Jira Service Management alternatives: 12 help desk tools compared
Teams look for a Jira Service Management alternative when the Atlassian price ladder and its metered extras outgrow a small or non-IT support desk, or when a self-managed Data Center install has an end date. Most move to a lighter ticketing tool, a shared inbox or a self-hosted desk.
Short answer: Zammad, Deskpro and Crisp head the list of Jira Service Management alternatives drawn from our help desk ranking. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Zammad is the one to try if you want a ticketing system you can host yourself and read the code of. The 12 entries that follow are all ranked in Best Help Desk Software in 2026; each one explains what sets it apart from Jira Service Management.
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Pricing: Free tier; paid per agent per month, published
Established in: United States
Built for: Internal IT where developers already live in Jira
Not for: A consumer support team
01
Why buyers look past Jira Service Management
01
The free tier stops at three agents
Atlassian lists the Free plan as free forever for 3 agents, with 1,250 automation steps per subscription each month. The paid ladder starts at $21.50 per agent for Standard and reaches $55.28 for Premium, and Enterprise appears only on annual billing through sales. A fourth agent therefore moves a team onto a paid plan.
02
Several items are metered outside the seat price
Standard includes 5,000 Assets objects, after which objects start at $0.02 each per month. The virtual service agent is limited to Premium and Enterprise, with 1,000 assisted conversations a month before $0.30 per conversation. A bill built on seats alone will understate the cost for teams that use these parts.
03
The self-managed route is closing
Atlassian's Data Center end-of-life notice names Jira Service Management Data Center, with end of life on 28 March 2029. New customers could no longer buy Data Center subscriptions after 30 March 2026. Organisations that wanted to host their own desk must choose another product or move to Atlassian's cloud.
Starter $40 monthly for 50 tickets; $0.40 per extra ticket; monthly and annual billing
Ticket-volume pricing for online shop support
the tickets are shop orders and returns, and you want a bill that follows ticket volume
#4
03
What each one does differently
1
Zammad
Germany · Hosted from €7 per agent monthly; self-hosted software free, support packages from €2,999 a year; 30-day trial
Zammad is open source under the AGPL, so it can run on your own servers with no licence fee, or be rented hosted in German data centres from €7 per agent a month. Hosted tiers cap agents at 5, 35 or unlimited. It handles tickets and channels, not change records or asset registers.
Switch from Jira Service Management if you want a ticketing system you can host yourself and read the code of.
United States · Cloud $39, $59, $99 per agent with agent minimums; Private self-hosted from 10 licences
Deskpro Cloud lists $39, $59 and $99 per agent a month with minimums of 5, 10 and 25 agents, so small teams cannot start at one seat. Its Private edition is self-hosted and starts with 10 agent licences. Its navigation names IT help desk as a use, beside HR and B2B support.
Switch from Jira Service Management if you need an on-premise or private-cloud desk that still covers IT requests.
France · Free for 2 seats; $45 and $95 per workspace monthly; 14-day trial
Crisp prices the workspace, not the agent. Free covers 2 seats, Mini costs $45 a month with 4 seats and Essentials $95 with 10, and the vendor states conversations are not metered. It is a chat and shared-inbox product for customer support; it carries no ITSM process modules.
Switch from Jira Service Management if a small support team wants a flat monthly figure instead of a per-agent bill.
United States · Free for 5 users; $25, $45, $75 per user monthly; AI add-on $0.75 per resolution
Help Scout is an email-first shared inbox. A free plan covers 5 users and 1 inbox, then Standard, Plus and Pro are listed at $25, $45 and $75 per user a month. Its Plus plan integrates with Jira, which suits teams that keep engineering tickets in Atlassian. AI resolutions cost $0.75 each.
Switch from Jira Service Management if the work is customer email, and engineers stay in Jira.
United States · $19, $55, $89 per agent monthly on annual billing; AI sessions $49 per 100
Freshdesk lists Growth, Pro and Enterprise at $19, $55 and $89 per agent a month on annual billing. Its Freddy AI Agent includes 500 sessions, then sells blocks of 100 sessions at $49. Occasional agents can be covered with day passes, a way to pay only on the days someone works tickets.
Switch from Jira Service Management if you want published per-agent tiers and day passes for occasional agents.
India · Free for 3 users; four paid editions, annual and monthly billing; 15-day trial
Zoho Desk offers a free edition for 3 users, and a 15-day trial that falls back to that free plan when it ends. Paid editions run Express, Standard, Professional and Enterprise, and Enterprise includes 50 free light users. Its pricing page showed local-currency amounts that we do not quote.
Switch from Jira Service Management if your team is small and wants a permanent free plan before paying.
United States · $25, $65, $105 per seat monthly; seat caps on lower tiers; AI add-ons
Front sells a shared inbox that treats email, SMS and chat as one queue. Starter is $25 per seat, up to 10 seats and one channel type; Professional is $65, up to 50 seats; Enterprise is $105. AI Autopilot and Copilot are paid add-ons on the lower tiers.
Switch from Jira Service Management if requests arrive by email and messaging and agents should work from one inbox.
United States · Free for 2 users; Professional from $90 per seat plus $1,500 onboarding; Enterprise from $150
HubSpot Service Hub starts with a free plan for two users, with HubSpot branding on chat and email. Professional is listed from $90 a seat and requires a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee that the seat price excludes. Its value comes mostly from sharing a CRM with sales and marketing.
Switch from Jira Service Management if your customer records already live in HubSpot's CRM.
United States · €19 and €55 per agent annually; €1.50 per extra AI resolution; 14-day trial
Zendesk's Dutch pricing page lists Support Team at €19 per agent a month on annual billing (€25 monthly) and Suite Team at €55. Each AI resolution beyond the included five or ten costs €1.50. It offers a 14-day trial but no free plan, so a team of any size pays from the first agent.
Switch from Jira Service Management if you want the long-established support suite for customers, with published euro prices.
United States · Essential $29 ($19 for new customers), Advanced $85, Expert $132 per seat; Fin from $0.99 per outcome
Intercom bills seats and AI outcomes separately: Essential is $29 a seat ($19 for new customers), Advanced $85 and Expert $132, while its Fin agent costs from $0.99 per outcome. Advanced includes 20 free Lite seats and Expert 50, so occasional viewers do not need paid seats.
Switch from Jira Service Management if you want AI answers charged per outcome, with free seats for light users.
United States · Core $195, Advanced $395, Max $550 per user monthly, billed annually; Starter Suite $25
Salesforce Service Cloud lists Core at $195, Advanced at $395 and Max at $550 per user a month, billed annually, with a contract required. Max includes an IT service desk allowance for the org, so it can reach into JSM's territory, but at roughly nine times the Standard seat price.
Switch from Jira Service Management if you already run Salesforce and need cases tied to account data.
United States · Starter $40 monthly for 50 tickets; $0.40 per extra ticket; monthly and annual billing
Gorgias charges by ticket volume rather than seat. Starter is $40 a month for 50 tickets, with $0.40 for each ticket past the limit, and Pro covers 2,000 tickets. It is aimed at online brands answering order questions, so IT requests, assets and change approvals are out of scope.
Switch from Jira Service Management if the tickets are shop orders and returns, and you want a bill that follows ticket volume.
When Jira Service Management is still the right choice
Jira Service Management is still the sensible choice when IT, engineering and operations already work in Jira. Premium adds incident, problem and change management, a 99.9% uptime SLA and unlimited storage, and customers are unlicensed, so only agents count towards the bill. Teams that need asset records linked to requests will find them included from Standard.
05
What moving off Jira Service Management involves
01
List what lives in queues, forms and Assets
Before export, write down request types, workflows, SLA rules and Assets schemas. Most customer-support alternatives here model tickets and macros, not configuration items or change approvals, so these records may need a separate home or a note in the new tool. Check object counts against the Standard allowance of 5,000 before you decide what to move.
02
Keep the Jira link if engineers depend on it
Help Scout lists a Jira integration on its Plus plan, and engineers can keep their own project there. If you leave Atlassian entirely, decide who owns bug handoffs and how an agent sees a linked issue, because tickets raised in an alternative will not appear in Jira unless a connector is configured.
06
Questions about replacing Jira Service Management
7 answers
What is the best alternative to Jira Service Management as help desk software?
Zammad ranks first in our list of Jira Service Management alternatives. It is open source, can run on your own servers at no licence cost, and its hosted Starter plan is listed from €7 per agent a month.
Deskpro, Crisp and Help Scout follow in the list above, and Help Scout has a free plan for 5 users.
Is Jira Service Management still sold on its own?
Atlassian's pricing page now titles the offer Service Collection, which groups Jira Service Management, Customer Service Management and Assets. The page names the Free, Standard, Premium and Enterprise plans, and states that one Service Collection licence covers both Jira Service Management and Customer Service Management.
Which alternatives have a free plan?
Help Scout allows 5 users and 1 inbox, Zoho Desk 3 users, HubSpot Service Hub 2 users and Crisp 2 seats. Atlassian's own Free plan covers 3 agents. Zendesk and Front list a trial but not a free plan.
Can I host the replacement on my own servers?
Zammad's software is published under the AGPL and can be self-hosted, with support packages from €2,999 a year. Deskpro Private is self-hosted and starts with 10 agent licences. The other alternatives on this page are cloud services.
What happens to Data Center after 2029?
Atlassian states that Jira Service Management Data Center reaches end of life on 28 March 2029, and that new customers could not buy Data Center after 30 March 2026. Existing customers can keep buying until the end-of-life date, with limited extended maintenance by exception.
Which alternative handles IT requests as well as customer tickets?
Few do. Salesforce Service Cloud Max lists an IT service desk allowance, and Deskpro names IT help desk as a use. The rest here are customer support tools, so check incident, change and asset needs before moving.
Which alternative has the lowest listed per-agent price?
Zammad's hosted Starter at €7 is the lowest we read, then Freshdesk Growth at $19 on annual billing and Zendesk Support Team at €19. Compare like with like, since seat caps, billing periods and AI add-ons differ.
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Sources
Checked 5 November 2026
Atlassian Service Collection pricing: Free for 3 agents, Standard $21.50, Premium $55.28, Enterprise annual only, automation steps, Assets objects, virtual service agent allowances, 14-day trial, unlimited customers.
Atlassian Data Center end of life: End of life 28 March 2029, no new Data Center subscriptions for new customers from 30 March 2026, JSM Data Center included.
Zammad pricing: Hosted tiers and agent caps, AI call fee, self-hosted support packages, 30-day trial.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed 7 November 2026. How we review.
