whats-best.ai
Search Sign in

Customer Service & Helpdesk

Kayako

Provenance unknown Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Kayako Ltd · kayako.com

Report an error on this page Is this your product? →

Link to this page

Kayako: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai Kayako: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai (dark)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

Kayako at a glance

Vendor
Kayako Ltd
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
Data hosting
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates Kayako 2.5/5, the mean of 6 judges. Kayako is an AI help desk platform, strongest on knowledge and self-service where scores run 8 to 9: articles are drafted from resolved tickets with one-click publish, translation is on demand, per-article health scores and stale-content flags mark what needs review, and analytics name which articles prevent tickets. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 20 Oct 2026; evaluated by the panel 21 Oct 2026. all sources

Kayako alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Agent Advocate

Weighted verdict

Has answered tickets for six years and judges every tool by the hundredth reply, not the first. Wants search that finds the old thread, macros that save real keystrokes, and one screen rather than four tabs. Treats agent-activity dashboards as a smell.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Agent Advocate

Panel median The Agent Advocate This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The Agent Advocate
Ticketing, queues & SLA 3 of 5 3 of 5
Channels in one queue 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Knowledge base & deflection 4.5 of 5 4.5 of 5
Customer data protection 2 of 5 2 of 5
Integrations & API 3 of 5 3.5 of 5
European sovereignty 0.5 of 5 0.5 of 5
Pricing transparency 2.5 of 5 3 of 5

Ticketing, queues & SLA

How this is scored

The engine: how work is routed, prioritised, escalated and measured — and whether an agent can find the ticket they need among ten thousand.

0 — A shared mailbox with labels; no ownership, no status model, no history beyond the thread.

3 — Tickets with assignment and open/closed status, but routing is manual, there are no SLA timers and search covers subject lines only.

5 — Queues with rules-based routing, priorities, a working status model, SLA timers with breach warnings, and full-text search across ticket bodies.

8 — Business-hours-aware SLA policies per queue or customer, escalation chains, macros and triggers, merge and split, and reporting on first-response and resolution time by agent and queue.

10 — The workload is managed rather than merely tracked: capacity-aware assignment, SLA per contract with reporting an account manager could show a customer, audit of every status change, and search that finds the ticket from a half-remembered phrase.

Report an error

The Agent Advocate

Routing that reads skills, current workload and language before assigning, priority prediction, an automation builder for route-assign-escalate, and real-time SLA health with first-contact-resolution and resolution-time metrics are all on the ticketing pages. What I found no public information on: search across ticket bodies, macros, merge and split, and SLA timers with breach warnings — the parts that decide the hundredth reply, not the first. 3 1

Report an error

Channels in one queue

How this is scored

Email, chat, phone, portal, messengers and social — judged on what actually lands in the same queue with the same history, not on how many channel logos the marketing page carries.

0 — Email only.

3 — Email plus one more channel, but the second lives in its own inbox: no shared history, and a customer who switches channel starts again.

5 — Email, a web form or portal and live chat all landing as tickets in one queue, with the customer's history visible whichever channel they used.

8 — The above plus telephony integration with call logging, at least one messenger (WhatsApp, Signal or similar) with its consent handling stated, and a customer portal where a requester can see their own tickets.

10 — Channel is an implementation detail: every channel including voice and messengers writes to one conversation with one history, agents answer from one screen, and the customer can move between channels mid-issue without repeating themselves.

Report an error

The Agent Advocate

Email, live chat, web forms, voice, SMS/WhatsApp and social are captured into one shared queue, and every ticket is claimed to carry the customer's full history so nobody repeats themselves — that is the part I care about. I found no public information on call logging for the voice channel, consent handling for WhatsApp, or a portal where a requester sees their own tickets. 3 1 4

Report an error

Knowledge base & deflection

How this is scored

Whether the product reduces the number of tickets as well as organising them: public help centre, article workflow, suggestions to agents and to customers.

0 — No knowledge base; answers live in agents' heads and old tickets.

3 — A basic article list, public or internal, with no editorial workflow, no versioning and no link between articles and tickets.

5 — A searchable public help centre with categories, draft and publish states, and agents able to insert an article into a reply.

8 — Article suggestions to the customer before they submit and to the agent while they answer, multilingual articles, review dates that flag stale content, and reporting on which articles deflect.

10 — Knowledge is a managed asset: gaps identified from unanswered tickets, article performance measured against ticket volume by topic, versioned content with approval, and deflection reported as a number the team can act on.

Report an error

The Agent Advocate

Articles drafted from resolved tickets with one-click publish, suggestions to agents in-ticket, intent-based customer search, on-demand translation, stale-content flags with per-article health scores, gap lists built from ticket patterns, and analytics showing exactly which articles prevent tickets. Deflection is even sold as a number, at $1 per AI-deflected question; the one thing I found no public information on is versioned content with an approval step. 6 5 1

Report an error

Customer data protection

How this is scored

A ticket archive is personal data written by the data subject. Retention, deletion, access control, subject rights, and what the vendor does with attachments — judged on what executes rather than what is promised.

0 — No retention policy stated, no deletion path, agents all see everything, and no DPA is published.

3 — A DPA on request and coarse roles; deletion is described as something the customer arranges, and there is no stated retention period.

5 — A signable DPA published, configurable agent roles and queue-level visibility, a stated retention period, and deletion of a requester's data that can actually be executed.

8 — Automatic retention rules per queue or data category, attachment handling stated, an audit log of who opened which ticket, documented support for access and erasure requests, and pseudonymisation or redaction of ticket content.

10 — Built for a data-protection audit: retention executed and evidenced per category, field-level redaction, full audit trail, subprocessor list published, and the vendor's own support access to customer instances documented and consent-gated.

Report an error

The Agent Advocate

Role-based access, audit logs and SOC 2 Type II are stated as built in from day one, and erasure requests with SCC-backed transfers are documented in the privacy policy. But I found no public information on a signable DPA, a stated retention period — the policy says data is kept only for as long as reasonably necessary — on per-queue retention rules, or on redaction of ticket content; the subprocessor list is available only on request. 1 2

Report an error

Integrations & API

How this is scored

The systems a helpdesk has to reach — CRM, shop, order management, identity — and whether the API is documented for building or gated behind a partner conversation.

0 — No API and no named integrations; context is copied in by hand.

3 — A handful of native integrations and a read-mostly API, with no webhooks and no documented rate limits.

5 — Named integrations for common CRM and shop systems, a documented REST API with keys, webhooks for the core ticket events, and SSO.

8 — Maintained bidirectional integrations, customer context from other systems shown inside the ticket, SCIM provisioning, documented rate limits and a sandbox.

10 — A component rather than a destination: versioned API with a deprecation policy, event streaming both directions, an app framework for in-ticket extensions, and integrations the vendor maintains rather than lists.

Report an error

The Agent Advocate

Named connectors for Salesforce, Shopify, Stripe and Chargebee with claimed bi-directional sync, customer context from those systems shown inside the ticket on one timeline, plus open APIs, webhooks and developer docs — that is the one-screen setup I want. I found no public information on SCIM provisioning, documented rate limits or a sandbox, and the 5,000+ apps figure is presented through the Zapier no-code route rather than as a list of vendor-maintained connectors. 8 7 1

Report an error

European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the ticket archive lives, who the contracting entity is, which subprocessors touch it, and whether vendor support can read customer data. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; scored here as this buyer weighs it.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated or non-EU, subprocessors unnamed.

3 — EU hosting offered as an option while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — support tooling, analytics, AI features — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU or DACH hosting with a named data-centre provider, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, and any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor in the EU, certification published, and a self-hosted or private-cloud option for buyers who need the archive on their own infrastructure.

Report an error

The Agent Advocate

The platform is managed by ESW Operations, LLC of Austin, Texas, the privacy policy says personal data may be stored and processed in the European Economic Area, the United States or any other country where the company has facilities, and the subprocessor list is available only on request, with Google Analytics on the site. Standard contractual clauses and Data Privacy Framework certification are documented, which is something for transfers, but I found no public information on EU hosting, an EU contracting entity, or a published subprocessor list. 2

Report an error

Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a support lead can compute the real annual invoice for their agent count — including the channels and features they actually need — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-agent headline exists, but the tier where the needed channel or SLA feature begins is unstated, or light-agent and contact limits are not mentioned.

5 — Per-agent prices public for the main tiers with billing period stated, but at least one commonly needed capability (telephony, messengers, SLA policies) sits in an unpriced bundle.

8 — Every tier and add-on priced publicly with per-agent maths, billing period, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; only genuinely custom enterprise work lacks a number.

10 — Complete price computability: a calculator or table producing the annual invoice for a given agent count and channel selection, including usage-metered channels and overage.

Report an error

The Agent Advocate

One captured page shows Kayako One at $79/agent/mo with AI resolutions at $1 each and all integrations included with no per-connector fees and no connection limits — most of the maths a support lead needs. But I found no public information on billing period, minimum term or VAT treatment, the usage-metered deflection charges sit in no annual table, and the captured pages give different figures for Kayako One — "$79/agent/mo" on one and "Custom pricing for your team" on another. 5 6 3 7

Report an error

European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined — uncited Report an error

Questions about Kayako

Is Kayako European?

Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where Kayako is based.

Where does Kayako store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026.

Does Kayako have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Kayako?

As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates Zendesk (3.5/5), Intercom (3.5/5) and HubSpot Service Hub (3/5) highest among the other 28 Customer Service & Helpdesk products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is Zammad (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Kayako alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Do you know more about Kayako? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (8)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor page kayako.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Privacy policy — found from the homepage kayako.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Ticketing, queues & SLA — found from sitemap kayako.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Channels in one queue — found from sitemap kayako.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Knowledge base & deflection — found from sitemap kayako.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Knowledge base & deflection — found from sitemap kayako.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Integrations & API — found from sitemap kayako.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Integrations & API — found from sitemap kayako.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →