Best Service Desk Software for Small IT Teams

Service desk software is where an IT team receives, routes and resolves every employee issue and request: a laptop that won't boot, a new hire who needs accounts, a request for a software license. Each one becomes a ticket with an owner, a priority and a deadline, and the answers flow into a knowledge base so the next person can help themselves. Search results for this term mix IT tools with customer-support help desks, so this comparison sticks to software built for internal IT teams and managed service providers (MSPs).

The nine tools below range from free (Jira Service Management for three agents, ServiceDesk Plus for five technicians, GLPI if you host it yourself) to quote-only platforms like ServiceNow. Each entry follows one ticket through the tool: how it comes in, how it gets routed and timed against an SLA, and how it ends. It also says which plan unlocks what, what reviewers complain about and who should skip it.

service desk tools compared

9

tools with a free plan or free self-hosted edition (Jira Service Management, ServiceDesk Plus, GLPI)

3

lowest published paid price per technician per month (ServiceDesk Plus Standard, billed yearly)

$13

tool with no public price at all (ServiceNow)

1

Our picks: the best service desk software by situation

Freshservice is the best service desk software for most internal IT teams of 1 to 20 people, but the right ticketing tool depends on your budget and stack. The picks below match one tool to each situation.

• Best overall for small internal ITFreshserviceQuick to set up, SLAs and a service catalog from the Growth plan, and a clean portal employees actually use.★ 4.5 CapterraFrom $49/agent/mo (Growth)
• Best free startJira Service ManagementFree for 3 agents with portal, email, Teams and Slack intake, and a natural fit if your team already lives in Jira.★ 4.3 G2From $21.50/agent/mo
• Best free plan for ITIL processesManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusFree for up to 5 technicians, with paid editions that add assets, CMDB, change and problem management.★ 4.2 G2Free to 5 techs, then from $13/tech/mo
• Best for MSPs and RMM in one toolAteraTickets sit next to device alerts, patching and remote access, priced per technician with unlimited endpoints.★ 4.6 G2From €149/tech/mo
• Best all-inclusive ITSMHaloITSMOne plan with every module and the AI features included, so the price doesn't jump when you need change management.★ 4.8 G2From $85/agent/mo (billed annually)
• Best open sourceGLPITickets, SLAs, CMDB and a knowledge base with no license fee, if someone on the team can host and patch it.★ 4.5 G2Free; Cloud from €19/agent/mo

Service desk software compared

What service desk software does

Service desk software is the system an IT team uses as the single point of contact for employee incidents and requests: every issue becomes a ticket that is routed to the right person, timed against an SLA, resolved and documented. The ITIL framework, which most of these products follow, separates incidents (something broke) from service requests (someone needs something), because the two follow different paths.

A service desk tool usually covers the six jobs below.

• Ticket intake turns email, portal forms, chat, Microsoft Teams or Slack messages, and sometimes monitoring alerts, into tickets.
• Routing and automation rules set category, priority and assignee, and spread work by round robin or workload.
• SLA policies set response and resolution targets per priority and escalate a ticket before it breaches.
• A self-service portal with a service catalog and knowledge base lets employees request standard items and solve common issues alone.
• Asset links show the agent the laptop, its owner and its history next to the ticket.
• Reporting tracks volume, resolution time and SLA compliance.

Tool type	What it covers	Typical buyer
Ticketing system	Turns requests into tracked tickets with status and assignee	Very small teams or a shared inbox replacement
Help desk	Ticketing plus knowledge base, automation, a portal and reports	Teams that mostly fix issues as they come in
Service desk	Help desk plus service catalog, SLAs, approvals and asset links	IT teams that run requests as defined services
ITSM platform	Service desk plus problem, change and release management and a CMDB	IT teams with formal change control or audits

A service desk differs from desktop support in where the work happens. The service desk is the front door: it logs every IT issue and request and solves what it can remotely. Desktop support is the hands-on team that fixes hardware and software at the user's machine when the service desk escalates a ticket. In a small company both are often the same two people, which is why a tool that keeps the ticket, the device and the remote session together saves the most time.

In a small IT team's stack, service desk software usually sits next to three other tools: remote monitoring and management (RMM) for endpoints, mobile device management (MDM) for phones and laptops, and IT asset management software for the inventory. Several products below blur those lines, so check which jobs you already cover before you pay twice.

A small team doesn't need every ITIL process on day one. Change management starts to matter when outages follow unplanned changes or an auditor asks who approved a firewall rule. Problem management matters once the same incident keeps coming back. Several tools below charge more for both, so check the plan before you assume they're included.

How a ticket moves through a service desk

A ticket moves through a service desk in roughly seven steps, and every product in this list automates some version of that path. Knowing it helps you test a trial: walk one real ticket through each step and see where you still have to do things by hand.

1. EmployeeReports an issue or requests something by email, portal form, Teams or Slack Intake
2. Service desk toolCreates a ticket, sets category and priority from rules or AI, and links the requester's device Seconds later
3. Service desk toolAssigns it to a group or technician by round robin, skill or workload and starts the SLA clock Routing
4. TechnicianReplies, pauses the SLA while waiting on the user, and escalates if the target is close First response target
5. TechnicianFixes the issue, remotely or at the desk, and records the solution Resolution target
6. EmployeeConfirms the fix or reopens; the ticket closes and a survey goes out Closure
7. IT leadTurns repeat answers into knowledge articles and reviews SLA and volume reports Weekly

The step that most small teams skip is the last one. A knowledge article written once can deflect the same password or VPN question for months, and most tools here can draft that article from a resolved ticket with AI.

How we chose the 9 service desk tools

We started from the tools that rank in the G2, Motadata and CTO Club lists for this term and kept the ones built for internal IT or MSPs. Then we read four sources per tool: the US pricing page, a feature page, a help-center article that shows how tickets actually move, and the G2 product page for the live rating and review count. We dropped customer-support help desks and remote-access tools that don't manage tickets.

Each tool had to meet the five criteria below.

• It creates tickets from email and a self-service portal and assigns them with rules.
• It offers SLA policies with escalation on at least one plan.
• It includes a knowledge base employees can search.
• It has a published price, a free plan, or a clear statement that pricing is quote only.
• It fits an IT team of 1 to 20 people or an MSP, even if it also serves enterprises.

ServiceNow is included as the enterprise reference point, because many buyers compare against it even when it's too big for them. If you're leaving it, our ServiceNow alternatives comparison covers eight replacements.

The best service desk software, reviewed

The nine reviews below follow one ticket through each tool, in the same order as the comparison table. Each card shows the price once, the G2 rating, when to choose the tool and when to skip it.

Freshservice

Best overall for small and mid-size internal IT teams

Service desk with a discovery agent★★★★☆ 4.5 · 805 Capterra reviews

Freshservice is the service desk most small IT teams can set up in an afternoon. Incident handling, the knowledge base and the portal come on every plan, and the plan ladder is clear: SLAs and the service catalog start on Growth, change and problem management on Pro.

A ticket reaches Freshservice by email, phone, chat, the website widget, the portal or the ServiceBot that runs inside Microsoft Teams and Slack. Workflow Automator, a drag-and-drop rule builder on every plan, sets the category and priority and hands the ticket to a group, and round-robin assignment spreads the load across technicians.

From Growth upward, an SLA policy attaches due times from a priority matrix, counted in business or calendar hours. Freshservice's help center says escalation emails can go out at up to four resolution levels and one response level, so a P1 that sits too long reaches the IT lead and then the manager above. The technician works the ticket next to the requester's assets, and the answer can become a knowledge article that the portal suggests to the next person.

Choose it when

• you want a modern portal and service catalog without a long implementation
• you expect to add asset management and change control later and want them in the same tool

Skip it when

• you need SLAs on the cheapest plan: Starter has none, they start on Growth at $49 per agent per month
• you want AI drafting included: Freddy AI Copilot costs an extra $29 per agent per month and needs Pro or Enterprise

Users like

a clean interface and quick adoption, per Capterra reviewers

Users dislike

reporting that is hard to customize, per Capterra reviewers

Source: Capterra, 805 reviews

How a ticket moves in Freshservice

Freshservice prices Starter at $19, Growth at $49 and Pro at $99 per agent per month on annual billing; Enterprise is a quote. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial with all features. Occasional helpers can use day passes instead of a full license.

Asset management runs on Asset Units counted against the CMDB, and the Growth ITAM package includes 100 units, so a team with a few hundred devices should price the extra packs early. Orchestration transactions, the automations that call other systems, are capped per month (1,000 on Starter up to 20,000 on Enterprise), and extra packs cost $250 per 1,000.

Integrations a small team will use first are Microsoft Teams, Slack, Jira, Azure AD for discovering cloud assets, and RMM tools such as NinjaOne, whose documentation shows it creating Freshservice tickets from device alerts. Freshworks also announced on October 12, 2026 that it will acquire the SaaS management vendor Torii, which we covered in our SaaS management software comparison.

On G2, Freshservice holds 4.6 out of 5 from 1,364 reviews. Reviewers most often praise how easy it is to learn and use. The recurring complaints are missing or limited features on lower plans and ticket reports that are hard to customize.

Starting price

Asset management from the Growth plan at $49 per agent per month billed annually, with 100 Asset Units included; standalone ITAM plans are quote only

Discovery

Discovery Agent and Discovery Probe

Asset metering

Asset Units; a server counts 4, a desktop 1

Plan gate

Not on Starter

Plans

Starter $19, Growth $49, Pro $99 per agent/mo, billed annually

SLA and catalog

From Growth

Change and problem

From Pro

Jira Service Management

Best free start and best for teams already in Jira

ITSM service desk for Atlassian teams★★★★☆ 4.3 · 986 G2 reviews

Jira Service Management is free for up to 3 agents, which makes it the easiest way for a very small IT team to replace a shared inbox with a real portal, queues and SLA goals. Atlassian now sells it inside its Service Collection, so the Standard plan also brings Assets and the Rovo AI features.

Employees raise requests through the help center portal, email, Microsoft Teams, Slack or an embedded widget, and every plan, including Free, has forms, queues, request types and an embedded knowledge base. Each request type maps to a workflow, so a laptop request can collect the model and cost center in the form and go to approval before anyone touches it.

SLA goals are set per service project: you pick a time target, a calendar for working hours and a JQL filter for the tickets it applies to, and goals can differ by priority. When a ticket changes priority, the timers adjust. Automation rules escalate or reassign tickets close to breach. Developers can join the same ticket through linked Jira work items, which is the main reason teams that already run Jira choose it.

Choose it when

• you have 3 or fewer agents and want a free service desk with portal, email, Teams and Slack
• your team already works in Jira or Confluence and wants dev and IT on one ticket

Skip it when

• you need change and problem management at a low price, since they require Premium at $55.28 per agent / month
• nobody on the team has time to configure workflows, permissions and automation limits

Users like

customizable workflows and Atlassian integration, per G2 reviewers

Users dislike

steep learning curve and complex setup, per G2 reviewers

Source: G2, 986 reviews

How a ticket moves in Jira Service Management

On Atlassian's pricing page Standard costs $21.50 and Premium $55.28 per agent per month on monthly billing; annual billing saves up to 17%, and Enterprise is annual only and quoted. Customers who only raise requests are free and unlimited.

Standard adds Assets for asset and configuration management with 5,000 objects, plus Rovo agents, search and chat with 250 Rovo credits per user per month. Premium adds change management with CAB approvals or AI risk assessment, advanced incident and problem management, and a virtual service agent with 1,000 assisted conversations per month, then $0.30 per conversation. Automation is metered too: 1,250 rule steps per month on Free for the whole site, 3,000 per user on Standard. If you want the asset side, our IT asset management comparison covers Assets in more detail.

SSO and SCIM need Atlassian Guard, which comes bundled only with Enterprise, so smaller teams that want single sign-on pay for it separately.

Jira Service Management has 4.3 out of 5 from 986 reviews on G2. Reviewers like the customizable workflows and automation and the link to Jira and Confluence. The most common complaints are a steep learning curve, complex setup and permissions, and costs that climb as the team grows.

Starting price

Free for 3 agents; Standard $21.50 per agent / month, Premium $55.28 per agent / month (monthly billing)

SLA management

SLA goals with JQL and calendars

Assets/CMDB

From Standard, 5,000 objects

AI

Rovo credits; virtual agent on Premium

Free plan

3 agents, 2 GB storage

Paid plans

Standard $21.50, Premium $55.28 per agent/mo (monthly billing)

Change and problem

Premium

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Best free plan for ITIL processes

ITSM help desk with free tier★★★★☆ 4.2 · 253 G2 reviews

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus gives a small team the most room on a free plan: the Standard edition is free for up to 5 technicians and includes tickets, SLAs, the portal and the knowledge base. Paid editions add assets, CMDB, change and problem management, either as add-ons or bundled in Enterprise.

Requests arrive by email, the self-service portal, phone, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, the virtual agent or alerts from monitoring tools such as ManageEngine OpManager or Site24x7. ManageEngine's email setup guide shows mailboxes fetched over IMAP, Exchange Web Services or Microsoft Graph, and you can limit ticket creation to your own domain so newsletters don't become tickets.

Business rules or predictive AI set the category and priority, and auto-assign picks a technician by round robin or load. An SLA attaches automatically based on priority, impact, urgency, department or VIP status, and its timer pauses while the ticket waits on the user. Multi-level escalations reassign or reprioritize before or after a breach, and violated tickets get a red flag. The technician sees related incidents, assets and recent changes, resolves, and the solution can go into the knowledge base.

Choose it when

• you want a genuinely free service desk for up to 5 technicians with SLAs included
• you'll need asset management, a CMDB and change management later and want them from the same vendor, cloud or on-premises

Skip it when

• you want every ITIL module at one flat price: on Standard and Professional, change, problem and the service catalog are paid add-ons
• you want AI agents on a budget: Zia Agents are Enterprise only

Users like

easy to use, customizable and integration-friendly, per G2 reviewers

Users dislike

limited functionality for some teams and support that could be quicker, per G2 reviewers

Source: G2, 253 reviews

How a ticket moves in ServiceDesk Plus

The US cloud prices start at $13 per technician per month for Standard on yearly billing ($16 monthly), $27 for Professional ($33 monthly) and $67 for Enterprise ($78 monthly), and the page notes prices are current as of September 2026. Professional and Enterprise also scale with the number of IT assets, starting at 250. There's a 30-day trial for cloud and on-premises.

Asset management starts with Professional. The CMDB is a paid add-on on Professional and included in Enterprise, and the same goes for problem, change, release and project management on the lower editions. That makes the price ladder less simple than it looks: a team that wants change management on Professional pays the edition plus the add-on.

The integration list is strong inside the ManageEngine family (Endpoint Central, Remote Access Plus, ADManager Plus) and covers Microsoft Teams, Slack, Microsoft Entra ID for single sign-on and user sync, Intune and Jira. We didn't find Okta or Jamf on the integrations page.

On G2, ServiceDesk Plus holds 4.2 out of 5 from 253 reviews. Reviewers praise how customizable it is and the asset and automation features. Complaints mention limited reports and support that could respond faster, per G2 review summaries.

Starting price

Free for up to 5 technicians; cloud paid from US$13 per technician per month billed yearly (US$16 billed monthly)

SLA management

Multi-level SLAs and escalations, all editions

Self-service portal

Portal and KB in base edition

AI

Included in all editions, Zia Agents Enterprise only

Free edition

Standard, up to 5 technicians

Cloud paid

From $13/tech/mo yearly ($16 monthly)

Deployment

Cloud or on-premises

HaloITSM

Best all-inclusive ITSM price

All-in-one ITSM, one flat price★★★★★ 4.8 · 22 G2 reviews

HaloITSM sells one plan with every module and its AI features included, so change management, the CMDB and AI agents don't push you to a higher tier. The trade-off is a higher entry price than most tools here, plus a mandatory onboarding package.

Tickets reach Halo by email, the portal, Microsoft Teams, chat, phone, API or monitoring alerts. Halo's mailbox guide describes two ways to read a Microsoft 365 mailbox: a scheduled scan every 3 to 5 minutes, or webhooks that process mail almost instantly. Each email lands in a log where you can see whether it became a ticket or an update.

Rules classify, prioritize and route by ticket type, keyword, source, customer, time of day or workload. An SLA or OLA with response and resolution targets shows on the ticket header, warnings fire as a target gets close, and escalation rules reassign or notify. Agents work from one timeline with actions such as Email User, Add Note, Re-Assign and Resolve, with related assets and the user's other open tickets beside it. Resolutions can feed knowledge articles, and AI suggests matching articles inside the ticket.

Choose it when

• you want all ITSM modules and AI at one per-agent price with no tiers or add-ons
• you run an MSP or a mixed IT and customer service team and may later add HaloPSA or Halo CRM on the same platform

Skip it when

• you want a free plan or a published price below roughly US$99 per agent for a team of 5 to 10
• you want a published implementation cost, since onboarding is mandatory and quoted separately

Users like

easy setup and ease of use, per G2 reviewers

Users dislike

limited UI and workflow customization and report building needing SQL, per G2 reviewers

Source: G2, 22 reviews

How a ticket moves in HaloITSM

With the region set to the United States, Halo's calculator shows $99 per agent per month at 5 and 10 agents, $95 at 25, $89 at 50 and $85 at 100 or more, all billed annually. Named and concurrent licenses cost the same. The page says an onboarding package is required with every purchase and is priced by scope, so ask for that number before you compare totals.

Everything is in the one plan: ITIL incident, request, problem and change management with CAB and risk checks, a service catalog, unlimited SLAs and OLAs, a CMDB with dependency mapping and software asset management. The pricing FAQ says Halo AI comes without a separate AI license, including AI agents for triage, first-line answers and knowledge.

Halo's integration guides cover the stack a small IT team or MSP usually runs: Microsoft Teams, Slack, Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Intune, Jamf and RMM tools such as NinjaOne, Atera, Datto RMM and ConnectWise. MSPs can move to HaloPSA, the sibling product with contracts and billing, on the same platform.

HaloITSM has 4.8 out of 5 on G2, but from only 22 reviews, so treat it as a small sample. Reviewers mention easy setup and responsive developers. Complaints are limited UI customization and advanced reports that need SQL.

Starting price

US$99 per agent per month billed annually at 5 to 10 agents, falling to US$85 at 100 or more; onboarding package required

SLA management

Unlimited SLAs and OLAs, all included

Self-service portal

Included, embeds in Teams

AI

Included, no separate AI license

Price

$99/agent/mo at 5 to 10 agents, $85 at 100+, billed annually

Onboarding

Required, priced per project

Atera

Best for MSPs and teams that want RMM and help desk in one

RMM plus help desk for IT teams★★★★☆ 4.6 · 1,281 G2 reviews

Atera is a remote monitoring and management platform with ticketing built in, priced per technician with unlimited devices. For a two-person IT team or a small MSP, the ticket, the device's health and a remote session sit in the same screen.

A ticket starts from an email to the support address, the service portal, Microsoft Teams, Slack or an RMM alert, such as a disk running full. It's filed under the requester's customer and site, which is how MSPs separate clients. Ticket Automation Rules assign it, and Atera can also route by skill, workload and availability.

An SLA policy uses a business-hours calendar with First Response and Closed Ticket targets by impact, and the SLA column on the ticket list shows how much time is left. Setting a ticket to Pending pauses the clock. The technician can open a remote session from the ticket, run a script or check patch status, and AI Copilot drafts the reply and a summary. A Resolved ticket waits for confirmation before it closes, and AI Copilot can turn it into a knowledge base article for the portal.

Choose it when

• you want help desk, remote access and patching in one tool and your team is small enough that per-technician pricing beats per-user or per-device
• you run an MSP or an internal team that needs ticketing tied to device alerts and billing

Skip it when

• you need formal ITIL change, problem and CMDB management
• you need a USD price list or a free plan; Atera lists EUR prices and offers only a 30-day trial

Users like

ease of use and one dashboard for tickets and device health, per G2 reviewers (G2 lists Atera as Remote Monitoring and Management)

Users dislike

some missing features such as checklists, per G2 reviewers

Source: G2, 1,281 reviews

How a ticket moves in Atera

Atera's pricing page showed us EUR only: Professional at 149 euros per technician per month billed annually (169 euros monthly), Expert at 189 euros (229 euros monthly) and Master at 219 euros (269 euros monthly), with Enterprise on request. Every plan includes AI Copilot, ticketing, the service portal, remote monitoring, patch management and Splashtop remote access. Network Discovery is a 29 euro add-on per technician, and Robin, Atera's autonomous AI agent for first-line requests, is a separate add-on without a published price.

The pricing unit is what makes Atera cheap or expensive. Every console user needs a technician license, including a manager who only reads tickets. A team of two that manages 400 laptops pays for two seats; a team of eight that manages 150 laptops pays for eight. Atera runs a separate pricing page for MSPs, and its prices didn't render for us.

What you don't get is a formal ITIL process: there's no change or problem module or CMDB in the plans we read. If your auditors want change approvals, pair Atera with a process or pick a service desk from this list.

G2 lists Atera under the name Remote Monitoring and Management, with 4.6 out of 5 from 1,281 reviews. Reviewers like the ease of use and having tickets and device health in one dashboard. A recurring complaint is missing help desk features, with ticket checklists as an example, per G2 review summaries.

Starting price

Professional 149 € per technician per month billed annually (169 € monthly), Expert 189 €, Master 219 €; EUR shown on the pricing page, unlimited endpoints

Endpoint cap

None, unlimited devices per technician

AI

Copilot included, Robin agent extra

Channels

Email, portal, Teams, Slack

Pricing unit

Per technician, unlimited endpoints

AI Copilot

In every plan since June 1, 2026

Trial

30 days, no credit card

SysAid

Best for AI included in the base plan

AI-first ITSM help desk★★★★☆ 4.5 · 756 G2 reviews

SysAid is an ITIL-aligned service desk with asset management, a CMDB and what it calls unlimited agentic AI in both of its plans. It sells by quote: the Professional plan shows $89 per agent per month, and Enterprise starts at 20 agents.

Employees reach SysAid through an AI chatbot on the portal, in Microsoft Teams or by email. The chatbot first tries to solve the request from the knowledge base or with a prebuilt AI agent, such as a password reset or a device check. If it can't, it collects the details and opens a service record.

Email rules set fields from the incoming message, and routing rules assign the record to a technician or group, with the most specific rule running first. SLA and due-date rules set the target. According to SysAid's documentation, escalation rules run every five minutes and can notify, reassign or raise priority before or after a breach. The technician resolves the record with Copilot suggestions, and the knowledge base grows from the answers.

Choose it when

• you want AI Copilot, prebuilt AI agents and asset management with CMDB in the base plan without usage-based AI fees
• you run 5 to 50 agents and can work with a quote-based sales process and a free trial first

Skip it when

• you want a published self-serve price or a free tier: Professional is sold by quote
• you want a very small Enterprise rollout: Enterprise starts at 20 agents

Users like

ease of use, helpful support and automated ticket routing, per G2 reviewers

Users dislike

complexity and learning curve, with a clunky interface in places, per G2 reviewers

Source: G2, 756 reviews

How a ticket moves in SysAid

The $89 Professional figure on SysAid's US page doesn't say whether it's monthly or annual billing, and the button asks for a quote. The FAQ says price depends on plan, number of users and managed assets. Professional includes 250 managed assets and 2 years of data retention; Enterprise raises retention to 7 years and adds a sandbox, custom AI agents and advanced BI. Patch management, remote support and discovery are paid add-ons. A free trial includes all features without a credit card.

The AI is the main reason to shortlist SysAid. Both plans include Copilot for agents and end users, more than 100 prebuilt AI agents, an AI agent builder and AI categorization and routing, with no usage caps per SysAid's pricing page. SysAid's separate Dex product, an autonomous IT engineer, is priced per technician on its own page and isn't part of the service desk plans.

Integrations include Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Entra ID, Intune, Okta and OneLogin as user sources, Lansweeper and Splashtop.

On G2, SysAid has 4.5 out of 5 from 756 reviews. Reviewers praise ease of use, helpful support and automatic routing. Complaints focus on complexity and a learning curve, and an interface that feels clunky in places, per G2 review summaries.

Starting price

US$89 per agent per month on the Professional plan (quote required, billing period not stated); Enterprise custom from 20 agents

SLA management

Routing, escalation and alerts in Professional

Self-service portal

Portal and KB in all plans

AI

Copilot and 100+ AI agents included

Professional

$89/agent/mo shown, sold by quote

Enterprise

Custom, from 20 agents

Assets

250 managed assets in Professional

Zendesk

Best if you already run Zendesk for customers

Help desk with Employee Service Suite★★★★☆ 4.3 · 7,107 G2 reviews

Zendesk is best known for customer support, but it sells a separate Employee Service Suite for internal IT and HR. It adds a service catalog, approvals, task lists and IT asset actions to the agent workspace your support team may already use.

An employee request reaches Zendesk by email, a web form, a service catalog item, Slack or Microsoft Teams. Triggers and omnichannel routing send it to the IT group, and an AI agent can answer from the knowledge base before a person sees it.

Zendesk's help center describes the IT side of the agent workspace: an approval request inside the ticket, a predefined task list for jobs like a new-hire setup, and an asset panel where the agent assigns a laptop or runs an action flow such as erasing or patching a device. SLA policies set first reply and requester wait time targets and highlight breached tickets, but on the Employee Service plans they start at Growth.

Choose it when

• you already run Zendesk for customers and want one tool for IT and HR requests with Slack and Teams intake
• you want a polished agent workspace with service catalog, approvals and AI agents without hosting anything

Skip it when

• you need a low flat price: SLAs start at $59 per agent per month and Copilot adds $50 per agent per month
• you need a full ITIL suite with CMDB and formal change and problem management

Users like

ticketing, automation and multichannel support, per G2 reviewers (rating covers Zendesk for Customer Service)

Users dislike

cost per agent and setup complexity, per G2 reviewers

Source: G2, 7,107 reviews

How a ticket moves in Zendesk

The Employee Service Suite costs $29 (Team), $59 (Growth) and $99 (Professional) per agent per month on annual billing, with Enterprise through sales. Our live check was redirected to Zendesk's EUR page, which shows the same numbers in euros; the USD figures come from Zendesk's US page as archived on August 28, 2026. There's a 14-day trial.

The service catalog, employee portal, IT asset management and SLAs all start on Growth, so $59 is the realistic entry price for an IT team. AI agents and the knowledge base come from Team, but Copilot is a $50 per agent per month add-on, and on Zendesk's customer service plans automated AI resolutions above the included amount are billed per resolution.

What Zendesk doesn't offer is a formal ITIL stack: there's no CMDB, and the ITSM page describes change workflows with task templates and approvals rather than a change module with CAB scheduling.

G2 lists the core product as Zendesk for Customer Service, with 4.3 out of 5 from 7,107 reviews. That rating covers customer service use, not only internal IT. Reviewers like the ticketing, automation and multichannel support; complaints mention cost per agent and setup complexity.

Starting price

Employee Service Suite from $29 per agent per month paid yearly (Team); SLAs and service catalog from Growth at $59; USD from the archived US page dated 2026-08-28, live page served EUR at the same numbers

SLA

Growth plan ($59) and up

AI cost

Copilot $50 extra, AI resolutions metered

Free trial

14 days

Employee Service Suite

Team $29, Growth $59, Professional $99 per agent/mo, annual

SLA and catalog

From Growth

Copilot

$50 per agent/mo add-on

GLPI

Best open-source service desk

Open-source ITSM and asset management★★★★☆ 4.5 · 42 G2 reviews

GLPI is a free, open-source ITSM and asset management suite. If someone on your team can run a PHP and MySQL application, you get tickets, SLAs, a CMDB, problems, changes and a knowledge base without per-seat fees.

A ticket comes in from the simplified self-service interface, a form, or email. In GLPI's help center, an automatic action polls a mailbox over IMAP or POP through a Receiver and turns new mail into tickets and replies into follow-ups on the existing ticket. Business rules then set the entity, category and assignee.

An SLA applies a Time to Own and a Time to Resolve target from a calendar, with escalation levels and reminder notifications. Technicians work the ticket in the standard interface with tasks, linked assets from the inventory and knowledge articles, and a satisfaction survey can go out at closure. Entities separate departments, offices or customers inside one instance, which is how MSPs use GLPI for several clients.

Choose it when

• you have someone who can host and patch a PHP and MySQL app and want ITIL tickets, SLA and CMDB for free
• you want unlimited end users and assets without per-seat licensing

Skip it when

• you want zero maintenance and a polished AI-first experience out of the box
• you need slick Teams or Slack ticket intake without plugins

Users like

easy to use and customizable open source, per G2 reviewers

Users dislike

reporting and plugin updates between versions, per G2 reviewers

Source: G2, 42 reviews

How a ticket moves in GLPI

Teclib', the company behind GLPI, sells two paid options in EUR only. GLPI Network Cloud costs 19 euros per user per month for IT agents on the public cloud and 21 euros on a private cloud with a 25-user minimum. For self-hosted installs, GLPI Network subscriptions add vendor support and marketplace plugins, from 100 euros per month (up to 10 technical staff and 500 assets) to 4,500 euros. End users who only open tickets are free.

The free edition means you host, update and secure it yourself, and the community is your support. Reviewers mention plugins that break between major versions, so plan for testing before each upgrade. Microsoft Teams and Slack notifications come through a GLPI Network plugin, and single sign-on with Microsoft or Google uses an OAuth plugin. The native inventory agent covers Windows, Linux, macOS and Android.

On G2, GLPI holds 4.5 out of 5 from 42 reviews. Reviewers like that it's free and customizable; complaints cover reporting and keeping customized setups updated.

Starting price

Free self-hosted (open source); Teclib' cloud from 19 € per user per month excl. VAT; self-hosted support subscriptions 100 € to 4,500 € per month; EUR only

Free plan

Self-hosted, no license fee

SLA

SLA and OLA with Time to Own and Time to Resolve

Cloud

19 € per agent per month

License

Open source, free to self-host

Hosted cloud

From 19 euros per user/mo (EUR, excl. VAT)

ServiceNow IT Service Management

The enterprise reference point

Enterprise ITSM platform with AI agents★★★★☆ 4.5 · 2,006 G2 reviews

ServiceNow IT Service Management is the platform large enterprises standardize on. It's on this list because many buyers compare against it, and because an MSP or a fast-growing IT team may grow into it. For most teams of 1 to 20 people it's more platform than they need.

Employees open incidents or requests in the Employee Center portal, through the Virtual Agent chatbot, by email, phone or the mobile app. For email, ServiceNow's documentation describes inbound email actions that run in order: a watermark or record number such as an INC number in the subject links a reply to the existing ticket, otherwise a new incident is created with the sender as caller.

Machine learning and rules assign the incident to a group, priority is calculated from impact and urgency, and SLA definitions track the targets. Agents work from one workspace with Now Assist, which summarizes incidents, suggests fixes and drafts responses. Resolved answers feed knowledge management and the portal.

Choose it when

• you are a larger IT team or MSP that needs ITIL processes, a CMDB and AI agents on one platform
• you have budget and an admin or partner to run a long implementation

Skip it when

• you are a 1 to 20 person IT team that needs a published price and a fast start
• you do not want a quote-based sales process or heavy configuration

Users like

customizable functionality and automation, per G2 reviewers

Users dislike

steep learning curve and high cost, per G2 reviewers

Source: G2, 2,006 reviews

How a ticket moves in ServiceNow

ServiceNow publishes no prices. Its ITSM pricing page lists three packages with a quote button: Foundation covers incident and request management, the service catalog, asset management and the CMDB and the Virtual Agent; Advanced adds change and problem management; Prime adds more AI agents. Licensing is per fulfiller, meaning people who work on records. Consultancies publish estimates, but they conflict, so we don't repeat them.

ServiceNow completed its acquisition of Moveworks, a conversational AI assistant for employee support, in December 2025, and it now appears in the ITSM packages next to Now Assist. Whether those AI features cost extra beyond the package price isn't stated on the pricing page.

On G2, ServiceNow ITSM has 4.5 out of 5 from 2,006 reviews. Reviewers praise how far it can be customized and automated; the most common complaints are a steep learning curve and high cost.

Starting price

Quote only (ITSM Foundation, Advanced and Prime; no public prices)

SLA management

Platform SLAs, plan unverified

Self-service portal

Employee Center, Virtual Agent

AI

Now Assist, Moveworks, AI agents

Packages

ITSM Foundation, Advanced, Prime

Price

Quote only, per fulfiller

Change and problem

From Advanced

What service desk software costs

Service desk software costs from $0 to about $100 per agent per month in this list. The cheapest published paid price is $13 per technician per month for ServiceDesk Plus Standard on yearly billing, and three tools have a free option. Most vendors charge per agent or technician per month, discount annual billing, and keep SLAs, change management or AI on higher plans. One vendor, ServiceNow, publishes no price at all, and SysAid shows a figure but sells by quote.

The calculator uses the plan in each tool where SLAs are included, because that's the realistic minimum for an IT team.

Five things raise the bill after the first quote.

• Plan gates move you up a tier: Freshservice puts SLAs on Growth and change management on Pro, Jira Service Management puts change and problem management on Premium, and Zendesk puts SLAs on Growth.
• AI add-ons cost extra in some tools: Freddy AI Copilot adds $29 per agent per month and Zendesk Copilot $50. Atera, HaloITSM and SysAid include their assistants, but Atera's Robin agent is extra.
• Asset counts raise the price as the fleet grows: Freshservice meters Asset Units, ServiceDesk Plus and SysAid scale with managed assets, and Jira Service Management with Assets objects.
• Onboarding fees apply at HaloITSM, which requires a paid onboarding package, and ServiceNow projects usually involve a partner.
• Seat rules differ: Atera licenses every console user, while most other tools let employees open tickets for free.

Free and open-source service desk software

Free service desk software exists in three forms in this list: a hosted free plan, a free edition of a commercial tool, and open source. If budget is the hard limit, these three cost nothing to start.

• Jira Service Management Free: 3 agents, unlimited customers, portal, email, Teams and Slack intake, knowledge base and 2 GB storage. It's hosted, so there's nothing to maintain.
• ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Standard: free for up to 5 technicians, cloud or on-premises, with SLAs and escalations, the portal and the knowledge base. Asset management needs a paid edition.
• GLPI: open source with no user limit, including SLAs, a CMDB, problems and changes. You host and patch it yourself, or pay Teclib' for the cloud version.

The trade-off is time. A free hosted plan caps agents, and a free self-hosted tool costs admin hours for updates, backups and security. For a team of one or two, Jira Service Management Free is usually the fastest start. For a team that needs asset tracking without a license fee, GLPI is the stronger fit.

How to set up a service desk in 30 days

1. List your request types

   Pull the last month of IT email and chat and group it into 10 to 15 request types: password reset, new hire, laptop issue, software request, access request. Each type gets its own form and default priority.

   Week 1

2. Connect intake channels

   Point the IT mailbox at the tool, turn on the portal and the Teams or Slack app, and limit email ticket creation to your own domain so newsletters don't become tickets.

   Week 1

3. Set SLAs and routing

   Start with two or three priorities and realistic targets in business hours. Add one routing rule per request type and an escalation to the IT lead before a breach.

   Week 2

4. Write the first ten articles

   Turn the most common tickets into short knowledge articles and link them from the portal. Use the tool's AI drafting if it has one, then edit for your environment.

   Week 3

5. Go live and review

   Tell employees the portal is the front door, keep the mailbox as a fallback, and review volume, first response time and breaches after two weeks.

   Week 4

Requests your service desk can't close alone

Some tickets close cleanly but leave a loose end. A typical one: a developer asks IT for a service account for a backup job, an integration or a CI pipeline. The ticket gets resolved, the account exists, and a year later nobody remembers who owns it or whether it's still needed. The service desk records that the request happened. It doesn't track who is responsible for the account afterwards or remind anyone to confirm it.

That's the gap our own product fills. The IT Lead imports your service accounts from a CSV, assigns a nominated owner to each one, emails owners a time-limited link to confirm ownership, purpose and whether access is still needed, and keeps a review trail. It doesn't change accounts in your directory or replace your service desk. If you want to start with a spreadsheet, our service account inventory template has the columns, and our privileged access management comparison covers the tools that control the accounts themselves.

Questions to ask in every demo

Bring a real ticket from last week to each demo, such as a new-hire setup with three approvals, and ask the vendor to build it live. The gaps show up faster than in a slide deck.

Frequently asked questions