Skip to main content

Fully Managed FreeScout
as a Service

Deploy FreeScout as a fully managed service starting at €9/mo. Get automated backups, SSL, updates, support and monitoring included.

FreeScout is an open-source help desk and shared mailbox — a self-hosted alternative to Help Scout, Zendesk, and Intercom that gives small support teams an unlimited-agent ticket queue without per-seat pricing. The application is AGPL-licensed, runs on Laravel and PHP, and has been actively maintained by the freescout-help-desk project since 2018.

Free 7-day trial  99.9% Uptime SLA  No credit card  Cancel anytime

Free 7-day trial  99.9% Uptime SLA
No credit card  Cancel anytime

FreeScout

FreeScout

STARTING AT

€9/month
Automated Backups
Monitoring
Automated Updates
Auto SSL

USAGE

Unlimited
Human Support
Custom Domains
Terminal Access
File Manager Access
Deploy in your region 21 locations worldwide
GermanyFinlandNetherlandsUKSwedenUnited StatesCanadaSingaporeJapanAustraliaBrazilSouth Africa+9 more →
FreeScout Preview Image

ABOUT THE SOFTWARE

What is FreeScout

FreeScout is an open-source help desk and shared-inbox platform — conversations, tags, saved replies, customer portal — combining the workflow of Help Scout with the data ownership and unlimited-agent pricing of self-hosted infrastructure.

The project is AGPL-licensed and maintained on GitHub under the freescout-help-desk organisation. The latest stable release runs on Laravel and PHP. Database is MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL. Footprint is small enough to run on a $12/month cloud server, though a production install handling several mailboxes and a few thousand monthly threads benefits from more headroom.

FreeScout has native iOS, Android, and macOS menu-bar applications that mirror the web feature set, and a 100-plus module ecosystem of first-party and community modules covering Workflows & SLA, white-label customisation, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, Jira, Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, SAML SSO, Time Tracking, and Faster Search via Meilisearch.

FEATURES

What FreeScout does

FreeScout ships a full SMB-grade help desk in one self-hosted application. Multiple shared mailboxes, collision detection, saved replies, internal notes, customer portal, mobile apps, and the 100-plus module ecosystem that adds SLA workflows, custom fields, CRM, knowledge base, time tracking, and per-channel integrations.

Unlimited shared mailboxes

support@, sales@, billing@, returns@ — each with its own folder structure, signature, auto-reply, and IMAP credentials. No per-mailbox license fee.

Saved replies and merge fields

Dynamic templates that pull customer name, custom-field values, order numbers, or matter codes. Build once, reuse across mailboxes.

Native mobile and desktop apps

iOS, Android, and a macOS menu-bar app (Scouter) with full feature parity. Push notifications and offline drafts in the mobile clients.

100+ module ecosystem

WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, Jira, Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, SAML SSO, Time Tracking, Knowledge Base, End-User Portal, Faster Search.

Collision detection and following

See who else has the conversation open and avoid double-replies. Mark a thread for visibility so a teammate gets notified on every new reply.

Workflows and SLA

Auto-route by subject, sender, tag, or mailbox. Trigger first-response and full-resolution SLAs with escalation rules and audit-friendly history.

White-label customisation

The Customization module rebrands the agent interface, the customer portal, and the system emails — useful for agencies reselling support.

Open data, open code

AGPL license. Full data export through the FreeScout admin and the REST API. Webhooks for new conversation, reply, status change, and assignment.

WHAT'S ALWAYS INCLUDED

Every app. Fully managed.
Nothing extra to pay for.

Every app you deploy includes the full managed service — security, backups, updates, and support from day one.

Automatic updates and patches

Apps run the latest stable version. Security patches applied silently, with rollback if needed.

Daily off-site backups

Multiple daily backups in redundant off-site locations. One-click restore if anything goes wrong.

24/7 uptime monitoring

Continuous monitoring with instant alerting. We respond before you notice.

SSL, firewall, DDoS protection

Auto-renewing SSL, hardened firewall rules, DDoS mitigation on every deployment.

Performance and scaling

We monitor resource usage continuously. When your app needs more headroom, we flag it and upgrade with your explicit approval.

Dedicated engineering support

Real engineers on chat. DNS, SMTP & migration help. All included in €9.

WHY MANAGED

Why teams pick managed FreeScout

In 2025, Help Scout retired per-user pricing and moved every plan to contact-based billing, then added AI Answers at $0.75 per resolution on top. Predictable SMB support teams are migrating to self-hosted shared inboxes to take back budget control — and FreeScout is the most direct open-source replacement.

"Just install FreeScout on a server" is the most under-counted job in self-hosted help desks. The install itself is short. What follows is not: cron jobs that poll IMAP every minute, mail bounce handling, SPF/DKIM/DMARC tuning, certificate renewal, attachment-storage growth, database backups that actually restore, and module compatibility on every PHP minor version.

REVIEWS

Hear from customers ​like you​​​​​​​

Successful businesses and professionals around the world rely on DANIAN every day

USE CASES

Three teams who run FreeScout on DANIAN

These are representative team types we set up most often. Each starts with the same flat €9 plan.

5-PERSON VOLUNTARY-ORG SUPPORT TEAM

Replacing per-agent SaaS after the yearly budget couldn't absorb it

Single shared mailbox, 5 agents, core install plus the Tags and Saved Replies modules. The team had been quoted higher than their yearly software budget for 5 paid seats on legacy SaaS plans — moving to managed FreeScout freed the line item back to mission spend.

100+ AGENT VOLUNTEER RESPONSE GROUP

Triaging thousands of inbound emails across timezone shifts

Distributed agents on rotating shifts, multiple triage mailboxes, Tags, Mentions, and Workflows for routing. Daily off-site backups with hourly snapshots on the database. Adding shift agents during a surge costs nothing — there is no per-seat charge to absorb.

3-PERSON INDIE SAAS

Pulling support out of a personal Gmail after the first 50 paying customers

Three mailboxes (support@, sales@, billing@), Workflows & SLA, Tags, API & Webhooks for Zapier hooks, WooCommerce module for order lookup, and the End-User Portal for paying-customer self-service. USA region matching the application stack.

COMPARISON

Four ways to run FreeScout

The choice isn't FreeScout or not FreeScout — it's where you run it. The four honest paths are the proprietary SaaS you'd be replacing, a self-managed VPS, a home server, or a managed instance on DANIAN. The math at 5 agents looks like this.

 PATH1 AGENT5 AGENTS 10 AGENTSONGOING OPS
Help Scout
(Plus, legacy per-user)
$44/mo$220/mo$440/moVendor-managed. AI Answers add $0.75 per resolution; the new contact-based plan scales with customer volume.
Self-host on a $24/mo production-class VPS
$44/mo infra$44/mo infra$44/mo infra1–2 hrs/mo ops at €60–120/hr (patching, IMAP/OAuth, certs, backup verify). Effective €100–280/mo.
Home server
(HP ProLiant ML30 Gen10, ~€800–1,500)
~€18–55/mo*~€18–55/mo*~€18–55/mo*+ €17–32 electricity, + €40–80 business internet, + €10–20 off-site backup, + 2–4 hrs/mo ops. Effective €210–667/mo.
DANIAN Managed FreeScout€9/mo€9/mo€9/mo0 hrs/mo. Patching, backups, monitoring, Microsoft 365 OAuth, certificate renewal, module install, restore tests — included.

* Hardware amortised over 36 months. SaaS pricing reflects Help Scout's legacy per-user Plus tier; Help Scout's current contact-based plans (Standard from $50/mo, Plus from $75/mo, Pro from $90/mo) replace per-seat scaling with monthly contact-volume billing. AI Answers at $0.75 per resolution stacks on every plan. Verified May 2026.

BY INDUSTRY

FreeScout for specific industries

FreeScout earns its keep where per-seat SaaS pricing meets either tight regulation, tight budget, or both. Four industries where the application's open-source license, unlimited-agent model, and self-hosted control map cleanly onto a real operational problem.

The operational discipline that matters most for online retail support is keeping payment-card data out of the help desk database. FreeScout never stores PAN; refunds are issued inside the payment processor while FreeScout holds the conversation record. We ship instances with the WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads sidebar lookup module, the Tags module pre-set with returns, refund, exchange, and shipping-claim categories, and Workflows configured with a 24-hour first-response SLA on the returns mailbox.

A typical flow: an email with subject containing "refund" auto-tags refund-request and routes to the Returns folder; the WooCommerce module surfaces the order in the conversation sidebar; the agent verifies eligibility, issues the refund inside the payment processor (the card data never touches FreeScout), replies, and closes; the Satisfaction Ratings module emails a CSAT survey 24 hours later. Peak retail support volume runs three to five times baseline during Black Friday week; on the unlimited-agent model, adding seasonal temp agents costs nothing at the platform layer.
Enterprise customers send security questionnaires before contracts close, and every conversation needs a clear timestamp, sender, and change history that holds up under procurement review. We ship instances with the API & Webhooks module pushing ticket events to your security event log, SAML SSO bound to your identity provider, Tags pre-set with bug, feature, billing, p1, and p2, and the Jira Integration module for engineering escalation.

A typical flow: a bug report arrives in bugs@; it auto-tags bug/p1; the Jira module opens a linked Jira issue and the FreeScout conversation snoozes for 48 hours; when the Jira issue closes, a webhook reopens the FreeScout conversation and notifies the customer. B2B SaaS support volume typically runs three to fifteen tickets per paying customer per year, so a 500-customer company averages about 50 tickets per week — well within base-tier capacity.
Client confidentiality is the constraint that shapes everything else. Matter records are retained for six to ten years depending on jurisdiction; visibility is scoped to the agents working that specific matter; every billable conversation needs a defensible time record. We configure FreeScout with Custom Folders by client matter, Tags for matter codes, the Time Tracking module for billable-hour capture, the Teams module to scope folder visibility, and the IP restriction module to lock the help desk to office IPs.

A typical flow: a client emails their dedicated matter address; the conversation auto-tags with the matter code; Time Tracking starts when the partner opens the thread; the partner replies and closes; the Time Tracking export feeds into the firm's billing tool at month-end. The Conversation Export module produces archival EML files that meet most jurisdictions' retention bars without per-record fees.
Every client expects to see your brand, not the help-desk vendor's, across email, portal, and embed surfaces. We enable the Customization white-label module by default, provision a dedicated mailbox per client with isolated signatures and auto-replies, attach a Custom Domain per client portal, add Custom Fields for client-id and contract reference, and turn on the Reports module per client.

A typical flow: a new client signs up; we provision a dedicated mailbox under support.{client}.com with their logo and palette; the agency's agents see all client folders in one console; the client portal carries the client's brand and the FreeScout name never surfaces. An agency serving 8 to 15 small-business clients runs all of them out of one FreeScout instance at €9/month — instead of paying 8 to 15 separate per-seat subscriptions — and the agency's margin on the support service typically jumps from around 30% to around 70%.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Everything teams ask before signing up — answered straight, without sales speak.

Three groups: technical setup, migration, and how DANIAN works as a service.

01

Technical and configuration

Google Workspace requires the mailbox to use 2-Step Verification, after which FreeScout connects via an App Password rather than the user's normal login password. The FreeScout team has confirmed with Google that App Passwords are intended to remain supported.
Two documented patterns cause this. On Microsoft 365, the message can be marked as read during the fetch and then the IMAP connection drops before the conversation is written — because the email is no longer unseen, FreeScout never retries it (GitHub issue #1620). On some Dovecot servers, IMAP folder discovery omits the INBOX. prefix and the fetcher walks the wrong folder.
Yes, but not with a plain username and password — Microsoft phased out basic authentication for Exchange Online starting October 2022. FreeScout connects through an Azure App Registration with multi-tenant account type, an HTTPS-only redirect URI, and a client secret that expires after a maximum of 24 months. You need to register and pair the app, calendar the secret rotation 60 days before expiry, and confirm the shared mailbox has the right Exchange Online license attached.
Yes. FreeScout supports unlimited mailboxes on one instance. Each mailbox has its own folder structure, signature, auto-reply, and IMAP credentials. Agents can be scoped to one mailbox or to several. Most teams we host run between three and eight mailboxes on a single instance.
The core help desk is free under AGPL. Paid first-party modules sold from freescout.net include Workflows & SLA, Custom Fields, CRM, Reports, Kanban, Knowledge Base, End-User Portal, Tags, Satisfaction Ratings, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, SAML SSO, Data Export & Erasure, API & Webhooks, Time Tracking, Customization (white-label), Teams, and around thirty others. A separate community-modules ecosystem ships additional free integrations.
Yes. Collision detection is in core — a notice appears when two agents open the same conversation. Shared drafts are supported via the conversation-following feature, where an agent can mark a thread for visibility to a teammate. We leave both enabled by default.
Yes. Dedicated Zapier and Make integrations are published by the FreeScout team, and the API & Webhooks module emits events for new conversation, status change, assignment, and reply. We install the module and supply your API key on request.
Yes. FreeScout ships native iOS and Android apps and a macOS menu-bar app called Scouter. The mobile apps mirror the web functionality and respect the modules you have installed.

02

Migration and onboarding

We can activate your app on your own custom domain/subdomain. Examples: mydomain.com, anyword.mydomain.com.
Or, on our randomized free subdomain. Example: 963.apps.danian.cloud
If you wish to use a custom domain/subdomain, select that option when ordering your app (or notify us later). We will send you the required DNS records and if needed, our tech team will modify them for you.
21 datacenter locations across six continents. You choose the region at provisioning. Application data sits in the region you choose; pick whichever is closest to your users or matches your data-residency preference.
Yes. Request a region migration from the dashboard and we run the move in the background. The system emails you when the migration completes; total transfer time depends on data volume but typical instances finish in a few hours. There is no extra charge for a region change.
Yes. Full data export is available at any time, in a portable format you can bring to any infrastructure.
FreeScout publishes migration paths from each of the main SaaS help desks. The most predictable migration is mailbox-level: you re-point your support DNS to FreeScout, the new instance starts collecting fresh threads, and historical archives stay queryable in the old account or get exported as EML.
Threading transfers by Message-ID. Customer identity is matched on email address, so a customer who emails support after the cutover lands in the same conversation as their prior threads if the address has not changed. Attachments transfer where the source export includes them — Help Scout and Zendesk both do; Intercom's export needs an extra pass to pull attachment URLs.

03

Billing, support, and platform

€9 covers everything we do for that app: hardware in the region you choose, daily off-site backups with one-click restore, automatic security patches and version upgrades, 24/7 monitoring, SSL and firewall, and engineering support on Email/LiveChat. There are no setup fees or hidden line items. For more info see our Pricing page.
If you decide to continue, we charge €9/app/month from day 8. If you don't, the trial ends and you can export your data. No card is required for the trial, and we never auto-charge you without explicit consent.
No. The €9/month is flat regardless of how many users log into your app. Add 5 users or 50; the price doesn't change.
24/7 Live chat and email support, both staffed by engineers who run the systems. We handle DNS configuration, SMTP setup, app integrations, performance tuning, troubleshooting, and migration help. Response time is typically under an hour. There is no tier system — every customer gets the same support.
Yes. Cancel from the dashboard. We don't charge a cancellation fee, we don't lock data, and we will export your data to you on request before deletion. data to you on request before deletion.
Every customer instance is backed up daily to a separate region from the primary. We test restores. You can request a restore at any backup point within the retention window — usually 7 days for daily backups.
Your application data sits in the region you choose at provisioning — 21 datacenter locations across six continents. Account-level data (billing, account email, support ticket history) is processed centrally. Application data region is picked by you, per app.
99.9% uptime SLA on every app, every tenant. Service credits are documented at danian.co/service-level-agreement. The status page is located at status.danian.co.
When your tenant approaches the resource ceiling — the base tier holds 1 vCPU/RAM, 30 GB storage — we notify you. Resource upgrades happen with your explicit consent; we will not upgrade your tenant or charge you without it.
We wait. We don't suspend the app or delete your data on the first failed charge. We email you, you fix the card on file, and we continue.
Invoices can be downloaded from the billing dashboard in PDF the day each charge succeeds. EU VAT is added where applicable and the VAT-reverse-charge regime applies for VAT-registered businesses with a valid number.
150+ open-source apps across automation, team chat, file sync, analytics, AI, password management, email marketing, dev tools, project management, smart home, CMS, and federated social. See the full catalog →
Yes. Every instance comes with a web-based terminal and a file manager in your DANIAN management dashboard. Useful for managing your data and customizations.
Resources scale with your usage. If your app needs more vCPU, RAM, or storage, we add it — and we ask first before any change to your plan. €9 is the floor; resource-heavy workloads may price higher, but you'll always know in advance.
Yes. We have both a Partner program and an Affiliate program available. Anybody can sign up.
No contract. No minimum commitment. Cancel anytime from the dashboard with one click. The 7-day free trial requires no credit card. After the trial converts to paid, you can still cancel at any month without notice or penalty.

DEPLOY IN YOUR REGION

21 datacenter locations on six continents

Pick the region closest to your users.

United States, Germany, Finland, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Netherlands, UK, Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, Malaysia, India, Japan, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, Chile, South Africa and more coming soon

Global Reach Map

Try managed FreeScout for 7 days

No card. Cancel from the dashboard.