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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…

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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

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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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
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Features

Incident and problem management

Streamlining ticketing and service restoration processes

2
Avg 7.8

Self Help Community

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

1
Avg 7.6

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 7.5
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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).
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Comparisons

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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.

Reviews

(1-22 of 22)
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I believe that buyers should beware of Kayako

Rating: 1 out of 10
March 24, 2024
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
10 years of experience
  • Negative, I believe they practice unethical behaviors
  • Negative, I feel they short-changed contracts
  • Negative, because in my experience, they have huge unannounced price increases

Highly Priced Support/Upgrades

Rating: 1 out of 10
October 17, 2017
ZL
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
11 years of experience
  • The cost is extremely high for existing customers and the new charges for support and upgrades are excessive.

Kayako is great, but maybe not for the larger enterprise organization.

Rating: 7 out of 10
October 05, 2016
  • Kayako is relatively inexpensive when you look at all the vendors in that field, however, you also get what you pay for in some aspects.
  • Kayako tends to raise pricing without notice.
  • Kayako was a great tool to use until we "outgrew" it. We are now using Oracle Service Cloud which allows better integration with Salesforce.

Kayako for Managed Service Providers (MSPs)

Rating: 8 out of 10
September 06, 2016
JF
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
3 years of experience
  • Kayako has helped our business to grow by allowing us to scale our help desk to accommodate more client companies in an efficient manner.
  • Kayako has allowed our customers to have more direct control over their help desk tickets and has made it easier for them to interface directly with our help desk staff.
  • The built-in chat features in Kayako that tie to our main website has allowed prospective customers to chat with our sales teams right away, resulting in more business.

Kayako knowledge base

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 18, 2016
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
2 years of experience
  • Kayako does not have the ability (at least we have not found it) to report on most searched tags/documents.
  • Can be difficult to attach files or images to tickets.
  • The interface could use some work. The interface can be difficult and the color contrast of design is not very strong.

Kayako Supports

Rating: 4 out of 10
June 03, 2015
MM
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
4 years of experience
  • We have better customer service, and less dropped conversations
  • The ROI is worth it, because we are not losing tickets to spam filters as often

Kayako API and direct database access

Rating: 7 out of 10
April 08, 2015
CE
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
2 years of experience
  • 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.

Kayako: Many benefits at a reasonable cost.

Rating: 8 out of 10
February 26, 2015
DD
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
3 years of experience
  • Kayako has been used as a proactive approach to approving our customer service. If the CSR determines that their may be an issue with a client that needs a manager or directors attention, they can open a ticket. This is then tracked by upper management until it is resolved.
  • A department manager is able to view the workload/tickets of their employees to better delegate future client requests.

Kayako Review

Rating: 10 out of 10
December 20, 2014
DG
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
1 year of experience
  • I know this helps our efficiency in support! The ability to track all these tickets and see exactly how much work each person is doing is phenomenal.

Kayako in a Nutshell

Rating: 8 out of 10
August 05, 2014
AH
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
2 years of experience
  • Increased employee efficiency
  • Better customer service
  • Workflow organization

Keep customers coming back with Kayako

Rating: 8 out of 10
August 01, 2014
  • Customers get an immediate reply even when our team is backlogged with requests
  • Customers who wouldn't normally pick up a phone can get quick access to a rep for help with purchasing decisions. Reps can address multiple customers at a time over live chat assuming that they are not being overly demanding.
  • When compared to our old methodology of using Outlook to handle a high volume of customer requests Kayako is not only more efficient but gives the CS Manager a lot more accountability for her reps.

My review of Kayako Fusion

Rating: 8 out of 10
July 29, 2014
AK
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
1 year of experience
  • Faster and more reliable ticket response times.
  • Less customization up front allows the company to grow with the software rather then assume what they want upfront and hope that they end up using their customizations.
  • Reliable and stable software enables administrators to focus on improvements rather than general health of the system.
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