Awesome Support – WordPress HelpDesk & Support Plugin vs Smart Support – Self-Hosted Helpdesk & Custom Support Ticket System with AI Agent Support

Live Demo Awesome Support is the most versatile and feature-rich support plugin for WordPress. It is the only helpdesk & support ticketing plugin that can match the feature set of an SAAS solution such as Zendesk or Helpscout. And your customers can be using it in just 5 mins! After installing and activating the plugin, just answer a few questions in the startup wizard and your helpdesk will be ready for your customers. Take a product tour in the video below where you can see the extensive list of free and premium features that will be available on your new helpdesk! You can also go hands-on with the Live Demo or scroll down to the bottom of this page for screen shots. Product Tour For premium one-on-one support or pre-sales questions please visit the official site. What does it do? Check out the user-friendly features of this awesome plugin: Ticketing: users can submit tickets from the front-end, and your agents respond to them from the WordPress back-end Import: Import tickets from Zendesk, Helpscout and Ticksy using our free importer add-on – makes for a seamless transition to your new helpdesk E-mail notifications: relevant parties are notified of certain actions by e-mail, and all e-mails are customizable Restricted access: all correspondence is private between the client and the agents (unless the PUBLIC TICKETS premium add-on is installed and configured) File upload: you control when files can be uploaded, how many files, and how large they are Multiple products: provide support for as many products as you want; synchronize product lists with popular e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) Multiple departments: provide support for multiple departments Custom fields: easily set up additional custom fields on your ticket forms (and our premium Custom Fields add-on offers even more convenience) Terms & conditions: ask users to agree to your your terms and conditions before they open a ticket Old tickets: identify old tickets quickly with tags; limit your viewable ticket list to only show old tickets Tickets waiting on you: Quickly see all tickets still waiting for a reply Agent Collaboration: multiple agents can work on the same ticket and tickets can be transferred between agents; assign primary, secondary and tertiary agents to tickets while retaining the flexibility to transfer a ticket to any other agent. Sorting And Filtering: includes an amazing flexible sorting, filtering and tagging system for your tickets Security: assign just the right capabilities to each of your agents including just the ability to see their own tickets or expand to see everyone’s tickets – your choice! Tracking: easily track where a ticket originated (support form, email, facebook, phone call etc.) Prioritize your way: create your own priority scheme – you don’t have to get locked into a 1-5 priority scheme! Time Tracking: basic time tracking is included! Admins can even adjust time and all time changes are logged directly in the ticket. Custom Labels: sign up for our email newsletter and get our Custom Status plugin for free – unlimited color coded, customized statuses and ticket labels at your fingertips! WordPress UI: Uses the familiar WordPress administration user interface so there is almost no learning curve! REST API: We love it when developers use our products. The REST API is very developer friendly – push and pull Awesome Support ticket data with ease! GDPR READY: Our registration screen can be easily configured to show GDPR related information GUTENBERG AWARE: Compatible with the new WordPress editor known as Gutenberg WOOCOMMERCE INTEGRATION: Includes integration into the WooCommerce dashboard along with a premium option for advanced integration Features Awesome Support is the result of three+ years of work, research, and improvement. It is probably the most powerful helpdesk and support ticketing plugin on the planet. Whether you’re a startup that needs just the basics or a major corporation with multiple departments requiring service level agreements and sophisticated ticket routing, we have the functions you need! Seriously – just take a look at all the features you can get (some free, some premium) View the full list of features on our website Premium Extensions Now that you’ve seen our list of awesome features above, you already know that Awesome Support is packed with features; so if you want to supercharge your support and make it even more awesome, make sure you pick up our premium add-ons so you can extend the plugin’s functionality even further! All of our add-ons are extremely affordable (they’re a fraction of the cost of a web-based application). To check them out, visit our official site at getawesomesupport.com. Extensions E-Mail Piping – reply to tickets and collaborate on tickets using just e-mail. Includes built-in options to control how to handle unrecognized email addresses, responses to closed tickets and much more! Custom Fields – a visual helper for adding custom fields to your tickets. Add unlimited fields and choose from 13 different field types! Paid Support – charge users for using your support services. Create subscriptions by time (monthly for example) or number of tickets or bill for every individual ticket. WooCommerce – this is a must-have bridge between your WooCommerce store and Awesome Support Powerpack – Adds 30+ powerful additional functions to Awesome Support. Merge/split/lock tickets. Use new template tags in your outgoing emails. Add private notes for each customer. Fine tune your security and so much more! Canned Responses – preconfigure replies to common questions, and access them in one click when replying to a ticket Gravity Forms – create custom ticket forms with this very popular WordPress forms builder Private Notes – insert notes into tickets that only agents and admins can view FAQs – Powerful FAQ management make your agents more productive Notifications – get notified of important events in slack and via pushbullet. Notify third parties of important ticket events via email. Custom Status and Labels – create unlimited custom labels that give you new levels of organization for your tickets Advanced Reports and Statistics – create hundreds of custom charts and tables from a base of 6 core reports Admin Report Widgets – More than a dozen customizable widgets with key statistics on your WordPress dashboard! Advanced Time Tracking – Track and record time down to the reply level using automatic or manual timers. Export data for invoicing. View critical time and billing reports. Auto Close – Close tickets automatically based on defined rules. This is especially useful in managing abandoned tickets. Private Credentials – Adds another security layer to your tickets so that users can securely enter passwords and other sensitive credentials onto a ticket Satisfaction Survey – Conduct suveys to see how your agents are performing. Extremely customizable with multiple survey types and methods! Public Tickets – Use your tickets to create a searchable archive of solutions. Assign public/private control over tickets and replies to customers, agents! Guest Tickets – Allow new users to enter their first ticket without the separate step of creating an account. Combine this with Email Support, Powerpack and Satisfaction Survey to create a solution where customers never have to log into your ticket system! Smart Agent Assignment – Have multiple agents with multiple departments and/or multiple products? Use this to automatically route new tickets to the correct agent using a choice of 5 sophisticated algorithms! Documentation – A powerful documentation add-on that integrates tightly with your Awesome Support ticketing system. Includes a beautiful layout and automatically suggests relevant topcis as users fill out a new ticket! Remote Tickets – Adds a pop-up ticket form to one or more remote websites. Quickly and easily funnel tickets from all your websites to one core support site! Smart Replies – Automatically respond to messages received from Facebook Messenger, Custom Site Chat and New Tickets. Service Level Agreements – Calculate ticket due dates automatically using rules set for each customer. This will take into account holidays, weekends, working hours and more. Issue Tracking – Easily manage multiple related tickets. Very useful for product recalls, bug tracking, system-down situations and more. Custom FAQ – Use any WordPress custom post type as your FAQ source. Tightly integrates your selected CPT with Awesome Support and uses it to automatically offer topic suggestions to users as they fill out a new ticket form. Business Rules Engine With Zapier Integration – Powerful rules engine for your tickets. Automatically respond to tickets, change status, close tickets and more! Company Profiles – Allow multiple users from the same company to manage a single pool of tickets. Scheduled Tickets – Create recurring tickets on daily/weekly/monthly/annual schedules Agent Front End – Allow untrusted agents to manage their tickets without access to wp-admin Bundles Purchase one of our bundles and get up to an 80% discount compared to purchasing individual add-ons. Startup Bundle – A 50% discount on the 5 most common add-ons for unlimited sites Standard Bundle – A discount of 20%-60% on the 8 most common add-ons Professional Bundle – A discount of 45%-70% on the add-ons most useful for e-commerce sites Enterprise Bundle – A discount of 50%-70% on the most common add-ons used in larger businesses. Agency Bundle – A discount of 55%-80% on a bundle of almost all our add-ons. You get an even bigger discount if you purchase this package without the option for technical support! Roadmap Want to know what’s next for Awesome Support? Check out the roadmap. You can also vote for the ideas you like best! Add-Ons Need to extend Awesome Support’s features? We have lots of add-ons to help you setup the perfect support site. Check out our add-ons page. Team Even though the plugin has been developed and is maintained by the Awesome Support development team, we’ve had help from various developers around the world. You can see all the contributors on the team page. Many thanks to them all! Our key core developers on the Awesome Support Development Team in 2018 include: Ante Laca Muhammad Tahir Nazir Nigel Bahadur With contributions from customers such as: Rolly Bueno Naveen Giri Nathan Moinvaziri Translators Here is a list of users who voluntarily contributed the most translations to our POEDITOR project in 2017/2021: Miquel Martínez – Catalan Samer Haddad – Arabic Paul Hecko – Portuguese Thiago Rocon Kuwabara – Portuguese Denison Carlos – Portuguese (Brazil) Davey Hurkmans – Dutch We had over 25 users contribute to the various language projects but these were the top 6 with the most translation activity. On behalf of all our users we would like to publicly offer a heart-felt Thank You for their hard work and contribution to the Free Awesome Support core project! Related Companies Disclosure Awesome Support now manages the newly released Simple-Press Forums Plugin as well.

Smart Support is a self-hosted WordPress helpdesk and support ticket system for businesses, agencies, online stores, membership sites, and service teams that want to manage customer support directly inside WordPress. The plugin gives customers a clean frontend Support Center where they can register, log in, submit support tickets, upload attachments, review replies, search their ticket history, and track ticket status. Support agents and supervisors can manage tickets from the WordPress admin area with role-based access, departments, priorities, products, internal notes, reports, notifications, and ticket assignment controls. Live Demo LIVE DEMO Smart Support can be used as a: WordPress helpdesk plugin WordPress support ticket system Customer support ticket system Customer service help desk Support desk plugin Ticket management plugin Self-hosted helpdesk solution Unlike a hosted support SaaS, Smart Support keeps your support workflow connected to your own WordPress website and database. You control the site, user accounts, ticket records, uploaded files, permissions, and integrations. WordPress customer support from one dashboard Smart Support turns WordPress into a complete customer support workspace. Customers use the frontend portal, while agents work with ticket details, replies, attachments, internal notes, departments, products, priorities, statuses, customer history, and notifications. The plugin is suitable for small support teams, growing businesses, digital agencies, consultants, SaaS companies, WooCommerce stores, product support teams, and organizations that need a private support ticket system without sending users to a separate third-party portal. Frontend Support Center for customers Fresh installations create a Support Center page automatically. You can also add the following shortcode to any WordPress page: [smart_support_page]. The shortcode creates the main customer-facing support portal. Customers can: Register and log in from the frontend Reset their password Use optional Google reCAPTCHA protection Submit a new support ticket Add a subject, message, department, product, priority, and other available fields Upload ticket attachments Review ticket replies and message history Search and filter their tickets View tickets by status, department, and state Close and reopen their own tickets when permitted Rate support replies with a 5-star rating system Use the portal on desktop, tablet, or mobile Ticket management for agents and supervisors Support agents and supervisors get a structured WordPress ticket management workflow with tools for organizing, assigning, replying to, and resolving customer requests. Team features include: Open, delayed, and closed ticket states Reopen and close actions Reply and Close for faster ticket handling Ticket assignment and auto-assignment Agent visibility controls for own tickets, department tickets, or all tickets Departments, products, priorities, and ticket types Public replies and agent-only internal notes Ticket attachments and secure downloads Customer details and ticket history Search by ticket ID, subject, or content Status, department, state, and keyword filters Optional ticket sidebar for quick navigation Waiting indicators for unanswered tickets Configurable sequential or hash-based ticket numbers Capability-based roles and permissions Agent performance and rating reports Email notifications and customer communication Smart Support can send email notifications for important support ticket events, including new tickets, ticket replies, delayed tickets, closed tickets, reopened tickets, and account-related actions. Email features include: Notification settings for customers and agents Editable email subjects and message templates Configurable sender name and sender email Template tags for customer, ticket, and agent information Translatable notification content Separate frontend and admin ticket URL template tags Dashboard notifications with ticket links Optional AI assistance for support agents Smart Support includes optional AI-assisted tools for authorized staff working on individual tickets. AI is disabled until a supported provider is configured. Depending on your configuration, agents can: Summarize long ticket conversations Generate suggested replies Rewrite a reply draft before sending Preview rewritten content Ask follow-up questions about a ticket conversation Add custom instructions to an AI action On WordPress 7.0 or later, Smart Support can use a configured WordPress Core AI provider. The plugin can also use the OpenAI-compatible provider settings available under Smart Support → Settings → Advanced → AI as a fallback. AI requests are sent from your WordPress server to the provider you configure. Smart Support does not route AI traffic through Smart Support vendor servers solely to provide this feature. Reports and support performance Smart Support includes reporting tools for monitoring ticket volume, ticket status, ratings, and agent performance. Reporting features include: Ticket volume reports Status-based reporting Agent performance reports Average agent rating Total ratings per agent Dashboard ticket counts Chart.js-powered visual reports Roles and access control Smart Support uses capability-driven access controls so administrators can manage who can view, create, assign, reply to, and manage support tickets. Built-in support roles include: Support User Support Agent Support Supervisor Administrators can assign departments, change capabilities, control ticket visibility, configure whether agents can create tickets, and manage supervisor-level access. Ticket automation Built-in automation features help support teams manage inactive tickets and reduce repetitive work. Auto-close tickets after a configurable period of inactivity Optionally auto-close only tickets waiting for a customer response Auto-delay inactive tickets Notify customers when tickets are delayed or closed Auto-assign tickets when an agent replies Respect the configured maximum open tickets per agent Use 0 as the maximum for unlimited assignments Archive closed tickets manually or automatically after a configured number of days Keep archived tickets out of normal dashboards, reports, and ticket lists until restored Manage archived tickets from a dedicated Archive Tickets page with search, pagination, restore, and delete tools Search, filters, and ticket navigation Smart Support includes practical ticket search and filtering tools for busy support teams. Global search by ticket ID, subject, or message content Highlighted search results with result counts Filters for status, department, state, and assigned agent access Compact admin search bar Optional ticket list sidebar Status filter inside the ticket sidebar Quick navigation between support tickets Ticket numbers Administrators can choose the ticket number format that best matches their workflow: Sequential ticket numbers, such as 2501001 and 2501002 Hash-based ticket numbers, such as #121 and #456 Responsive and translation-ready The frontend Support Center and WordPress admin interfaces are designed for desktop, tablet, and mobile use. Smart Support is translation-ready and includes a .pot file in the languages directory. The plugin is also designed for WordPress multisite environments. Free Core Features Smart Support includes the following features in the free core plugin: Frontend Support Center powered by [smart_support_page] Automatic Support Center page creation on fresh installations Frontend customer registration and login Password reset link Optional Remember Me setting Optional first-name and last-name auto-fill Optional Google reCAPTCHA v2, v2 Invisible, or v3 Frontend ticket submission Rich text editor support Ticket attachments Secure attachment downloads Configurable attachment file types, sizes, and counts Customer ticket dashboard Customer ticket search and filters Public ticket replies Agent-only internal notes Ticket timeline and change history Open, delayed, and closed ticket states Ticket close and reopen actions Closed ticket archive and restore workflow Dedicated Archived Tickets page with search, pagination, restore, delete, bulk restore, and bulk delete tools Optional auto-archive rules for closed tickets Reply and Close action Customer close and reopen controls Departments Products Priorities Configurable Ticket Types Optional frontend Ticket Type field Ticket assignment Auto-assignment when an agent replies Maximum open tickets per agent Agent visibility for own, department, or all tickets Department-based agent access Support User, Support Agent, and Support Supervisor roles Capability-based access management Agent management screen Real-time capability assignment and removal Configurable agent ticket creation permission Customer and agent email notifications Configurable email templates Notification center with ticket links Open ticket count badge Waiting indicator for unanswered tickets 5-star reply ratings Average and total rating values Agent performance reports Ticket volume and status reports Chart.js reporting integration Global search by ticket ID, subject, or content Search highlighting and result counts Ticket status, department, and state filters Optional ticket navigation sidebar Sequential and hash-based ticket numbers Auto-close inactive tickets Auto-delay inactive tickets Configurable delay and close notifications Responsive frontend and admin interfaces Translation-ready strings Multisite compatibility Uninstall cleanup options for plugin data, settings, and roles Optional REST API with API key authentication Optional AI assistant for authorized support staff Premium Add-ons Smart Support offers optional premium add-ons for teams that need advanced integrations, automation, reporting, custom data, and larger support workflows. Email Bridge: Convert incoming emails to support tickets and reply to tickets via email. Canned Replies: Enable your team to create and use predefined responses for common issues. Webhooks: Send ticket event notifications to external systems (CRMs, automations, custom apps) using secure, signed outgoing webhooks. Custom Status: Create unlimited custom ticket statuses with colors, icons, and workflow rules. Registration Fields: Add unlimited custom fields to your registration forms. Custom Fields: Create unlimited custom ticket fields from the backend and automatically collect additional information during ticket submission. Ticket Templates: Speed up ticket creation with reusable templates. Front-end Support: Give your support agents a complete, professional frontend dashboard. Gravity Forms Integration: Turn Gravity Forms submissions into Smart Support helpdesk tickets with field mapping, deduplication, and admin cross-links. WooCommerce Tickets: Provide purchase-based support, link orders to tickets, and manage customer support seamlessly WooCommerce. Organizations / Company Profile: Manage companies and teams as organizations. Guest Support: Allow guests to submit support tickets without registration using email-only authentication. Auto-Close Alert: Add warning reminder emails, batch limits, cron recurrence control, and richer auto-close email templates. Smart Widget: Bring instant, on-page support with a customizable floating widget. Auto Responder: Automatically send responses to support tickets based on intelligent rules. Documentation: Instantly insert knowledge base articles into ticket replies. Private Credentials: Securely exchange sensitive login details inside support tickets. SLA (Service Level Agreement): Enforce response and resolution commitments with advanced SLA management. Reports: Expand support reporting with deeper ticket analytics, performance insights, and export-ready operational data. Scheduled Tickets: Create one-time or recurring support tickets automatically for maintenance, renewals, follow-ups, and planned customer work. Time Tracking: Accurately track time spent on support tickets by agents, departments, and clients. Productivity Suite: Enhance agent productivity with comprehensive workflow tools. Additional add-ons, bundles, and pricing information are available at: Smart Support Pricing REST API Integrations Smart Support includes an optional REST API for server-to-server integrations such as CRM synchronization, automations, imports, and custom applications. The REST API is disabled by default. For setup and endpoint information, see the REST API documentation External Services and Privacy Smart Support is self-hosted, but some optional features connect to external services when an administrator enables and configures them. Smart Support uses Google reCAPTCHA (optional) for spam prevention (Terms of Service & Privacy Policy) and Chart.js in the admin for analytics (Terms of Service & Privacy Policy). The plugin validates permissions server‑side, escapes output, verifies nonces on all forms, and stores files securely using WordPress APIs. AI providers The Smart Support AI assistant is optional. It can use a connected WordPress Core AI provider on WordPress 7.0 or later, or the OpenAI-compatible provider. For more details read AI Documentation Ticket and customer data Smart Support stores the information needed to operate the support system on the WordPress site. Site owners are responsible for setting suitable privacy, access, retention, deletion, and backup policies for their support data.