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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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Learn from top reviewers

I believe that buyers should beware of Kayako

Rating: 1 out of 10
March 24, 2024
Vetted ReviewVerified User
We used Kayako as our main ticket and helpdesk system to provide automated ticket generation and job management.
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Verified user
Director
Kayako10 years of experience

Manage support tickets with Kayako

Rating: 7 out of 10
April 23, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Kayako is used as a ticketing system for our clients to submit tickets for support questions or issues. We use this software to keep a paper trail and client communications. I...
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Verified user
Employee
Kayako8 years of experience

A solid, stable, feature-loaded help desk

Rating: 5 out of 10
April 20, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We currently use Kayako as a company-wide ticketing system. We have multiple departments set up, and the whole experience is quite seamless. It's great being able to transfer ...
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Verified user
Technician
Kayako7 years of experience

Kayako worked great while it lasted

Rating: 5 out of 10
February 19, 2020
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We used Kayako as our primary IT Help Desk ticketing system. We purchased and used the On-Prem version and quite some success in its implementation.Kayako allowed us to easily...
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Jon Shurtliff
Vice-President - Information Technology
Vice President of Information Technology
3form
Kayako5 years of experience

Highly Priced Support/Upgrades

Rating: 1 out of 10
October 17, 2017
Vetted ReviewVerified User
The download version is excellent software and has many great features for supporting customers via email, telephone, and live chat.
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Zane Lucas
Director - Corporate
Director
Interbit Corporation Pty Ltd
Kayako11 years of experience
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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
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Features

Incident and problem management

Streamlining ticketing and service restoration processes

2
Avg 8.1

Self Help Community

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

1
Avg 7.9

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 7.9
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Product Details

What is Kayako?

Kayako Competitors

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

View all alternatives
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Reviews From Top Reviewers

View all reviews
(1-4 of 4)

Kayako worked great while it lasted

Rating: 5 out of 10
Incentivized
February 19, 2020
JS
Jon Shurtliff
Vice President of Information Technology
3form (Plastics, 501-1000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
5 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
  • We used Kayako as our primary IT Help Desk ticketing system. We purchased and used the On-Prem version and quite some success in its implementation.
  • Kayako allowed us to easily manage Help Tickets, communicate with our users, document all our past tickets, and create a knowledge base to help users and personnel look up and store past issues and solutions.
Pros
  • Help Desk Ticketing
  • Knowledge Base
Cons
  • The usability could be improved to reduce the learning curve.
  • Make it easier to reply to a customer
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Kayako Feature Ratings
Incident and problem management (6)
71.66666666666667%
7.2
Organize and prioritize service tickets
80%
8.0
Expert directory
30%
3.0
Subscription-based notifications
90%
9.0
ITSM collaboration and documentation
80%
8.0
Ticket creation and submission
70%
7.0
Ticket response
80%
8.0
Self Help Community (2)
75%
7.5
External knowledge base
70%
7.0
Internal knowledge base
80%
8.0
Multi-Channel Help (5)
18%
1.8
Customer portal
N/A
N/A
IVR
N/A
N/A
Social integration
N/A
N/A
Email support
90%
9.0
Help Desk CRM integration
N/A
N/A
Return on Investment
  • Kayako was fairly priced at the time for the On-Prem solution, so good ROI because the investment was small
Alternatives Considered
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 between multiple and copy and paste so much.
Support Rating
8
  • 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.
Other Software Used

A solid, stable, feature-loaded help desk

Rating: 5 out of 10
Incentivized
April 20, 2021
Verified User
Technician in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 51-200 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
7 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We currently use Kayako as a company-wide ticketing system. We have multiple departments set up, and the whole experience is quite seamless. It's great being able to transfer tickets between departments. Once we started rolling this out, more departments asked to be added on, because they were impressed with the system. We also have a huge network of external users who communicate with our support departments almost exclusively through Kayako.
Pros
  • Ticketing system.
  • Multiple departments/groups.
  • Ease of use for all users.
  • Insight and reporting.
  • SLA Management and visibility.
Cons
  • Price continues to increase.
  • There are some quirky errors, sometimes a response isn't recorded properly and an SLA is missed because of it. Sometimes an error message pops up that doesn't actually affect anything.
  • Could always use more reporting.
  • Macros could be a little more configurable.
  • The performance has been really bad lately. Minutes to load tickets, or the inability to log in.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Most Important Features
  • Ticketing
  • SLA Tracking
Kayako Feature Ratings
Incident and problem management (6)
50%
5.0
Organize and prioritize service tickets
100%
10.0
Expert directory
N/A
N/A
Subscription-based notifications
N/A
N/A
ITSM collaboration and documentation
N/A
N/A
Ticket creation and submission
100%
10.0
Ticket response
100%
10.0
Self Help Community (2)
N/A
N/A
External knowledge base
N/A
N/A
Internal knowledge base
N/A
N/A
Multi-Channel Help (5)
76%
7.6
Customer portal
100%
10.0
IVR
N/A
N/A
Social integration
80%
8.0
Email support
100%
10.0
Help Desk CRM integration
100%
10.0
Return on Investment
  • Quick responses to questions.
  • Gives users a platform to submit trouble tickets, including security issues.
  • Created a collaborative support culture.
Alternatives Considered
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 platform.

We have also evaluated various Sharepoint-based help desks, but their speed and reliability did not match our standards for what a help desk should be.
Other Software Used
Support Rating
2
We haven't had many issues with Kayako as a whole. However, when we do it's usually not a quick thing. We've been left hanging for days in the past, but usually, things do get resolved. It's a bit ironic for a company that supplies the tools it does. Lately there have been massive performance issues and there's times where they do not reply until hours after service is restored.
Premium Support
Yes. We believe that premium support is necessary for such an important system. It's sad they really don't hold their end of the bargain anymore. When we used their on-premise version they were attentive, and supported most of the issues we'd run into. Now, it's difficult to get any support.
Bug Resolution
Yes
Early on, yes, but within the last 6 months we've had many issues, and none of them seem to be fully resolved, and none in any kind of timely fashion. We don't know when anything goes down until we're waiting for pages/tickets to open and nothing happens. Then we open a ticket, (don't try emailing the support box on their website, it doesn't work!) and we wait hours, things get restored and we get a generic "there was a system wide outage today for x hours"
Exceptional Examples of Kayako Support
No

Kayako Review

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
December 20, 2014
DG
Derrick Green
Application Support Specialist
ImageTrend (Health, Wellness and Fitness, 51-200 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Kayako
1 year of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Kayako as our online support interface for all issue affecting our software. In the support department this is the only outside tool we use. This is used across our whole organization as a way to support and track software issues.
Pros
  • Easy to use
  • I have never had a failure
  • Has great reporting features
  • Great interface
Cons
  • I have had only one issue with selecting different views. This is a pretty solid product.
Likelihood to Recommend
I only have experience with it in tracking software issues, but this is a great system if you are looking for a client centric way to handle support.
Return on Investment
  • 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.
Likelihood to Renew
10
This is one of the easiest systems I've used! You can come from any background and learn this system within days.
Users and Roles
150
Support and Sales, we mainly use it to track all software issues and to track sales.
Implementation Details / Implementation Partner
  • Don't know
Support Rating
10
We have always had issues fixed in a timely manner with minimal impact on our ability to serve customers.
Bug Resolution
Yes
Within hours we have had all issues resolved.
Exceptional Examples of Kayako Support
We had an instance where our interface was not usable for a few hours. They got it back up and running quickly.
Easy Tasks
  • Just the everyday tracking of support issues is GREAT. The ability to quickly filter tickets by any measure is incredibly helpful!
  • Color codes are well thought out and give you information about tickets at just a glance.
Difficult Tasks
  • The views have caused me some issues.
Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions
Yes
I have only used it a few times outside of the office, but it is a great way to provide support without opening your PC.
Usability
10
I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly.
Reliability and Availability
7

Keep customers coming back with Kayako

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
August 01, 2014
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We implemented Kayako Fusion (download) as a way to streamline the relationship between our Customer Service team and our customers. It allows us to use canned replies for common issues while still maintaining a very hands on feel to our customer interactions. We elected to use the self-hosted version and have had a great experience with it even during our heaviest traffic spikes.
Pros
  • Over the years they've continued to enhance the product and user experience on all fronts. Changes have always felt well thought out and purposeful and the UI has only gotten easier to use over time.
  • Kayako's mail parser allows you to easily sort, prioritize, and present the information needed by your staff to easily tackle an onslaught of customer tickets.
  • The system has scaled very easily over the years. We use it for one of our Retail sites that has anywhere from 10k to 15k unique views a day and it has never felt sluggish or degraded even under a heavy load.
Cons
  • Adjusting the templates can be very tedious as each update includes a manual reversion process. While it isn't a big deal if you're using a mostly vanilla design I can imagine it would become tedious for a more involved UI change.
  • The update process is easy enough but could obviously take some pointers from Wordpress in terms of making them more streamlined.
  • The price has gone up substantially since we originally bought in, while I feel that we'd still have gotten our money out of it either way it is definitely much more of a hurdle than it used to be.
Likelihood to Recommend
  • 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.
Return on Investment
  • 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.
Alternatives Considered
  • Zendesk,LivePerson
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.
Likelihood to Renew
10
  • 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
Users and Roles
8
Our customer service team accounts for the bulk of our Kayako usage.
Support Headcount Required
1
  • Familiarity with Linux and the LAMP/LEMP stack is essentially if you are using the self hosted version
  • We don't use the SaaS offering but I imagine it would be a lot more hands off
Business Processes Supported
  • Live Chat for customer facing support
  • Handles all inbound email for our customer service team
  • Provides reporting to our Management team re: the efficacy of the CS Team
Future Planned Uses
  • We continue to add ticket parsing and filtering as a way to make sure the right people see the right tickets
  • As new issues develop we continue to add canned replies to aid our team
Implementation Details / Implementation Partner
  • Implemented in-house
Implementation Phases
No
Change Management Lessons
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled
Cutting them off from their old solution cold-turkey was very important to user adoption. There was some initial resistance at first but we managed to overcome it over the course of a few weeks.
Implementation Issues
  • Users dragged their feet and did not want to change their very broken workflow
Implementation Rating
9
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.
Support Rating
9
The support team is partially in India so sometimes support availability can be a bit wacky, but they have always resolved my questions quickly and competently with zero fuss.
Bug Resolution
Yes
Yes, and within less than 10m from start to finish.
Exceptional Examples of Kayako Support
Kayako support went above and beyond by helping me work out kinks with what at the time was a technically unsupported configuration (we had accidentally upgraded to too new of a version of PHP)
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