The Help Scout Docs alternative that keeps itself accurate
Fern, our AI agent, reads your Help Scout conversations and your product changes, and drafts the fix whenever an article goes out of date. Host it on a /help subfolder of your own domain, with translations built in.
Book a demo - 7-day free trial
- No credit card
- Import from Help Scout, URLs kept
Ferndesk Help Scout- Built for
- Help centers that keep themselves accurate A shared inbox, with Docs included
- Keeping articles current
- Fern drafts fixes from PRs, conversations and the live product By hand; AI suggestions go to AI Answers, not Docs
- Hosting
- Your domain or a /help subfolder A subdomain only, no subfolder
- Price per month
- $149, or $124 billed yearly $25–$75 per user, plus $0.75 per AI resolution
Use Help Scout for your inbox and Ferndesk for your help center.
Help Scout Docs works, but it lives on a subdomain, needs one site per language, and is kept current by hand. Ferndesk is built only for the help center: it keeps every article accurate and includes every feature on one plan.
When to choose Ferndesk, and when to choose Help Scout
Choose Ferndesk if
- Your product ships every week and the articles fall behind.
- You want your help center on a /help subfolder of your own domain.
- You want several languages in one help center, not one Docs site per language.
- You want resolved conversations and merged pull requests to drive doc updates.
Choose Help Scout if
- You want your inbox and knowledge base from one vendor, on one bill.
- Docs already comes with the plan you pay for, and your articles rarely change.
- You want AI Answers inside Beacon, next to live chat.
- You want a free plan to start.
They work together
Ferndesk connects to Help Scout and reads your resolved conversations to find the articles your customers need. Your team keeps answering in Help Scout.
Where Help Scout Docs holds teams back
Teams move Docs when it sits on the wrong domain, needs a site per language, or falls behind the product.
No subfolder on your own domain
Help Scout says it can only support a custom subdomain for Docs. Your articles live at help.example.com, never example.com/help.
One site per language
Docs has no multi-language site, so teams run a separate site for each language. Plans include 2 to 5 sites, and each extra site is $20 a month.
Upkeep is manual
Nothing flags an outdated article. Suggested Improvements feed notes to AI Answers, not to your Docs, so someone still has to find and fix each article.
Ferndesk and Help Scout, side by side
| Feature | Ferndesk | Help Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Keeping docs accurate | ||
| Drafts doc updates from merged pull requests | Yes | No |
| Drafts articles from support conversations | Yes | No |
| Checks every article against the live product | Yes | No |
| Retakes screenshots when the UI changes | Yes | No |
| Help center | ||
| Every help center feature on one plan, no add-ons | Yes | Split across plans and add-ons |
| Visual editor | Yes | Yes |
| In-app help widget | Yes | Yes |
| AI answers from your docs | Yes | $0.75 per resolution |
| Host on a /help subfolder of your domain | Yes | No |
| Table of contents in articles | Yes | Built by hand |
| Several languages in one help center | Yes | One site per language |
| Private docs behind your own login | Yes | Plus plan, custom build |
| Shared inbox and live chat | No | Yes |
| Developer docs | ||
| API reference from OpenAPI | Yes | No |
| llms.txt for AI tools | Yes | No |
Your conversations already say what’s missing. Fern writes it down.
Fern watches the places docs go wrong: merged code, your Help Scout conversations and the live product. The fixes arrive drafted, and nothing publishes until someone on your team approves it.
Every merged PR, checked for doc impact
Fern reads each pull request you merge, finds the help articles it made wrong, and drafts the edit with a link to the change it came from.
Help Scout conversations turned into articles
She reads your resolved Help Scout conversations, spots the questions your docs do not answer, and drafts the missing article.
Every article checked against the product
Verification reads each article claim by claim and checks it against your codebase, your website and the live product. Anything that is no longer true becomes a drafted fix, and scheduled audits repeat the check.
Screenshots retaken from your real UI
When a screen changes, Fern recaptures the screenshot from your product, so articles stop showing last year’s design.
“I’m mind-blown by what it can do, it reformatted all 200 of our articles and reorganized our subcategories in a couple of prompts.”
Laura Simonow Customer Success Manager, Cleverific Feature documentation reduced from days or weeks to minutes
Read the Cleverific storyMove your help center in minutes
Ferndesk has a dedicated Help Scout importer. It rebuilds your collections and categories, rewrites internal links, and redirects your old URLs to the new pages so links and search rankings survive the move. If something will not import cleanly, we do it with you.
What comes across
- Your collections, categories and articles
- Article content and images
- Internal links, rewritten to the new pages
- Your URLs, with redirects from the old paths
The importer reads your public Docs site. Private collections move from an export, or we import them with you.
One flat price for the help center
Every help center feature on one plan, at a price that does not grow with the size of your support team.
Ferndesk Pro $149a month
Or $124 a month billed yearly, $1,490 a year. Includes the help center on your own domain or /help, the in-app widget with 1,000 AI conversations a month, private help centers, white labeling, 5 languages and 5 seats, with Fern keeping every article accurate. 7-day free trial, no card.
Under $1M ARR? The first 12 months are half price: $745 for the year. Early-stage rate
$25–$75per user a month, billed yearly
Docs comes with your plan: 2 Docs sites on Standard, 3 on Plus and 5 on Pro, with extra sites at $20 a month. AI Answers costs $0.75 per resolution, and restricted Docs and AI translation start on Plus.
From Help Scout’s pricing page, checked 24 September 2026.
Ferndesk vs Help Scout: common questions
Something we missed? Write to us, a human answers.
No. Ferndesk replaces only the help center. Your inbox, Beacon chat and workflows stay in Help Scout, and Ferndesk connects to Help Scout to read your resolved conversations.
More on Help Scout and the alternatives
The tools teams weigh when Help Scout Docs stops fitting.
How Cleverific left Help Scout DocsTwo hundred articles reformatted and reorganized in a couple of prompts.
IntegrationsThe support tools, code hosts and chat apps Fern reads from.
Self-updating help centerHow Fern keeps every article accurate as your product changes.
Help center softwareWhat a modern help center does, and how Ferndesk compares.
How migration worksWhat comes across, what redirects, and how long it takes.
Your docs have been stale for months. Fix them in ten minutes.
Import your help center and Fern checks every article against your product, drafts the fixes, and keeps them current from then on. You approve, she publishes.
- 7-day free trial, no card
- Import in 10 minutes, URLs preserved
- Your support tool stays where it is
- Nothing publishes without you