The 6 best ticketing systems for startups

As your startup grows, you’ll have to create a reliable ticketing system to organize customer questions and requests. Your customer support team needs a way to track every issue and make sure they respond promptly and meet the customer’s needs. 

This article covers 6 of the best ticketing systems for startups. We’ll also discuss the benefits and challenges of ticketing systems, essential features to look for, and how to choose the right one for your team.

Understanding ticketing systems for startups

A support ticket system is a tool companies use to organize requests from customers. Whenever a customer asks for help, it creates a ticket that contains all the details, and your support team can update the ticket every time they take action to resolve the issue. When the issue is fixed and customers are happy, your team closes the ticket.

Without a well-organized system for ticket management, your customer support team will quickly get overwhelmed. They won’t have a clear picture of who’s responsible for each issue and what still needs to be done. And there’s a risk of taking too long to answer — or missing the ticket entirely. 

Benefits and challenges of ticketing systems

Here’s how a ticketing system can help your team, along with some obstacles you could run into (and how to overcome them).

Benefits

• Ticketing helps you deliver faster customer support and manage large volumes as you scale.
• Many ticketing systems come with automations, so AI agents or chatbots can quickly answer common customer questions.
• You can integrate with Slack and other apps to talk to your customers in their preferred channels, while tracking tickets in one place.
• Your team has full visibility on every issue’s history so anyone can jump in and help.
• Ticketing systems boost your team’s productivity without increasing their workload.
• They help your company offer excellent customer support at a lower cost as you grow.

Challenges

• Ticket volumes can become overwhelming if you don’t have a big enough team or don’t make efficient use of automation.
• Tickets can be incomplete, or some team members might struggle to collaborate effectively across teams to get the full picture.
• Without proper routing, tickets could get sent to the wrong person. This leads to delays and backlogs.
• Older ticketing systems can be tough to integrate with other apps you use.
• Unfamiliar systems mean you’ll need to train your team to get the most out of them.

Pylon’s omnichannel support platform helps you overcome these challenges to provide efficient customer support at scale. With Pylon, you can meet your customers’ needs across multiple channels, while tracking every customer interaction in one place. 

Essential features to look for in a ticketing system

When you’re choosing a cloud-based ticketing system for your startup, here are the main features to look for:

• User-friendly interface. Your team needs to find the system easy to use or they won’t adopt it.
• Customization and integration options. The ticketing system should integrate with your other customer support software. You should also be able to customize it for your company’s needs.
• Automated workflows. The best ticketing software uses AI-powered tools to automate tasks like routing and tagging issues.
• Omnichannel support. You should be able to chat with customers on their preferred channel, while managing all tickets from a single dashboard.
• Self-service options. Features like automated answers to simple questions and access to a knowledge base give customers the option to problem-solve without your team.
• Collaboration tools. Any small business help desk software needs to have intuitive collaboration workflows, so everyone can help the customer.
• Security features. Tickets might include sensitive customer data, so you need strong security measures to protect their information.
• Analytics. You need to be able to track key customer support metrics so you know what’s working and what needs to improve.

Comparing the 6 best ticketing systems for startups

Here are the 6 leading help desk ticketing systems for growing startups, with a comparison of their features, costs, and usability.

1. Pylon

If you want a comprehensive customer support solution, try Pylon’s omnichannel support. You’ll get a powerful ticketing system that’s part of a wider support platform and is designed for B2B teams:

• View all the context about your customer relationships at the account level.
• Track customer conversations across Slack, email, chat widgets, and more. 
• Use sophisticated AI agents to gather more information from customers, handle simple questions, and automatically route tickets to the right member of your support team.
• Integrate your ticketing system with dozens of other apps — like your CRM, call recorder, product ticketing platform, and data warehouse. 

Pylon is the ideal solution for fast-growing B2B startups with a strong focus on unifying support and customer success. It lets you easily manage customer relationships, so you can offer high-quality customer support as your company grows. 

With pricing starting at $59/seat/month, it’s a practical choice for the number of features you get.

2. Zendesk

Zendesk is mainly designed for B2C companies, but it can work as a B2B ticketing system too. It includes workflow automation options and many integrations. You get a 14-day free trial with Zendesk, so companies trying out a ticketing system might find it a good fit. 

Pricing for the most basic plan starts at $19/seat/month, but you’ll need to pay more for features like AI agents and self-service options.

3. Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce is mostly used as a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, so its Salesforce Service Cloud offering is an add-on if you’re looking for a CRM ticketing system. It comes with AI routing and other automation tools to help you streamline your workflow.

Pricing starts at $25/seat/month with a 30-day free trial.

4. HubSpot Service Hub

Like Salesforce, HubSpot offers a full CRM platform, and HubSpot Service Hub is its ticket management system. Service Hub’s Starter plan includes live chat and self-service options, but some features like knowledge bases are only included in higher-priced plans. It’s a good option for very small companies who plan to stay that way, but quickly rising costs may be a deal-breaker for fast-growing startups.

The Starter plan costs $9/seat/month with a 14-day free trial. The next tier (Professional) starts at $1,300/month with 6 team members included (and an extra $45/month for additional people).

5. Jira Service Management

If you’re looking for a highly structured IT ticketing system, Jira Service Management is a good choice. It’s great for companies with dev teams that need to manage incidents and push through changes. However, it’s not very easy to use for more general customer support — the software has a steep learning curve. 

Jira offers a free plan for very small teams up to 3 members, but the regular plan starts at $20/seat/month.

6. Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

Early-stage startups with a very limited budget will benefit from the free or low-cost ticketing system Spiceworks offers. It lacks workflow automations and other advanced features, but if you’re looking for a simple software that handles the basics well, Spiceworks might fit your needs for now. 

The Core plan is free for up to 5 people, and its Premium plan is $5/seat/month.

How to choose the right customer support ticketing system for your startup

Use these steps to choose the program that fits your company’s needs best:

• Assess your needs. Think about how you’re handling customer support now and where you can improve. Do you need a system that gives you an overview of the whole customer relationship, or is a ticketing-only system enough?
• Embrace automation. For fast-growing startups, automation is a must have. Look for a system with strong AI capabilities so you can handle growing volumes while keeping your customer support costs low.
• Balance price and scalability. Choose a system that offers a starter plan and higher tiers that scale with you as your company grows.
• Prioritize wider goals. Keep your big-picture company goals in mind and look for a ticketing system that will help you get there.

Scale your customer support efficiently with Pylon

The best ticketing systems for startups help you keep your customers happy, boost your team’s productivity, and save time and money. Look for a system that has all the features you need to deliver exceptional customer support as your company grows.

Pylon is the modern B2B support platform that offers true omnichannel support across Slack, Teams, email, chat, ticket forms, and more. Our AI Agents and Assistants automate busywork and reduce response times. Plus, with Account Intelligence that unifies scattered customer signals to calculate health scores and identify churn risk, we're built for customer success at scale.

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