies. This ensures time-saving and efficient support operation for your business. Fluent support is fully equipped with everything a customer support system possibly needs. Your team does not need to take any extra burden.

Moreover, the team behind Fluent Support is committed to providing you with the best services. That’s why within just 3 years in the market 8000+ businesses are now using Fluent Support as their self-hosted support plugin. You know why it comes top on the list! Because of its affordability and versatile functionality. So, whether you are a small enterprise or a startup, give it a try to transform your ticket management system.

Key features: 

• Unlimited tickets, agents, and users: No limits on ticket volume, support agents, or user accounts.
• AI-powered: Its AI-driven integrations like ticket summarization, tone analysis, generative reply, and fine tuning make the customer experience seamless and smooth.
• Workflow automation: Allowing both manual and automatic workflows enables segmentation, agent assignment, ticket closing, etc.
• Customizable dashboard: Get a customizable dashboard and WordPress widgets for more accessibility.
• Integration with 20+ tools: Seamlessly connect with 20+ plugins and external tools to enhance productivity and communication.
• Response delay Tracking: Provides necessary data such as Response time, Closing rate, and response rates to ensure timely customer support.
• Auto draft: Preventing ticket loss by automatically saving information.
• Email piping: Allows you to check tickets directly from your support email, ensuring efficient handling of customer inquiries.
• Calendar heatmap: This can predict the time and day you will most likely to face ticket overload.

Pricing:

Fluent Support offers both free and premium versions. The premium version starts at $129 per year, includes:

• Customizable ticket submission portal
• Automated agent assign
• Workflow automation
• Priority support and More.

Comment: The most prominent thing about Fluent Support is that you don’t need to spend money on extra add-ons after you buy the premium package. This quality makes Fluent Support the most affordable and compact email ticketing system for WordPress users.

Verdict: Highly recommended for small to mid-business.

2. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a web-based ticketing system. It has versatile features including shared inbox, agent collision detection, and automation. These features help businesses streamline their support services through automated ticket routing and customer self-service portals. They can also integrate with third-party applications.

While the wide range of features can make setup complex, Freshdesk makes up for it with AI-powered automation. This feature scans and evaluates tickets hourly. Whether you provide customer service or support, Freshdesk covers every task in depth.

Key features: 

• Automated ticket creation: Convert all emails and inquiries into tickets.
• Ticket Dispatch: Automatically suggest ticket fields to categorize, prioritize, and route incoming tickets.
• Collision detection: Ensures that multiple agents don’t end up working on the same ticket by accident.
• Automation: Automate follow-ups, escalations, and other tasks using specific time and event-based triggers to perform any action of your choice. 
• SLA management: Set deadlines for ticket response and resolution based on different business hours or categories.
• Canned response: Provide quick, consistent responses to common questions by creating preformatted replies.
• Reporting and analytics: Provide detailed reports and analytics on ticket volume, response times, resolution times, agent performance, and customer satisfaction.
• Customize agent roles: Give differential permissions for actions according to the roles and responsibilities of agents.

Pricing:

Freshdesk offers both free and premium versions. The premium version starts at $15/agent/month, includes: 

• Email ticketing system
• 1000+ marketplace apps
• SLA management & business hours
• In-depth helpdesk report
• Custom SSL and More.

Comment: Freshdesk’s pricing is based on a per-agent model, so adding more agents costs more. However, it offers many features and integrations, making customer service much easier.

Verdict: Recommended for mid-sized enterprises.

3. Help Scout

Help Scout is an email-based ticketing system that simplifies mailbox management. With features like ticket routing, automation, and seamless integrations with platforms like Salesforce and Zendesk, it enhances customer service efficiency. It also comes with built-in tools like a knowledge base and live chat for extensive support solutions.

Help Scout combines user-friendly functionality with powerful automation. It supports customer self-service options and integrates smoothly with existing systems, ensuring a streamlined customer support experience.

Additionally, Help Scout uses its cloud storage for tickets and information, which might raise trust concerns. However, their large customer base proves their reliability in the business world.

Key features: 

• Email integration: Allows emails to convert into tickets for unified communication.
• Ticket management: Capabilities like tagging, assignment, prioritization, and status tracking are included to ensure proper handling of customer inquiries.
• Automation: Automation of workflow, query, and hourly report-based replies.
• Response templates: Pre-defined response templates enable agents to quickly respond to common inquiries while maintaining consistency in communication.
• Team collaboration: Assign conversations, leave internal notes, and see when another team member is replying to avoid duplicate replies.
• Analytics and reporting: Facilities of custom reports with unlimited reporting history.
• Knowledge Base integration: Access and share relevant articles or resources with customers directly with the ticketing system.

Pricing:

HelpScout has several packages starting from $25/month, Includes:

• Automated workflows
• Advanced API access
• Beacon help widget
• API and 100+ integrations
• Live chat and More.

Comment: Help Scout charges you by the number of agents. Also, they have tiered features for each plan that aren’t available for cheaper plans. You have to choose your plans wisely.

Verdict: Recommended for enterprises.

4. Zendesk

Zendesk is a popular web-based platform that offers an email ticketing system, AI-driven automation, live chat, etc. It combines all support channels into one workspace, making it easier for agents to manage requests. On the other hand, AI features route tickets to the right agent and suggest solutions, helping provide faster, personalized support. Automation saves time by solving requests without human help.

Despite all these excellent features, Zendesk has some complexities. Users with basic knowledge may face difficulties while implementing the integrations. However, Zendesk is a modern-day solution that offers a huge number of features and ways through their ticketing system to accelerate your customer service.

Key features: 

• Ticketing system: centralized hub to connect all customer conversations for a complete view of each customer.
• AI agents: AI agents solve customer issues on their own across all of your channels.
• Reporting and analytics: Prebuilt analytics dashboard with multiple data collection facilities.
• Extensive integrations: Offers over 1,500 apps and integrations for enhanced functionality.
• Routing and intelligence: Automatically send your ticket to agent best agent by analyzing the problem.
• AI and automation: Advance features to control the workflow include chatbots, ticket routing, frontline, etc.
• Multilingual support: Provide support and localize your help center in multiple languages (40+).

Pricing:

Zendesk has a variety of plans starting from $19/agent/month, including:

• 1,000+ apps & integrations
• AI Agent
• Custom business rules (triggers & automation)
• Pre-defined responses (macros)
• Eligible for quality assurance add-on

Comment: Zendesk went very far based on its facilities and features. But there are many add-ons you have to purchase to enjoy and see its full efficiency.

Verdict: Recommended for enterprises and large businesses. 

5. Hiver

Hiver is a Gmail-based shared inbox ticketing system for businesses seeking to optimize Gmail for scalability. It allows you to assign emails to team members, track progress, automate tasks, and produce reports within the Gmail interface. This keeps response times fast without using any extra software.

Hiver provides a Google workspace for agents to collaborate across multiple channels like email, live chat, chatbot, voice communication, and knowledge base. Moreover, Hiver’s Kanban boards provide visual workflows for project management, enabling teams to set project status and track task progress. However, It’s not a scalable solution. It can be limiting for larger customer support agents looking to achieve more than just Gmail-based collaboration.

Key features: 

• Gmail integration: Organize and track emails as tasks and drive visibility into your team’s workload.
• Workflow automation: Build rule-based automation with triggers, conditions, and actions. 
• Team collaboration: Work together as a team with features like shared drafts, approvals workflows, collision detection, etc.
• Multi-channel support: Multi-channel engagement, including channels like Email, Live Chat, Voice and WhatsApp.
• Reporting and analytics: Get insights with users, tags, contacts, and customer dashboards.
• Auto assignment: Auto-assign incoming emails in a round-robin fashion among your team members.

Pricing:

Hiver offers customer-friendly packages starting from $24/user/month, including:

• Team collaboration
• Multi-channel engagement
• Asana, Jira, Slack, and QuickBooks app integrations
• Round-robin auto-assignment

Comment: Hiver is great for companies using Gmail for support. However, enterprises or businesses with a large customer base might need more advanced ticketing systems.

Verdict: Recommended for startups.

6. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is an email ticketing system that helps teams manage emails and other channels. Its sentiment analysis tool shows the mood of customer emails, so agents can quickly respond to unhappy customers. This makes customer support faster and more efficient.

Zoho Desk also has more useful features like a chatbot, automatic ticket tagging, and basic reply drafting through its AI assistant, Zia. So, teams can understand and improve customer experiences by marking emails as positive, negative, or neutral. However, Zoho Desk may not be the easiest software to navigate but its AI functionality makes up for it.

Key features: 

• Sentiment analysis: Identifies the mood of customer emails, allowing agents to prioritize and respond to negative feedback quickly.
• Multichannel support: Collects tickets from email, social media, live chat, web forms, and phone calls, ensuring comprehensive customer support.
• AI assistant (Zia): Provides a chatbot, automatic ticket tagging, and basic reply drafting to streamline support tasks.
• Reporting and analytics: Generate detailed reports to help teams monitor performance and improve customer service.
• Ticket management: Offers traditional ticket management features to track and resolve customer inquiries efficiently.
• Accessibility control: Empower users of all abilities to work on tickets smoothly.

Pricing:

Zoho Desk has several packages starting from $20/user/month, including:

• Ticketing system
• Sentiment analysis
• Multichannel support
• AI assistant (Zia)
• Reporting and analytics and more.

Comment: Zoho Desk is heavily AI-based. If an AI virtual assistant is important to you, choose Zoho Desk. However, if you prefer a more advanced and better interface, then choose something else.

Verdict: Recommended for small businesses.

7. Awesome Support

Awesome Support is a WordPress ticketing plugin designed to meet the diverse needs of businesses. It simplifies creating, assigning, and tracking support tickets organized in one place without the chaos of scattered messages. This system is well-suited for various customer service needs. Its advanced tools, such as custom forms, analytics, and AI integrations, help businesses provide specific information and efficient support.

Awesome Support is a compact service system that provides every necessary tool to improve customer support. Yet, it lacks most of the necessary plugin integrations and the packages are not affordable for a new startup business. 

Key features:

• Ticket management: Efficiently create, assign, and track support tickets from a centralized platform.
• Email integration: Seamless integration with email for managing customer inquiries directly within the help desk.
• Customizable workflows: Tailor workflows and processes to fit specific business needs and preferences.
• Multilingual support: Provide customer support in multiple languages to cater to a diverse customer base.
• Reporting and analytics: Generate insights into support team performance and customer satisfaction metrics.
• SLA management: Set and manage service level agreements (SLAs) to ensure timely resolution of customer issues.

Pricing:

Awesome Support has a free version plugin available in WordPress.The premium version starts from $149 per year, Including:

• Unlimited tickets
• Unlimited agents
• Canned response
• Custom status & labels and more.

Comment: Awesome support got both regular and bundle packages but add-ons are separated. You need to buy the necessary add-ons again. It can be a hassle.

Verdict: Not recommended.

8. HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot Service Hub is part of HubSpot’s software suite, focusing on customer service alongside marketing and sales tools. It transforms customer service into a revenue driver through its AI tools and seamless integration with HubSpot’s other platforms. Not only does it help teams expand their support services, but it also fosters business growth by enhancing customer relationships.

Moreover, the free plan for managing emails, setting support tickets and using email templates to respond faster. This also includes live chat and Facebook Messenger for multichannel support. It helps teams to connect with customers more easily.

Key features:

• Email management: Manage emails from a shared inbox, assign tickets, and use email templates for quick responses.
• Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks and workflows to increase efficiency.
• Omnichannel messaging: Access multiple channels in the inbox and seamlessly switch between them.
• SLA management: Set and manage service level agreements to meet customer expectations
• Team collaboration: Facilitate collaboration among support teams with shared inboxes and internal notes.
• AI-driven Tools: Utilize AI for smarter customer interactions and proactive support.
• Integration: Seamless integration with HubSpot’s marketing and sales platforms for a unified customer view.

Pricing:

HubSpot Service Hub has both free and paid versions. Premium models start from $20/month/seat, including:

• Ticketing system
• Live chat
• Calling SDK
• Conversational bots
• Email templates
• Reporting dashboards and more.

Comment: While Service Hub may not offer the widest range of advanced support tools, it provides a compact ticketing system supported by a top-notch team.

Verdict: Recommended for mid to enterprise.

9. ProProfsDesk

ProProfsDesk is a Saas customer support and email ticketing system. It automates tasks like ticket assignments and notifications to speed up support processes. Agents share a dashboard to manage and prioritize support tickets easily. It integrates with tools like Slack and Salesforce for enhanced functionality and provides personalized support while reducing costs.

ProProfs Desk is a reliable and affordable system for handling startups. However, it lacks the extensive features of other SaaS ticketing systems and does not yet include any AI capabilities. 

Key features:

• Email ticketing system: Manage and track customer support tickets efficiently via email.
• Shared dashboard: View, assign, prioritize, and resolve support tickets from a centralized dashboard.
• Agent collision detection: Avoid multiple agents working on the same ticket accidentally.
• Parent-child ticketing: Break down parent tickets into a group of child tickets that can be worked on by different agents or teams.
• Customizable workflows: Organized workflows to fit specific business needs for streamlined operations.
• Customer satisfaction surveys: Gather feedback from customers to measure satisfaction and improve service quality.

Pricing:

ProProfsDesk offers both free and premium versions. The premium version starts from $59.99/month/user, including:

• Advanced automation and workflow customization
• Integration with Slack, Salesforce, and Zapier
• Reporting and analytics
• 24/7 priority support

Comment: ProProfs Desk’s free version includes all the features of the premium version. This unique aspect sets it apart from other ticketing systems in the list.

Verdict: Recommended for small businesses and startups.

10. Groove

Groove is an efficient email ticketing system designed with a user-friendly interface that simplifies setup and operation. It ensures customer engagement by supporting communication through various channels like email, live chat, social media, and phone calls.

Groove is a reliable service system for its simplicity and cost-effectiveness. It facilitates quick responses and efficient team collaboration, making it good for customer service management. However, Groove lacks modern functionalities and dedicated workforce management tools which may not match broader business needs.

Key features:

• Email ticketing system: Manage customer inquiries and support tickets efficiently via email.
• Live chat: Engage with customers in real-time through live chat for instant support.
• Social media integration: Monitor and respond to customer inquiries and comments across social media platforms.
• Team collaboration tools: Facilitate internal communication and collaboration among support teams.
• Automation: Automate repetitive tasks such as ticket assignments and follow-ups to improve efficiency.
• Customizable workflows: Efficient workflows to fit specific business needs and streamline operations.

Pricing:

Groove offers subscriptions starting at $20/user/month, which include:

• Included channels
• Web widget with contact form & knowledge base
• Collision detection
• Customer feedback and more.

Comment: Groove offers a limited number of integrations, lacks advanced features, and has fewer proof points for assisting medium and large businesses.

Verdict: Recommended for SMBs and startups.

11. Support Candy

Support Candy is a WordPress plugin for managing all support inquiries. It allows you to manage tickets centrally so that you can assign, and track tickets easily. One of the outstanding features is its email notification system, by which both your team and customers are up to date about ticket statuses without constant checking. Support Candy offers effective customization for almost every aspect of the product. You can customize the user interface, ticket submission page, and agent dashboard to match your branding.

Although Support Candy integrates with third-party knowledge base tools for creating articles, it has no sufficient native knowledge base functionality. They do not provide activity history or collision detection, so a high volume of support tickets can create confusion. Apart from that Support Candy is a reliable source of customer support for WordPress users.

Key features:

• Email piping: Allows customers and agents to create and reply to tickets directly from their email inboxes.
• Workflows: Unlock the power of automation with SupportCandy workflows, revolutionizing the way you manage your processes.
• Schedule tickets: Automatically create periodic tickets by setting recurring times and information.
• Canned reply: Agents can save their replies which can be accessed in just a few clicks while replying to the tickets.
• Export tickets: Export tickets in CSV format as per the current filter from the ticket list page.
• Assign agent rules: Conditionally assign agents to new tickets automatically using set rules and workload.

Pricing:

Support Candy has a free plugin version available on WordPress. However, there are several paid versions starting from $79/year, which include: 

• 1 site license
• 1-year plugin updates
• 1-year priority support
• All extensions included
• All integrations included

Comment: They charge based on the number of websites instead of agents. If you have more websites, you’ll get a better deal.

Verdict: Not recommended.

Comparison of email ticketing systems

You already have an idea of the brief functionalities of some of the best email-based ticketing systems available on the market. Here is a tabulated list to go through before deciding to make sure we get a clearer picture.

Software	Unlimited Products	Unlimited Agents	Email Piping	Calendar Heatmap	Integrations	Pricing
Fluent Support	✅	✅	✅	✅	20+	Freemium (Premium starts at $129/month)
Freshdesk	✅	❌	✅	❌	600+	Freemium (Premium starts at $15/month)
Help Scout	❌	❌	✅	❌	100+	Premium starts at $25/month
Zendesk	❌	❌	✅	❌	1000+	Premium starts at $19/month (billed annually)
Hiver	✅	❌	✅	❌	9	Premium starts at $24/month
Zoho Desk	❌	✅	✅	❌	900+	Premium starts at $20/month
Awesome support	✅	✅	✅	❌	9	Freemium (Premium starts at $149/year)
HubSpot Service Hub	❌	❌	✅	❌	1500+	Freemium (Premium starts at $20/month/seat)
ProProfs Desk	❌	❌	✅	❌	5	Freemium (Premium starts at $59.99/month)
Groove	❌	❌	✅	❌	16	Premium starts at $20/month
Support Candy	❌	✅	✅	❌	8	Freemium (Premium starts at $79/year)

Plugins and SaaS are different types of software, but this doesn’t mean they are different business models. The main difference between Help Desk Plugin and Saas ticketing systems is that they offer different ways of software solutions.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, it’s up to you whether you want to maintain a good relationship with your customers or push them aside. From our perspective, a customer is a good friend and a well-wisher of our business. If we take care of them with our service, they will definitely give it back.

That’s why we created our own email ticketing system, Fluent Support, to ensure every customer service team has the full functionality to meet their customers’ needs.

Our main motive for creating this list (overall, Plugin & SaaS) is to help you easily choose the right email ticketing system for your customers. Every system in this list has outstanding capabilities. Choosing one wisely can be a valuable asset for your business if you want to improve customer service and support operations.