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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Kayako

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AKayako is a help desk and customer support platform that helps businesses automate workflows, improve agent productivity, and deliver personalized customer experiences across email, chat, and social media.

    $79

    per month

    Pricing
    Kayako
    Editions & Modules
    Kayako One
    $79
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    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
    Basecamp is more for client project management and implementations.
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    Chose Kayako
    Based on cost, Kayako is by far the better solution.
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    Chose Kayako
    I haven't used other similar products.
    Incentivized
    Chose Kayako
    Tried Zen desk and just felt Kayako had many more controllable features.
    Incentivized
    Chose Kayako
    Kayako is the only ticketing system I have used. I found it easy to learn and use.
    Incentivized
    Chose Kayako
    Kayako is the only helpdesk software that I've ever used. In the past we only used a Gmail inbox.
    Incentivized
    Chose Kayako
    This is the only product that I have used for a Help Desk or Case management system
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Kayako
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Kayako
    Feature
    Kayako
    2.0
    11 Ratings
    122% 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 Kayako
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    9 Ratings
    156% below category average
    External knowledge base1.09 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base1.08 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Kayako
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    10 Ratings
    156% 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
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Kayako
    I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots