Gist vs. Helpshift

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Gist
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Gist is a unified marketing, sales, and support platform. It includes live chat, a help desk, knowledge base, email marketing, marketing automation, opt-in forms, and more.
$29
per month
Helpshift
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Helpshift is a help desk software deployed as an in-application SDK to provide users with in-app service.
$150
per month Issue
Pricing
GistHelpshift
Editions & Modules
Professional
$29.00
per month
Premium
$99.00
per month
Starter
$150.00
per month Issue
Enterprise
Please contact Helpshift
per month Issue
Growth
Please contact Helpshift
per month Issue
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GistHelpshift
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFlexible Consumption-Based Pricing for Your Changing Needs. Only pay for the number of issues created each month. An issue is a customer problem or inquiry that is directed to an agent or a bot. Customers with greater usage receive a reduced per issue price. All packages come with 1,000 issues per month to get you started.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GistHelpshift
Considered Both Products
Gist
Chose Gist
Gist is a much more robust software with a variety of marketing tools in its arsenal. Things like website tracking is also extremely robust and it has many more features.

The ease of setup is also more enjoyable and intuitive in Gist so the overall result is that you can learn …
Chose Gist
Gist is much more affordable, but intercom is a better product. I recommend going for Gist to begin, and then migrating if you need more.
Chose Gist
Gist is more refined and its tools are very well integrated overall. However, its pricing is on the expensive side and this doesn't really help it stand-out. HubSpot has significantly more generous Free plan, while Dashly offers many of the Premium Gist tools at a fairer price, …
Chose Gist
My main use for Gist is live chat. I personally find their live chat to be one of the best, and their mobile app to be invaluable for small businesses on the go. I can receive and response to messages wherever I am, which is imperative for my use case.
Chose Gist
Intercom increases its price on a monthly basis. Besides they don't offer some features as Gist, specially about on forms.
We think Gist is targeted to SMB companies, differentially from Intercom that seems to be appropriate for larger companies.
One main difference between then …
Chose Gist
Gist is only a few years old, so it lacks some of the features of Drip and ActiveCampaign, but I believe they will get there.
Chose Gist
Hubspot and Salesforce are great and powerful, they are just so much more expensive than what I need.
Chose Gist
We went with Gist because it had the features we needed at a price we liked. The feature list has grown over time, which is really appreciated. We joined Gist a long time ago (it was still called ConvertFox back then) and have been happy customers for a long time. Happy with …
Chose Gist
Gist is much more than a basic mailing list system with chatbot integration and automation that connects you to your prospects in real-time live from your website.
Administering your contacts on Gist is much easier with less hassle.
And Gist can integrate with most of the major …
Chose Gist
Gist is slightly slower than ActiveCampaign but MUCH easier to use than Mailchimp. Overall, you can't beat the bang for the buck you get with Gist. And its messenger bot is the best I've used, it works on not only our main site but also our subdomains, kicking the competition …
Chose Gist
We've used Dashly and Tawk.to. Gist looks better than Tawk and that's the reason we switched from Tawk to Gist. But the feature that puts Gist above Dashly is the ability to collect user names and emails before they start the chat automatically. It is important for our business …
Chose Gist
They both seem to have parity with each other with each having their own small advantages. I went with Gist because it was more affordable.

Infusionsoft customer for almost 5 years and it seemed I was always working more on getting it to work instead of getting work done. Gist …
Chose Gist
Gist is better because easy of use and pricing. Hands down. It has an unbeatable cost-benefit ratio. Customer service has been with us since we started using it. That's great. For us, shortcomings such as no CRM are manageable. We like its front end appearance and customization …
Chose Gist
Gist is my first email and chat multi-purpose automated SAAS tool so can't really comment on others I've tried. They came recommended to me by an entrepreneurial group I am a member of. Anecdotally I evaluated it against ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp and it was far better in …
Chose Gist
Gist a more integrated and unified product for Sass companies. Some competitors don't have strong chat + email automation + help desk. Other competitors have the features, but they are not well integrated. Gist has integrated complete customer contact with a very finished …
Chose Gist
Gist is much more complete than other tools like Crisp, Customerly, etc, at a cheaper price. The perfect deal for your business.
Chose Gist
Having a support ticket system is good and will help you resolve issues but, having an all-in-one tool that can let you not only resolve an issue but also to go above and beyond with customer support that later on translates into sales is priceless. That is the kind of tool …
Chose Gist
You can do everything you can with AC or Mailchimp (minus dynamic cart recovery for ecom) at a fraction of the cost, and you can do MORE -- better integration with FB ads than MailChimp, more powerful workflows, unified inboxes, live chat and chatbot, etc. It's just a more …
Chose Gist
I have a lifetime deal with Gist so I may be a bit biased, but Gist is quite easy to use and has a free tier so it's worth a serious look compared to the other players on the market. Personal preference does play a big role in your final decision, as feature-wise, Gist has most …
Chose Gist
Intercom was pricy and less user-friendly in comparison to Gist. It did have a broader range of features that we could use in our plan. However, we didn't see any return of investment in having many features to choose from if the price was too high for what was being offered at …
Helpshift
Chose Helpshift
Zendesk is used for customer communication via email and Helpshift is used for chat, they are for the same purpose but with different response times.
Chose Helpshift
Helpshift is reasonably priced and has great analytics and capabilities and is very user-friendly. We had a hard time with Intercom about 2 years ago when we tried to implement them because their analytics were very minimal and wouldn't track what we needed it to. We haven't …
Chose Helpshift
One of the previous systems we used was Zendesk and it really only housed emails like Microsoft Outlook would: not very organized, very clunky to use, with long loading times. The meta data that is recorded by Helpshift was another deciding factor for the stakeholders as that …
Features
GistHelpshift
Chat Analytics and Reports
Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of Product A and Product B
Gist
8.9
Ratings
3% above category average
Helpshift
-
Ratings
Chat history and transcripts8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Chat reporting8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Chat and web analytics8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Helpshift
6.4
Ratings
23% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings3.60 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings6.40 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings4.50 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Helpshift
5.0
Ratings
44% below category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Helpshift
4.5
Ratings
53% below category average
Customer portal00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings2.70 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings2.70 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings4.50 Ratings
Best Alternatives
GistHelpshift
Small Businesses
Olark
Olark
Score 10.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
GistHelpshift
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.7
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GistHelpshift
Likelihood to Recommend
Gist is perfect for SaaS I'd say, and perfect for long sales cycles with lots of lead nurturing involved, and for scenarios where you re-market via FB ads, because there's FB custom audience integration built into the workflows. Perfect for customer service and support. Really outstanding there. It's a little less suited to ecom but they're hammering out the finishing touches to make ecom cart recovery easier.
Read full review
If you need a good way for players to send in support tickets that propagates in real-time, Helpshift would be a service I'd recommend.
Read full review
Pros
  • Gist provides endless ways of interacting with customers. I can chat and email with them, track their usage on my site, qualify them, add tags and other profile information, and so much more.
  • There is even an awesome live view that lets me spy on visitors to see how they're using the site.
  • The tools are powerful, easy to use, and constantly getting improvements. It seems like every week there is another update being rolled out that substantially extends the functionality or usability of the features in Gist.
Read full review
  • FAQ
  • triggers by Google extensions
  • customer service
  • chat priority
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Cons
  • Free plan limits are too low.
  • Chatbots should work not only for Gist's native online chat, but also for the other chat-based channels such as Facebook. (instead of having to use another software for that purpose)
  • Pricing structure - Support bot should not be an add-on but a core feature.
Read full review
  • The look could do with a bit of an upgrade. It's not a very big deal and isn't hard on the eyes but could probably be a bit more vibrant (or allow for customization).
  • Better mobile support would be great. At the moment, it's very hard to try and do tickets from a phone.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Gist is a quite reliable service with a lot of added values. We don't need to pay for different Saas for these important features. If I had an issue the team was super responsive and helpful, that is essential for every business. The email delivery is great, so virtually no email has landed into spam folder
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
Gist does pretty much anything you want it to when it comes to managing your contacts. Sometimes I wish it updated faster, but wait a few beats and it gets there. I really love that I can show a colleague how to use the chat messenger and they understand it right away. Very user friendly!
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Helpshift is really easy to use and set up. We enjoy the automation to automatically route certain issues to different smart folders. There's just a lot of flexibility in the functionality to make things work for our team in the best way. I didn't give it a 10/10 just because we need SMS/Apple Business Chat and Helpshift doesn't yet offer that. They also don't currently support social media channels but they are working on releasing that soon.
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Support Rating
I have communicated with their team multiple times and every time they have been very responsive, knowledgeable, and polite. They work to make sure you are happy and informed of what is going on. Better their team keeps up to date with their app, giving you new features, and keeping you notified and educated about what they are and how to use them. A+
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The few times we've had to contact them, they were courteous and gave us the information we needed swiftly.
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Alternatives Considered
They both seem to have parity with each other with each having their own small advantages. I went with Gist because it was more affordable. Infusionsoft customer for almost 5 years and it seemed I was always working more on getting it to work instead of getting work done. Gist is so intuitive I had it setting up and running the basics in a few hours.
Read full review
Helpshift is reasonably priced and has great analytics and capabilities and is very user-friendly. We had a hard time with Intercom about 2 years ago when we tried to implement them because their analytics were very minimal and wouldn't track what we needed it to. We haven't gone with Zendesk because we've heard from multiple people that their customer support was sub-standard
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Our ROI has increased significantly because of Gist's chat and app integration into our website. Contact forms are great but a real-time conversation means you can be more effective in meeting your customer's needs.
  • The additional features in the recent upgrade mean we can use Gist for more. They have always been effective for email campaigns, but the addition of the knowledge base and more effective workflows means we can automate more. This has saved us from buying more software.
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  • The ability to properly organize and delegate work to customer service representatives has been a very positive ROI after using Helpshift.
  • The customer service reps are much happier with this system over the previous system of a general company email address and other CS software tools.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Gist Screenshots

Screenshot of Live ChatScreenshot of Email MarketingScreenshot of Marketing Automation WorkflowsScreenshot of Knowledge BaseScreenshot of Meetings