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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Kayako

    Score6.9 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

    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ASpiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management.

    $0

    (free for 1-5 Seats)

    Pricing
    KayakoSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Editions & Modules
    Kayako One
    $79
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Core Plan
    $0
    Premium
    $6
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KayakoSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    KayakoSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    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 …
    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
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Would buy again
    35 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    35 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    27 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    31 Answers
    Features
    KayakoSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Kayako and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    Kayako
    2.0
    11 Ratings
    121% below category average
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    8.1
    56 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets1.011 Ratings8.955 Ratings
    Expert directory1.05 Ratings5.448 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications1.08 Ratings4.743 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation1.07 Ratings9.446 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission7.011 Ratings10.055 Ratings
    Ticket response1.011 Ratings10.054 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Kayako and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    9 Ratings
    155% below category average
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    9.6
    53 Ratings
    20% above category average
    External knowledge base1.09 Ratings9.649 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base1.08 Ratings9.649 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Kayako and Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    10 Ratings
    155% below category average
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    8.7
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Customer portal1.07 Ratings9.947 Ratings
    IVR1.02 Ratings4.412 Ratings
    Social integration1.04 Ratings9.028 Ratings
    Email support1.010 Ratings10.047 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration1.06 Ratings10.029 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    KayakoSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Small Businesses
    Intercom
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Intercom
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KayakoSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    1.0
    (22 ratings)
    10.0
    (84 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.8
    (11 ratings)
    10.0
    (29 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.9
    (10 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.1
    (4 ratings)
    8.7
    (26 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KayakoSpiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    It's a great helpdesk solution - we currently have five years of data within it, roughly 25,000 tickets. The older edition is a great inventory and software license tracking tool. It is easy for users to use the interface and submit tickets and requests on the web, and its email integration is solid. The new version is a below-average system monitoring tool, only giving up/down status and a few other metrics.
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • It helps to multitask, even on the go with the mobile App.
    • We can customize to meet your needs with automated responses, notifications, and templates.
    • Detailed reports allow managers to keep track [of] and analyze data.
    • Allows for a database to store notes helpful for future tickets.
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • I have always wanted a way to redirect a support request into another IS bin, such as a development task.
    • It's possible to extract the data from the Spiceworks database, but it would be helpful if the process to do so were easier.
    • Improved ability to customize the system generated emails to improve the formatting and company branding.
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks is a free tool, so there would be no hesitation if we are required to upgrade it. We have installed Spiceworks on a dedicated server with more than enough resources to get the most from this tool, so we will have this running in our department for years to come.
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks is user friendly and easy to set up. It can be customized to suit your needs. If there are any problems, you can go to the community forums for support and be in contact with many IT Pros, as well as the Spiceworks support staff and development teams who are always happy to help users out
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    We use it both locally on our own server so up time is decided by us and we also use the hosted help desk. We have never had an outage of that.
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Spiceworks has been working out of the box, and some of the basic customizations have been successful with just our internal staff handling. We don't have any other issues with the tool. It provides us with the inventory information we want in a quick and concise report in a variety of formats for our team.
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    If you can spin up a VM to run it on, you'll thank yourself later. If you have remote sites, set up a local server (or dedicated computer) at each site and set them up as remote collectors for the main site. You'll save time and bandwidth
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    EGroupware UI is clunky and hard to use, Jira is great but the pricing is expensive in comparison with spice works that has a free version and you can test it out properly before buying and make a correct decision based on your business plan and company objectives with the right software.
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • Positive - Allow organizations to implement structured Help Desk procedures.
    • Positive - IT can begin to quantify their tickets and uncover needs within the organization.
    • Positive - IT can develop a solid roadmap with [the] management of future needs, equipment refresh schedules, etc.
    • Positive - IT can pinpoint employees who may need extra training or updated equipment based on historical ticketing data.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots