Optlo: the Freshdesk alternative
Freshdesk meters the AI by the session. Optlo runs it on your own provider key, at your provider's prices.
Last updated August 2026
Freshdesk is one of the better known help desks going. It's cheap to get started with, it puts email, chat, WhatsApp and social in one inbox, and Freddy AI Agent answers customers across all of them without much setup on your side.
The part people miss is how the AI is billed. Freddy AI Agent sessions come in packs of 100 for $49, so roughly 49 cents every time a customer talks to the bot, and that's on top of the per agent seats you're already paying for. Optlo runs on your own AI provider account instead, so you pay OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini directly for tokens with no markup and no session meter.
Freshdesk does more than we do when you need one inbox covering phone, WhatsApp and social alongside email. Where Optlo makes sense is support that lives on your website, run by a team that would rather own the AI outright and see what every conversation actually costs.
Choose Optlo if…
You want to own your AI, pay providers directly with no session metering, choose your models, and shape the prompt and workflow yourself.
Try Optlo freeStick with Freshdesk if…
You need one help desk covering phone, WhatsApp and social alongside email, with a big agent team and a mature ticketing setup you don't want to rebuild.
Optlo vs Freshdesk at a glance
| Feature | Optlo | Freshdesk |
|---|---|---|
| Bring your own AI key (pay your provider directly) | OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini | Freshworks manages the models |
| No markup / no metered AI billing | Yes | $49 per 100 AI sessions |
| AI billed only when it resolves | No per-outcome billing at all | A session counts either way |
| Predictable cost at high volume | Plan + your AI at cost | Seats and sessions both scale |
| Choose from multiple AI models | Yes | One managed model |
| Edit the system prompt | Full control | Guardrails and instructions |
| Custom conversation workflows | Yes | Agentic workflows and automations |
| Shared inbox & human handoff | Yes | Yes |
| Trained on your content (site, docs, help center) | Yes | Yes |
| Support channels | Email & web | Email, chat, WhatsApp, social |
| Free trial | 7-day trial | 14 days on Enterprise |
| Starting price | From $16/mo, billed annually | From $19/agent/mo + AI sessions |
Freshdesk pricing and features were read from Freshdesk's pricing page in August 2026 and may have changed since. Check the current terms there before you decide.
01Pricing model
Metered AI sessions on top of per-agent seats
Freshdesk's published plans start at $19 per agent per month on Growth, then $55 on Pro and $89 on Enterprise, all billed annually. The omnichannel version, Freshdesk Omni, runs $29, $79 and $119 on the same tiers. Those numbers only buy you the help desk and your human agents.
The AI is a separate meter. Freddy AI Agent sessions cost $49 per pack of 100, and new accounts get a one-time 500 sessions before the meter starts. Freddy AI Copilot, the assistant that drafts replies for your human team, is another $29 per agent per month.
$0.49per Freddy AI Agent session, charged whether or not the AI resolves anything
A session is a window of time rather than an outcome. For the chat agent it covers everything one customer sends within 24 hours of the conversation starting, and for the email agent it runs 72 hours from their first email. Freddy can fail to answer, hand the whole thing to a human, and the session still counts against your pack.
Optlo splits those costs apart. You pay an Optlo plan from $16/mo billed annually, and your AI provider bills you for the tokens the agent actually used. There's no session meter and no markup, and the usage shows up in your own provider dashboard where you can watch it and tune it.
10.0×more expensive on Freshdesk, $589 more every month at the same volume
- Pro agents$165
- Freddy AI Agent sessions$490
- Optlo Growth plan$49
- Your AI tokens, at cost$17
How this is calculated
1,000 conversations a month, 70% resolved by AI, 3 seats, billed annually, with OpenAI GPT-5.4 Mini on your own key.
Estimate only. Freshdesk figures use public list prices; Optlo's AI line is your provider's token cost, not a markup.
Run your own numbers02Model choice
Freddy's model is Freshworks' choice, not yours
Freshworks picks the model behind Freddy and upgrades it on their schedule. There's no setting to connect your own provider account, and a password reset question runs on the same model as a gnarly billing dispute.
17 modelsfrom OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, billed by your provider rather than by the session
Optlo takes the opposite position: your key, your model, and a different one per workflow step if you want. Route with something fast and cheap, and send the hard questions to something stronger. When OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google ships an upgrade you switch that day instead of waiting for your vendor to adopt it.
03Control
Guardrails you configure vs a prompt you write
Freshdesk gives you instructions, guardrails and a set of agentic workflows to configure. That covers a lot of ground, but the system prompt underneath stays out of reach, so when Freddy answers in a way you don't like you're tuning around the edges of it.
Optlo puts that prompt in a text box. Start from a preset, rewrite the instructions however you like, and set which step looks something up and which one hands the conversation to a person.
04Trade-offs
Where Freshdesk is the stronger choice
Freshdesk has been at this a long time and it shows. Maybe your customers reach you on WhatsApp and social as well as email, or you've built years of ticketing rules with approvals and audit logs sitting behind them. Optlo isn't trying to replace any of that. We compete on what the AI costs and who controls it.
Optlo is stronger at
- Owning the AI account and paying providers at cost
- No session meter, so cost tracks usage not outcomes
- Choosing and mixing models per workflow step
- Editing the system prompt and every workflow step
Freshdesk is stronger at
- One inbox across email, chat, WhatsApp and social
- Mature ticketing with approvals and audit logs
- A large marketplace of prebuilt integrations
- Copilot tooling for big human agent teams
05Switching
Switching from Freshdesk to Optlo
The content moves over easily and the ticketing history doesn't. Most teams run the two side by side for a couple of weeks before pointing anything at Optlo for real.
Point Optlo at your knowledge base
Optlo crawls your public help center, docs and policy pages by following your sitemap, so the solution articles you already wrote in Freshdesk are answerable from day one as long as they're published.
Connect your AI provider key
Create a key in OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google and pick your model. Your AI cost moves onto your provider account and stops being a pack of sessions you buy in advance.
Rebuild the flows that reach outside the help desk
Anything Freddy did through a native integration, like an order or subscription lookup, becomes a workflow code action in Optlo that calls your API. This is the part to budget real time for.
Go live on web chat first
Optlo installs as a script tag, so you can run it on one page or a staging site while Freshdesk keeps handling everything else. Move web chat over when you're happy, then decide about email.
What doesn't come across: your Freshdesk ticket history, the WhatsApp and social channels, and any native integration Freddy was using. Sessions you already bought don't refund either, so time the cutover near the end of a billing cycle.
Start a free trialFrequently asked questions
What does Freshdesk's Freddy AI actually cost?
Freddy AI Agent sessions are sold in packs of 100 for $49, which works out to $0.49 a session, and new Growth, Pro and Enterprise accounts get a one-time 500 sessions to start. Freddy AI Copilot, the assistant for your human agents, is a separate $29 per agent per month billed annually. Both sit on top of your seat cost.
What counts as one Freddy AI Agent session?
Freshworks counts a session by time window rather than by message. For the chat agent, everything one customer sends within 24 hours of starting the conversation is a single session. For the email agent, the window is 72 hours from their first email, and every AI reply in that window still counts as one session.
Can I bring my own OpenAI or Anthropic key to Freshdesk?
No. Freshworks runs Freddy on models it manages, and there's no setting to point it at your own provider account. Optlo is built the other way round: you connect your own OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini key and pay that provider directly for tokens.
Is Optlo cheaper than Freshdesk?
It depends on how much of your volume the AI touches. Freshdesk charges per agent seat and then per AI session on top, so both halves of the bill grow together. Optlo charges a flat plan and your provider bills you for tokens at cost. Check the cost calculator before you switch.
Is there a genuinely free Freshdesk alternative?
Freshdesk keeps a free program capped at two agents, and open source help desks like Zammad and FreeScout cost nothing to license if you're willing to host and maintain them yourself. Optlo isn't free, but the AI half of the bill is whatever your provider charges, which for a small volume of conversations is often a few dollars a month.
Build AI customer support on your terms
Bring your own AI, stay in control, and optimize as you scale.
* No credit card required