Audyense
Kayako
Customer Support · kayako.com
Overview
Kayako is a customer-support help desk platform that unifies email, live chat, social, and voice into a single shared inbox with a continuous conversation timeline. It pairs traditional ticketing, a native knowledge base, SLA tools, and no-code automation with 'Kay', an AI agent that triages, drafts replies, and autonomously resolves tickets such as refunds, password resets, and order updates. A veteran vendor founded in 2001, Kayako repositioned in 2025-2026 around AI resolution and seat-free AI pricing.
The problem Kayako solves
Support teams juggling email, chat, and social across siloed tools struggle to keep response times down and tickets from piling up, and legacy help desks charge per seat as volume grows. SMB and mid-market teams that want a single omnichannel inbox plus AI-assisted triage and resolution — without a large integration footprint or fully predictable flat pricing — are the buyers Kayako targets.
Decision context
Use these points to test whether the product fits your operation, not just whether it has a long feature list.
- Published starting price: $79 per agent/month. Confirm user, usage, and feature limits for the plan you would actually buy.
- Deployment: cloud. Check security, data-residency, and access requirements for every team that will use it.
- Verified integrations include Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Shopify, Stripe. Validate sync direction and plan limits for the connections that matter.
- This record was last checked on 7/23/2026; pricing and features can change.
How to evaluate Kayako
A listing helps create a shortlist; a trial with the team’s real workflow decides whether the tool fits. Use this reading with the structured facts and confirm changes with the vendor.
Workflow fit
The record describes it as a fit for SMB and mid-market support teams wanting a unified omnichannel help desk, Teams looking to automate ticket triage and resolution with an AI agent, Businesses replacing channel-siloed legacy tools with a single conversation timeline. Check that this context matches the volume, roles, and processes your team needs it to support.
Pilot questions
- Can Kayako complete the critical workflow without manual work outside the product?
- Do the recorded connections (Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp) support the sync direction, permissions, and volume we need?
- What user, usage, storage, support, or security limits appear after the headline starting price?
Evidence and freshness
This record was checked on 7/23/2026. That date tells you when the record was reviewed, not that the vendor has left its terms unchanged since then.
Best for
- SMB and mid-market support teams wanting a unified omnichannel help desk
- Teams looking to automate ticket triage and resolution with an AI agent
- Businesses replacing channel-siloed legacy tools with a single conversation timeline
Not a fit if
- Enterprises needing a deep native app marketplace and extensive integrations
- Teams wanting flat, predictable costs (per-resolution AI fees add variability)
Why it’s listed
- Established help desk (since 2001) repositioned around AI ticket resolution and seat-free AI pricing
- Unified omnichannel inbox with native knowledge base, live chat, and SLA management in one platform
- Substantial third-party review presence across G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius
Pricing
Kayako One
$79 per agent/monthFull support platform with unified inbox, ticketing, knowledge base, SLA tools, automation, reporting, and Kay AI access.
- Unified omnichannel inbox
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base with semantic search
- Automation rules & SLA tools
- Reporting & analytics
- White-glove onboarding
Kay AI Agent
$1 per resolved ticketPay-per-resolution AI agent that triages and autonomously resolves tickets; can connect to an existing help desk or run inside Kayako One.
- Pay only on resolved tickets ($1 each)
- No seat or setup fees
- Automated triage and reply drafting
- Real actions: refunds, password resets, order updates
- Connects to Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, Salesforce
Features
Integrations
Security & compliance
Pros & cons
Pros
- Easy to configure and use; straightforward ticket management
- Unified omnichannel timeline keeps email, chat, and social in one thread
- Kay AI agent automates triage and auto-drafts knowledge-base articles
- Responsive, well-regarded support team
Cons
- Interface can feel cluttered and navigation is sometimes tricky
- Fewer native integrations than Zendesk; no large app marketplace
- Costs can be unpredictable due to $1-per-resolution AI fees, and past pricing changes drew criticism
- Occasional technical glitches when creating tickets or adding attachments
What we found
Reviewers praise Kayako’s ease of setup, unified omnichannel timeline, and AI-assisted ticket handling, but flag a sometimes cluttered interface, a thinner native-integration catalog than Zendesk, and pricing changes that drew customer criticism.
Ratings and review counts come from public review platforms. We link to the original source and keep the underlying review text out of this profile.
User reviews
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