Kayako

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Kayako
Score 1.9 out of 10
N/A
Kayako is a help desk / ticketing product and is available is both SaaS and on-premise configurations. Is is built in PHP and uses my SQL. The product competes with HelpSpot, ZohoSupport, Freshdesk and Zendesk. The Kayako Engage edition may be deployed as a live chat system without ticketing at a reduced cost, featuring click-to-call and site visitor monitoring for customer targeting and engagement.
$29
per month
Pricing
Kayako
Editions & Modules
Inbox
$15.00
Per User Per Month
Growth
$30.00
Per User Per Month
Scale
$60.00
Per User Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Kayako
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Kayako
Considered Both Products
Kayako
Chose Kayako
Kayako is way more scalable than Spiceworks' helpdesk offering. We had trouble visualizing our current layout within their environment.

Zendesk was priced quite a bit higher than Kayako while offering similar functionality. It didn't make sense to want to migrate to a new …
Chose Kayako
Jira is much more pricey but more complete. It integrates with our Scrum Board and Agile Software Development platform. So we can much more easily turn Tickets into User Stories, and our techs and devs only have to live in one software platform instead of having to switch …
Chose Kayako
Kayako's interface is far less complex than Zendesk, so it looked like a good platform. Unfortunately, the features didn't work and their support team is the worst. I went back to Zendesk and I got everything to work including their chat function. Zendesk just works. You don't …
Chose Kayako
Kayako beats the competition with the price but unfortunately loses the battle on all other fronts. Simply not enough options, not enough customisability, very nice and friendly customer support but not the most capable. If the code was less buggy it could be a stronger …
Chose Kayako
Based on cost, Kayako is by far the better solution.
Chose Kayako
Kayako is a great tool for the service industry. I think it is better suited for businesses that do 1-off interactions rather than using it to manage and maintain a larger repeat customer base. This was just our opinion based on the industry we are in. We are in the hosting …
Chose Kayako
We were using Spiceworks for a few years before switching to Kayako but found that it wasn't as customizable or as user friendly for our customers. The SNMP scanning and inventory features with Spiceworks was nice but we needed more of a Help Desk that would allow us to scale …
Chose Kayako
We only looked at a few. For a small software company, that only wanted to provide better support, it was affordable and easy enough to assimilate into our system.
Chose Kayako
We evaluated Spiceworks and it tried to do too much. Kayako addressed our need for email support and distributing/tracking work without trying to introduce direct monitoring, knowledge base, and all kinds of other tools. It was much simpler to configure for our needs.
Chose Kayako
This is the only product that I have used for a Help Desk or Case management system
Chose Kayako
Kayako is the only ticketing system I have used. I found it easy to learn and use.
Chose Kayako
Kayako is the only helpdesk software that I've ever used. In the past we only used a Gmail inbox.
Chose Kayako
Tried Zen desk and just felt Kayako had many more controllable features.
Chose Kayako
We went with Kayako at the time of purchase because there was a much more cost effective self-hosted option that we have been able to leverage to our benefit. That option has become much more expensive now, but we feel like we'd still make the decision again.
Chose Kayako
I choose Fusion over OTRS because of the simple nature of the set up and management of Fusion. OTRS required a lot of initial setup and the company was looking for a reliable base system to build onto over time rather than a complex help desk system up front. If you are looking …
Chose Kayako
Kayako's interface is definitely better in the "ease of use" category.

I find that the functionality of Kayako trumps Numara in a few different ways, and the search functions are a little bit easier to navigate.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Kayako
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Kayako
2.0
11 Ratings
119% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets1.011 Ratings
Expert directory1.05 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications1.08 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation1.07 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission7.011 Ratings
Ticket response1.011 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Kayako
1.0
9 Ratings
154% below category average
External knowledge base1.09 Ratings
Internal knowledge base1.08 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Kayako
1.0
10 Ratings
154% below category average
Customer portal1.07 Ratings
IVR1.02 Ratings
Social integration1.04 Ratings
Email support1.010 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration1.06 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Kayako
Small Businesses
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Kayako
Likelihood to Recommend
1.0
(22 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.8
(11 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
7.5
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
2.1
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Kayako
Likelihood to Recommend
Kayako
When it works, It's without a doubt a great help desk solution. It is perfect for our usage, and have rolled it out company-wide. It's great if you have multiple departments. We have it set up so most items come through a single desk that then hands out tickets to their proper department. There may be cheaper options for smaller organizations but for one that is as service-driven as ours, we really think Kayako is a great fit.
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Pros
Kayako
  • Gives a very good report on an individual level of what is being done for a customer or corporate issue.
  • Easy to understand who has what, what the tickets are about, how long they have been opened and how many times the customer/employee have gone back and forth with each other.
  • Nice dashboard view.
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Cons
Kayako
  • Departments need a bit of work. Even though you can have multiple departments, the only changes that can be made are globally. If you want independent queues within the departments, you have to do a lot of work that can be very confusing.
  • Survey system is not up to speed. Kayako really needs to add Net Promoter Score into their system. Also, if a staff user removes their name from an incident ticket, it removes them from the survey so you really can't even get a good estimate of how well your staff is in the eyes of the customer.
  • Very difficult to implement when you already have a customer base. Setting them up in organizations is difficult. Also, the sign-up for new customers is quirky. If you send an email to Kayako, it will say you are not an authorized user, however, it will store your email address. If you try to send an email a second time, it will go through. This is one of many reasons why we decided to move from Kayako to Oracle Service Cloud.
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Likelihood to Renew
Kayako
  • We are grandfathered in on their old Software-assurance pricing and our continued use costs us only a few hundred dollars a year (excluding hosting expenses)
  • Our team's processes are now heavily ingrained in the system
  • We have not been shown a more compelling option that is more cost-effective while still offering all the features we've come to expect
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Usability
Kayako
I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
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Reliability and Availability
Kayako
They are really good, but it takes a while to get back, because of the large time difference to the Eastern US. However, they are very helpful.
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Support Rating
Kayako
  • We didn't have to use support too much, but when we did, they were able to assist us and help us make everything work.
  • Mostly we used their Online KB and step by step instructions to get all of our issues resolved.
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Implementation Rating
Kayako
Three years in we are about as happy with Kayako as we could be. We've had several employee's leave and on-boarding new hires was easier than it has ever been as things are uniform and consistent across the entire application.
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Alternatives Considered
Kayako
We were using Spiceworks for a few years before switching to Kayako but found that it wasn't as customizable or as user friendly for our customers. The SNMP scanning and inventory features with Spiceworks was nice but we needed more of a Help Desk that would allow us to scale our services to more companies.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Kayako
  • Tickets were definitely responded to faster once we implemented the audible alarm that would go off when new tickets came into the queue. This was possible because of the API.
  • Since the system was email based we could set our monitoring software up to generate tickets automatically via email for customers when it found something out of the ordinary.
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ScreenShots