By the Onsites AI team · Last updated · 6-minute read
A ticketing system is one of those purchases that used to require a spreadsheet, a demo call and a procurement email. It should not. If you can register on a website and paste one line into a page, you can have a working support desk this afternoon — free, complete, and without a trial clock ticking anywhere. This guide walks the setup at walking speed: about twenty minutes from an empty browser tab to a queue your team can actually work. If you want the broader picture first — widget, channels and CRM in one pass — the free help desk setup guide covers the full workspace; this article stays narrower on the ticketing mechanics themselves.
Most "free ticketing" searches end in disappointment because the free plans are demos wearing a name tag. The queue exists, but assignments live on a higher tier; SLAs are enterprise; the CRM is a separate product; the pricing page reads like a phone contract. Before choosing any system, hold it to a simple standard: the free plan must contain the entire desk — unlimited conversations, priorities, tags, private notes, saved replies, a customer context panel and reporting you can read without a consultant.
Onsites AI's cloud plan clears that bar permanently, not temporarily: the complete software — multi-channel inbox, CRM, quotes, orders, invoices — with three seats and 100 MB of storage, free forever. There is no per-ticket fee, which is the quiet killer in this category: some platforms bill per resolved conversation, which turns your best month into your most expensive month. The pricing page's calculator shows the whole picture; on the free tier your invoice is $0, and it stays $0 until you deliberately add a fourth seat or buy AI credits.
Open the start page, register with your work email, click the verification link the desk sends you. First sign-in asks two things: your company name and a display timezone. Confirm them and you land in an empty admin view — an inbox with nothing in it yet and a settings panel on the side. That is the entire ceremony. Register with an address on your own domain if you can, because the email channel and outbound replies inherit from your workspace identity, and starting on the real domain saves you a reconnect later.
In Settings → Website you will find a snippet — one small async script. Copy it and paste it just before the closing </body> tag of your site. This works on static HTML, WordPress, Next.js and most website builders, because the script loads after your page and never blocks rendering. Save, refresh your site, and a chat bubble appears in the corner. Every conversation opened through that bubble becomes a ticket in the same queue you are configuring now, with the visitor's page path and session attached.
While you are in that settings screen, spend ninety seconds deliberately: set the widget color to match your brand and write a one-line greeting in a human voice. A branded, warm bubble measurably out-performs a stock one, because a default-looking widget reads as abandoned. The widget installation guide goes deeper — platform-specific gotchas and the five mistakes worth skipping.
A ticketing system that only sees website chat is half a system. In Settings → Channels → Email pick the option that matches your situation: forwarding (create a shared address like support@yourcompany.com and forward everything into the desk — live in minutes, fine for a first week), your own domain (verify a DNS record and receive mail at your real addresses — the recommended option for teams), or IMAP import (bring your existing mailbox history in so nothing that predates the desk disappears). All three land in the same unified queue as the widget conversation.
Every messaging channel is a few clicks in Settings → Channels: open a chat with your Telegram bot, or link your WeChat official account, your LINE Official Account, your WhatsApp Business number or your Facebook Page for Messenger. The temptation is to wire all seven at once — resist it. Choose the single channel your customers actually use and add it now; connect the rest the week customers arrive on them. A queue with one well-staffed channel beats a queue with seven ignored ones, and nothing degrades a brand faster than a WhatsApp number that answers next Tuesday.
This is the part that makes it a ticketing system rather than a chat log. Set up a small tag vocabulary now — five to eight tags naming the topics your customers write about ("billing", "shipping", "bug", "quote-request"), not abstract categories nobody will remember. Tagging at close is the habit that powers every future report. Define what high priority means in writing ("customer blocked or money wrong" — nothing else), and type your first two saved replies: the greeting and the "one more detail, please" message. The canned responses guide lists the twenty templates most desks end up needing, and the one line you should always rewrite.
In Settings → Team → Invite, add your colleagues — the first three seats are free forever, and every seat gets the whole product; there are no feature gates to assign per person. Then set working hours and a first-response SLA in settings so the queue can escalate honestly. Without a stated promise, the queue cannot tell you when it is slipping and your team answers by mood. The working hours and SLA guide walks the details, including how small teams survive Mondays.
Around day seven you should see three payoffs. First, ownership: every conversation has exactly one person looking at it, with private notes carrying internal context and the full customer history visible in the context panel — conversations attach themselves to CRM records automatically. Second, memory: tags and views let you pull up "everything about invoices this month" in seconds instead of archaeology through a mailbox. Third, honesty: first-response times, queue depths and topic volumes are visible on dashboards that cost nothing, so improvements get argued with data instead of vibes.
One habit worth forming from message one: weekly data exports. Free-tier cloud workspaces are not backed up server-side — paid workspaces get automatic encrypted backups — so a five-minute export ritual each week keeps a copy of your data in your own hands. The same export doubles as your backup if you someday self-host the desk behind your firewall.
Be suspicious of the day someone tells you that you have outgrown free. The real milestones are concrete: your fourth teammate needs a seat ($15 per seat per month, prorated daily); attachments start piling up and you want more storage ($1 per GB per month in packs); or you want AI on the repetitive replies (prepaid credits from $10 — drafts cost 3 credits, suggested replies 6, so the meter only moves when the feature works for you). All three are opt-in meters, not feature unlocks — the desk you set up in twenty minutes is the same desk you will be running at twenty people. If compliance ever moves the goalposts, the last exit is the self-hosted track: the same software on your servers, from $15/seat/month billed annually with a minimum of ten seats — and it starts as a 60-day trial of the full product with no payment up front.
Is a free ticketing system really usable for real support work?
Yes — the free cloud plan includes the complete software: the multi-channel queue, priorities, tags, private notes, saved replies and reporting, with 3 seats and 100 MB of storage forever. It is a permanent tier, not a trial, and there is no per-ticket fee.
Do tickets from email and chat land in one queue?
Yes. Website widget conversations, email and every messaging channel you connect — Telegram, WeChat, LINE, WhatsApp, Messenger — flow into the same shared queue with one customer context panel.
What happens when I add a fourth teammate?
Seats beyond the third cost $15 per seat per month, prorated daily, and each seat gets the full product. There are no feature tiers to unlock per person.
Can I keep my existing email history?
Yes — in Settings, Channels, Email you can choose forwarding, connect your own domain after verifying a DNS record, or use IMAP import to bring existing mailbox history into the desk.
Is my data safe on the free plan?
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, but free-tier cloud workspaces are not backed up server-side. Run the weekly export ritual described in this guide — or move up to paid cloud automatic backups or self-hosting — to keep copies in your own hands.