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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

    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AServiceDesk Plus is free help desk software from ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corporation.

    $10

    Starting Price Per Month

    Pricing
    KayakoManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Editions & Modules
    Kayako One
    $79
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Standard
    $10.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    Professional
    $21.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    Enterprise
    $50.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KayakoManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    KayakoManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Considered Both Products
    Kayako
    No answer on this topic
    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    Features
    KayakoManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Kayako and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Feature
    Kayako
    2.0
    11 Ratings
    122% below category average
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    7.5
    22 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets1.011 Ratings8.022 Ratings
    Expert directory1.05 Ratings6.015 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications1.08 Ratings7.716 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation1.07 Ratings8.818 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission7.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket response1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Service restoration00 Ratings7.217 Ratings
    Self-service tools00 Ratings7.020 Ratings
    ITSM reports and dashboards00 Ratings7.520 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Kayako and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    9 Ratings
    156% below category average
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    -
    Ratings
    External knowledge base1.09 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Kayako and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    10 Ratings
    156% below category average
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    -
    Ratings
    Customer portal1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    IVR1.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social integration1.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email support1.010 Ratings00 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration1.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM asset management
    Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Kayako and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    6.1
    17 Ratings
    28% below category average
    Configuration mangement00 Ratings6.616 Ratings
    Asset management dashboard00 Ratings6.516 Ratings
    Policy and contract enforcement00 Ratings5.112 Ratings
    Change management
    Comparison of Change management features of Kayako and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    6.8
    18 Ratings
    22% below category average
    Change requests repository00 Ratings7.717 Ratings
    Change calendar00 Ratings5.813 Ratings
    Service-level management00 Ratings7.016 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    KayakoManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    SysAid
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Ivanti ITSM
    Score6.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KayakoManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Likelihood to Recommend
    1.0
    (22 ratings)
    9.0
    (22 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.8
    (11 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.7
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.1
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KayakoManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    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
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    We use the free version, it allows up to 10 technicians to be added to the system, but that has never been an issue, as we are a small team. The functionality and usability of MESDP are great and can work with larger teams too. It is well suited to be used as a main Ticketing system, and this is not limited to IT only, I am sure other teams that need to keep track and log issues will be able to utilize MESDP without any issues. There is a self-service portal as an option, however, we do not use it as of yet, as there has not been the need for it. If you would need to use the same instance within multiple departments, this may be a bit tricky to achieve, as there is no easy way to limit visibility to tickets from other departments, however, I am sure there is a way around it.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    • It is very easy to create business rules that automatically route email tickets to the correct department and apply templates to correctly categorize the incident.
    • The technician auto-assign function allows email tickets to be fairly apportioned using a round robin technique. We do not cuurently use the load balancing technique which is also available.
    • It is very easy to bulk edit requests to correct miscatergorization by Analysts. (i.e. Incidents vs. Service Requests)
    • Coordinating communications and notifying ticket holders when a network or application event is resolved is very simple.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    • Reporting tools; the report features can be a little limited, it can be quite tricky to get the information you want displayed in detail
    • You can set required fields within the ticket template, which should mean the user has to complete them before they can submit the ticket, however this often doesn't enforce correctly
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    Because this is the best tool, we have given ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus a rating of 9 out of 10 because it provides a good overall IT service management experience, especially for ticketing, asset management, automation, and reporting. It has helped us organize IT support processes and improve visibility. For ticketing.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Kayako
    I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
    Incentivized
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    As any other feature-rich software package, starting out with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has a little bit of a learning curve, but it usually doesn't take very long until you can use the basic features. Training new technicians on the use of the software does not take very long, and for users to submit tickets it is as easy as sending an email.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    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
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    I have a few issues with MESDP and even though we use the free version, the support staff was very quick to respond and extremely competent and helpful. Luckily, I have only had to use them a couple of times over the 2.5 years I have been using their product, but they strike me as very competent, friendly and helpful, regardless of the version of their product you use.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    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
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    Spiceworks was free, which obviously had both benefits and limitations - I will say that the community around Spiceworks has always been great. If we could replicate that experience with the ME user base, it would be terrific.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    ManageEngine A Div of Zoho Corporation Pvt Ltd
    • The tool does not scale well from an ROI perspective. As you add a customer, you must add a new instance, hence a new license.
    • The tool is probably on the expensive side (34,000 USD per 130 technicians per year).
    • There is no usage beyond incident, change, and problem management. The CMDB feature is extremely limited and cannot generate additional ROI. There is no knowledge-base or integration with other software (other than ME Desktop Central).
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots