This is one of our top picks in the category so we recommend it over others (you're on the right page), read below to learn why we love and recommend it! ⤵
This is one of the better tools in its category, see below if this tool is right for you! ⤵
If you're more of a product/engineering focused company and the idea of a help desk being API-first, then Plain is definitely a top contender.
While they aren't as far along some of our other Top Picks (Help Scout), they are focusing on simplicity and deep integrations with Slack and Linear amongst other product–focused collaboration tools.
If we were starting a company today in the software space, we'd have to strongly consider Plain as they are trying to rethink the help desk space.
We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what they do well, and what they could do better. ⤵
Bring all your customer conversations from your support channels – like Slack, email, and forms – into a single, lightning-fast interface. Integrated with the tools you already use, backed by their powerful API.
Plain has taken a unique approach to the best help desk space by doing what the name suggests and taking a more "plain" and simple approach to it all.
Plain is focusing heavily on product-teams that can benefit from deeper integrations with tools like Linear, Slack, and Stripe.
The standout features of Plain are actually the deep native integrations. If you're using Stripe for your product, you can easily display all the details of the plan and purchases on the right-hand side.
In-fact, the same is the case with Linear + Slack, you can easily turn a Slack message into a support ticket and spin up a Linear issue from that, pulling in full context to one place:
So if you're a team especially that has shared Slack channels with customers/partners, Plain has a pretty impressive integration with Slack that we haven't really seen with any other Help Desk on the market.
If any of the above integrations sound exciting, they great! You're probably in their target customer profile, if not? That makes sense, it's for quite a specific type of product team, one that is likely using Linear and Slack already.
If you're looking for a more traditional help desk, you might want to check out Help Scout instead. That said, if the above fits your use-case, then we think plain is a fantastic choice, and super promising in the somewhat stagnant and uninspiring help desk space!
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Plain does not have mobile apps for either iOS or Android, although they do have a responsive website which has a pretty decent mobile experience, so you can get away with bookmarking the Plain dashboard and responding on-the-go from any mobile browser.
Plain does have an API, in-fact, they are an API-first help desk, which can be seen in their deep integrations with Slack, Linear, and Stripe, along with their detailed API docs, standing out in the help desk space which typically treats their API as an add-on feature versus a foundational feature.
We've tracked and verified the above companies are using this software in their team's stack.
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