Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Kayako

Kayako

Overview

What is Kayako?

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…

Read more
Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Kayako Fusion has been widely adopted by organizations to improve their customer service operations. Users have found that the software …
Continue reading

Kayako knowledge base

8 out of 10
March 18, 2016
Incentivized
We are currently using Kayako as a knowledge base and ticketing system. Users can login and create support tickets for IT as well as find …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 13 features
  • Ticket creation and submission (11)
    7.0
    70%
  • Organize and prioritize service tickets (11)
    1.0
    10%
  • Ticket response (11)
    1.0
    10%
  • Email support (10)
    1.0
    10%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

Inbox

$15.00

Cloud
Per User Per Month

Growth

$30.00

Cloud
Per User Per Month

Scale

$60.00

Cloud
Per User Per Month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $29 per month
Return to navigation

Features

Incident and problem management

Streamlining ticketing and service restoration processes

2
Avg 7.9

Self Help Community

Features that allow customers to self-service for support issues.

1
Avg 7.7

Multi-Channel Help

Features related to providing customer service and support via different communication channels. Communications are organized by ticket/customer/channel for the convenience of agents.

1
Avg 7.7
Return to navigation

Product Details

What is Kayako?

Kayako Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Kayako starts at $29.

Desk.com (discontinued), Freshdesk, and HelpSpot are common alternatives for Kayako.

Reviewers rate Ticket creation and submission highest, with a score of 7.

The most common users of Kayako are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(46)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Kayako Fusion has been widely adopted by organizations to improve their customer service operations. Users have found that the software allows them to efficiently handle support tickets and maintain a personalized approach to customer interactions. The canned replies feature has proven to be effective in addressing common issues, while still providing a hands-on feel in customer communications. The self-hosted version of Kayako Fusion has demonstrated its reliability even during heavy traffic spikes, ensuring seamless customer support. The software's email support ticketing system has simplified the process for customers to send support requests and has enabled easy tracking and distribution of work to employees. Additionally, users have leveraged the powerful API provided by Kayako Fusion to create tools that enhance and expand the functionality of the software. For example, websites built using the Kayako Fusion API display real-time ticket queue information and alert the help desk about new tickets, resulting in quicker response times. The ability to directly interface with the database has allowed users to customize Kayako Fusion by building modules tailored to their specific business needs, such as a billing module with customized billing rules. Users have also appreciated the ease of configuration modifications and file uploads within Kayako Fusion's database-centric architecture, eliminating the need for permissions on multiple directories. With features like the option to choose between storing file attachments in the database or on the file system, Kayako Fusion offers flexibility in managing the database footprint. Regular backups of both the webserver directory and database ensure data reliability and safety for organizations using Kayako Fusion. Overall, customers have expressed satisfaction with Kayako Fusion, praising its performance as a reliable and versatile system for managing support tickets and facilitating effective customer communications. The software has been utilized across various industries and departments, serving as a case management tool, workflow tool, and company-wide ticketing system. Whether it is used by managed service providers to track service requests across different client companies or by organizations for software issue support and tracking, Kayako Fusion has consistently delivered the desired results. Users have found Kayako Fusion to be easy to program and have appreciated its reliability and the availability of customer support. The software has proved valuable as a help desk system, efficiently routing trouble tickets to the appropriate IT professionals and improving overall efficiency and reliability compared to previous systems. Kayako Fusion has been utilized in many ways, including organizing customer issues, requests, and ideas, facilitating direct communication with clients, tracking user issues and resolutions in IT departments, serving as a ticketing system for clients to submit support questions or issues, and functioning as a knowledge base for self-help documentation. The versatility of Kayako Fusion is evident in its institutional-wide use for IT and academic technology support in educational institutions, benefiting students, employees, and faculty members. Moreover, Kayako Fusion has been utilized by customers and potential customers for various purposes, including sales, support, customer service, and accounting. The software seamlessly converts emails into tickets and organizes them based on their status, progress, source, time, assignee, and intended procedure. Integration with third-party apps and APIs allows for the automatic import of tickets from different channels, such as Gmail and the company's built-in support system. For IT departments specifically, Kayako Fusion serves as a comprehensive tool for tracking user issues and resolutions, managing change and patch management processes, as well as handling permissions requests and user access changes. In addition to its efficiency in streamlining support operations, Kayako Fusion also serves as a ticketing system that provides a paper trail and historic record of client communications. Users have leveraged this feature to maintain a documented history of interactions with clients. In summary, Kayako Fusion has proven itself as a versatile solution used in various industries and departments to enhance customer support operations, track service requests and issues efficiently, improve workflow management, facilitate direct communication with clients, and serve as an institution-wide tool for IT support in educational institutions.

Users commonly recommend thoroughly researching and testing different helpdesk products before choosing Kayako. They advise evaluating the organization's needs and comparing them to the features offered by Kayako. However, they think Kayako is overpriced for the features it delivers.

Users suggest trying Kayako to experience its usefulness, emphasizing that it is user-friendly and intuitive. They also recommend not being afraid to use Kayako and suggest it for small and mid-sized companies as it helps save time and efforts in organizing emails and messages. Proper training and defining processes are advised to avoid struggles with ticket creation and information retrieval.

Additionally, users recommend exploring other options like Salesforce Essentials or Agile CRM for integrated helpdesk features. They believe Kayako is an excellent product for basic customer support but may not be suitable for advanced functionality or robust custom fields. They recommend trying out the demo and contacting support for any questions.

Users find the knowledge base feature of Kayako great and easy to set up. However, they think the live chat and support platforms may be better in other products. They mention that customer service is easier and faster with Kayako compared to live chat.

Overall, users appreciate the ease of use, simple setup, and customer satisfaction of Kayako. They suggest reading the documentation for better understanding and utilization of the software. Furthermore, they recommend Kayako for companies in the beginning stages with budget constraints and basic support needs.

Lastly, users suggest adding more custom reporting options and introducing collaborators to the Inbox plan. They recommend using the cloud version of Kayako to avoid purchasing hardware but also mention that the self-hosted version can be considered as an alternative option.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-22 of 22)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I believe that buyers should beware! In my experience, Kayako will get you in and then attempt to lock in contracts with price increases of 200% percent in a year and not notify you until after the renewal date and attempt to force continued use based on exit clauses. I believe they also manipulate contract dates to short-change clients.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kayako is well suited as a support platform for managing support tickets. If you need a platform for tracking communications, bugs, or feature requests, Kayako does this well. This is not used for anything much outside that. If you were to want something with client communications and project management, I would look at something like Basecamp.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Jon Shurtliff | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kayako was only ok - We switched because there are much better software platforms out there that manage Ticketing and KBs. Also, we feel like we were forced off the On-Prem platform - being pushed to the Cloud software. Not liking this push, we decided to go to another provider instead.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Features might work for you, but don't expect any support from them. For them, a trial user is not handled the same as a paying user, at least that is what the sales employee said. Support keeps you waiting forever until your trial period is over.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
For small businesses that do not get a large number of messages, it is very well suited. The main factor would be the price which is quite low in comparison to the competition. There is a mobile app as well with very few features, but it is good for notifications.
Zane Lucas | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
It is well suited for anyone requiring an easy to set up helpdesk. For existing customers on perpetual licenses, the new charging strategy that Kayako has forced is extremely expensive and results in loss of license if now paid on an annual basis. Perpetual doesn’t mean perpetual at Kayako.
Joshua Tobiansky | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kayako is suited for a small company that is just getting started. We are in the web-hosting industry and it was very hard to fully adapt the system the way we would have liked to. Kayako would be very good if you were hosting an ecommerce shop or customer service business where you can look at each customer interaction as separate and not over a long-term period.
Jericho Fulgencio | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
If you're a small to medium managed service provider that is managing multiple client companies, Kayako would likely be a great fit for you. If you need a help desk system that also does network scans to gather information like product keys and device status, you may want to go with another help desk system that also incorporates SNMP scanning like Spiceworks.
March 18, 2016

Kayako knowledge base

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kayako is best for support ticketing needs as well as knowledge base (self help) documentation. Users can easily enter tickets that are then routed to the appropriate support tech. If users need immediate help they can search the knowledge base for support documentation. The knowledge base is easy to manage with the addition/editing/removal of any documents we have. This enables a 24/7 support hub for those users who wish to follow documentation. Otherwise they can log a ticket for one of our techs to further troubleshoot and resolve issues.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Access to the API and to the raw database were the major pro's from my standpoint. Though it is more work to manage your own instance of Kayako, that was preferred for our installation. I wouldn't think you would get the direct database access to script against through their hosted version.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kayako has been great for our business. We use this program across the company and find that it's a very efficient tool. The only issue we have with Kayako is the search engine, we find it difficult to use. Overall, it's a great system.
Nathaniel Bannister | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • The amount of technical talent you have in house will likely need to be factored into whether or not you buy into the SaaS or Self-hosted packages that they offer.
  • The Self-hosted variant allows a lot more customization but will require at least a familiarity with Linux and the LAMP/LEMP stack to get the application performing the way it needs to.
  • There are multiple editions, Fusion, Engage, and Case. You will need to look carefully at how each offerings features aligns with your needs as you may be able to save money by using one of the two pared down versions.
  • There is no official Kayako Desktop client for OS X or Linux which is unfortunate as it is a much more cohesive experience for the Customer Service Reps to use.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is suitable when you want a reliable, fast responding help desk system that doesn't need a lot of customization in order to get it working. It is also helpful when your users are somewhat technically minded or willing to go through a bit of training in order to get up to speed on the product.
Return to navigation