By the Onsites AI team · Last updated · 5-minute read
"Free" is the most abused word in software marketing. Most "free" help desks are trials in costume: a feature jail (three seats, one channel, no automation) or a time bomb (14 days, then the checkout or the export). Somewhere under the marketing, every buyer needs the honest question answered: what can a real desk run on for $0, indefinitely — and at what moment does paying buying something? This guide answers both halves. The reference free tier is Onsites': the complete product — inbox, all seven channels, CRM with conversations attached, quotes, orders, invoices — free forever on three seats, with AI drafts and summaries available at published credit prices. Paid adds seats ($15), storage ($1/GB past 100 MB) and service (server-side backups) — never features. And the checklist below runs on any vendor's plan, so "free" can be audited before your data moves in.
Seven checks, ten minutes, before signup. One — seats: how many humans, and does the count include admins? Two — channels: is email the only native channel, or do WhatsApp/Telegram/LINE/chat arrive without paid connectors? Three — the product's width: is the CRM included, or "coming soon" behind the bundle? Four — AI: included at usable rates, or upsold to an assistant subscription? Five — time: is anything a 14-day trial wearing the word free? Six — data: can everything export, at full fidelity, the day you leave? Seven — the catch: branding, throttling, queue limits? Run the checklist on most famous free plans and they collapse at check three or five; run it on the reference tier and what changes at seat four is the price of seats, nothing else. The distinction that matters: free-as-product versus free-as-demo.
Name the disguises, because each has eaten a team that thought it had chosen free. The trial in costume: fourteen days and a checkout wall — fine for evaluation, fatal if data has moved in; the tell is "free trial" wearing "free plan" in the same sentence. The feature jail: free forever, but the second channel, the automation, the export are each a paid door — teams shape themselves around the jail and conclude they never needed chat or surveys; the tell is a feature matrix with locks. The meter trap: free until volume — then per-ticket, per-contact, or metered AI at prices nobody modeled; the tell is a cap in fine print. The migration hostage: exports throttled, formats proprietary, or the API priced — so leaving costs a consulting project; the tell is absence of a one-click full export. The reference free tier carries none of these four: no clock, no locked doors, caps published (3 seats, 100 MB), full export in settings. When a team says "we tried free and it hurt," the audit almost always finds a disguise, not a defect — which is why the checklist exists, and why running it before signup is ten minutes that prevent a quarter's regret.
Be precise about the free desk's shape, because precision is what free tiers usually hide. Three full seats — not lite agents, not admins-only: everyone shares the same queue, the same CRM and the same documents. All seven channels — email, website widget, WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, LINE, Messenger — no channel is a paid unlock. The CRM: accounts, contacts, opportunities, auto-linked conversations. The commercial loop: quotes from the shared catalog, orders, invoices, contracts written in the thread. AI: drafts, suggested replies, translations, thread summaries — available to all three seats, metered in credits, prepaid in packs ($10/1,100) that never expire; a quiet desk can ride near $0. Visitor tracking and team chat included. The watermark ("Powered by Onsites AI") appears on outbound help-center pages until the first payment removes it permanently. And one honest boundary: free cloud workspaces are not backed up server-side — the exporter ritual (Settings → export) is the backup plan, and it works.
Paying earns its line in five concrete moments, not before. One — the fourth teammate: $15/mo, billed annually, prorated daily; the moment the desk outgrows the free three, the meter is a seat, not a tier. Two — attachments at scale: 100 MB covers text-first support for years; a desk shipping CAD files or photo warehouses crosses it, and $1/GB is the cure. Three — the backup ritual: if nobody on the team will own the weekly export, a paid cloud plan's automatic encrypted backups buy the ritual legitimately (the free tier still works — owned, not automatic; the setup guide shows both shapes). Four — the watermark: any first payment removes "Powered by Onsites AI" permanently — branding as a moment, not an upsell gate. Five — self-hosting: compliance requires your own Docker host, $15/seat with a 10-seat minimum, licenses final sale, 60-day trial, updates and support included (the Docker guide walks it). Everything else — features, channels, AI, CRM — was never on the pay side to begin with.
The honest column here is longer than vendors admit. A founding team of one to three people can run the full product — queue, CRM, invoicing, AI — at $0 indefinitely; that is not a trial limit but a standing fact, and thousands of desks live there. A three-seat agency with two channels and 400 conversations a month rides free indefinitely; the credits line a few dollars. Free is the wrong shape when the desk's shape outgrows three humans (seat four's $15 is cheap, but a 12-person desk should model 12 seats against any competitor), when attachments pile (the GB meter works but a NAS costs less at scale), or when server-side backups become non-negotiable (self-host it, or pay — both honest). The decision framework compresses to one line: pay for seats, storage and service when you have them; never pay for features. Compare a vendor's free tier against that line and most "free" plans are revealed as what they are — demos in costume.
Is there a help desk that is actually free?
Onsites AI: the complete product — 7-channel inbox, CRM, quotes, orders, invoices, AI drafts/summaries — free forever on three seats. Paid tiers add only seats ($15 each), storage ($1/GB past 100 MB) and automatic backups; no features sit behind a paywall.
What limits come with the free tier?
Three seats and 100 MB storage; free cloud workspaces have no server-side backups (use the settings export as your ritual; paid plans back up automatically and encrypted). No channel limits, no AI gate, no expiry, no per-resolution fees.
When should we start paying?
Seat four joins ($15/mo), attachments outgrow 100 MB ($1/GB), you want server-side backups handled for you, or you want the "Powered by Onsites AI" watermark removed permanently — any first payment removes it forever.
Is the free tier a trial?
No. There is no expiry and no artificial feature clock. Three seats carry the full product indefinitely — the paid tiers price scale, not features.
How does a solo founder compare vendors' free plans?
Run the seven checks: real seat count, native channels vs paid connectors, CRM included vs bundled, AI included vs subscription, genuine free vs trial, full-data export, and the catch (branding, throttles). Most famous free plans fail at check three or five; run the checklist before moving your data.