An email ticketing system turns each message to support@ into a ticket with a number, an owner, and a status. For a small IT team or MSP, choose on two things: how your email gets in, and whether the hours on the ticket reach an invoice. Default pick: SherpaDesk.
- How We Chose
- 8 tools · 26 vendor pages · Microsoft and Google docs
If you want a helpdesk and PSA (professional services automation) a small IT team can run alone, start with SherpaDesk. No contract. No implementation project. No dedicated admin.
| If you… | Pick |
|---|---|
| Support clients from support@ and bill the hours | SherpaDesk |
| Run internal IT from a shared mailbox and want no contract | SherpaDesk |
| Answer customers and want the queue to feel like email | Help Scout |
| Want the team to stay inside Gmail | Hiver (Hiver in Gmail) |
| Need a free plan for three people | Zoho Desk |
| Must host the helpdesk on your own servers | osTicket or Jitbit |
How We Chose
How we chose
- Runs with one to fifteen technicians. No tool that needs a dedicated administrator to keep the queue running.
- Email in, ticket out. We read each vendor's own setup docs to see how mail arrives: forwarding, a mailbox sign-in, or polling.
- Published price. Every price, unit, and seat rule comes from the vendor's pricing page, in US dollars, billed monthly unless stated.
We publish this guide, and SherpaDesk is one of the 8 tools. It uses the same template and lists its limits.
What Is An Email Ticketing System?
Definition
An email ticketing system is a helpdesk that reads a support address and turns each new message into a ticket. Replies stay on that ticket, and every ticket has one owner and one status.
Why A Shared Mailbox Stops Working
A shared mailbox isn't a ticketing system. It shows who sent what, not who owns it or whether anyone answered. One r/sysadmin member found the cost while cleaning out old shared mailboxes: "a password reset request from 3 weeks ago that nobody actioned".
A four-person after-sales team on Outlook shared mailboxes listed the same gaps, starting with "No visibility on what's been answered vs still pending". Forwarding alone doesn't fix it. In another r/sysadmin thread, HR's urgent requests "went to an old ticketing email that forwards to a shared inbox three people have access to and nobody actively monitors".
How Email Becomes A Ticket
Email gets into ticketing systems in one of three ways:
- Forwarding. Your mailbox forwards every message to an address the helpdesk gives you. SherpaDesk, Help Scout, Zoho Desk, and Desk365 work this way.
- Mailbox sign-in. The tool signs in to the mailbox and syncs it. Hiver Omni, Hiver's standalone app, connects an Outlook shared mailbox with a Microsoft account.
- Polling. The helpdesk checks the mailbox on a timer. Jitbit checks every 1 to 5 minutes; osTicket needs a scheduled fetch script.
Freshdesk offers forwarding or a mailbox connection. Forwarding is also the method your mail admin settings can block; the setup section covers it.
For how to run the queue once it exists, see our helpdesk best practices.
Email Ticketing Systems Compared
For ticketing systems compared on time tracking, invoicing, and RMM, see our ticketing system software comparison.
| Tool | Best for | How email gets in | Time tracking and invoicing, per vendor docs | Time logged by email reply | Plan and billing unit, billed monthly | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SherpaDesk Ours | IT teams and MSPs that bill time | Forward to a dropbox address | Time on tickets; uninvoiced hours collect in Ready to Invoice | Yes, "cmd time" | Base Camp $45 per agent per month | First agent free, forever |
| Help Scout | Customer-facing teams | Forward to an inbox address | No built-in billing; Everhour, a separate app it lists, invoices time once added to a task | Not documented | Standard $30 per user | Free for 5 users, 1 inbox |
| Freshdesk | Customer support with automations | Forward, or connect Gmail, Office 365, or a mail server | Time logs on Growth and up; QuickBooks app bills that time, needs QuickBooks Online Essentials or higher; Freshdesk plan for the app not stated | Not documented | Growth $23 per agent | Not shown on the pricing page |
| Hiver | Teams that stay in Gmail | Lives in Gmail, or connects a mailbox to Hiver Omni | No time tracking found in its docs; QuickBooks shows invoice details | Not documented | Growth $35 per user; seats sold 2, 5, then in fives | No |
| Zoho Desk | A free plan for three | Forward to a Zoho Desk address | Time entry from Standard ($20 per user); Zoho Invoice, a separate product, bills billable entries | Not documented | Express $9 per user | Free for 3 users, 1 email channel |
| Desk365 | SLA reminders on the entry plan | Forward to a Desk365 address | Ticket time tracking on all paid plans; no invoicing documented | Not documented | Standard $16 per agent | 50 tickets a month |
| Jitbit Helpdesk | Cloud or self-hosted, same product | Polls Office 365, IMAP, or POP3 | Stopwatch on each ticket; no invoicing documented | No; email commands close or assign | SaaS Startup $69 a month for 4 agents (Freelancer, $29, covers 1) | Self-hosted trial, no time limit, some features off |
| osTicket | Free and self-hosted | Fetches by IMAP or POP3, or piping | Not in the core docs we read | Not documented | Open source $0; hosted SupportSystem $12 per agent, billing period not stated | Open source edition |
Prices as of October 2026.
A team of 3 technicians, billed monthly, pays $0 on Zoho Desk Free or the osTicket license, and $27 on Zoho Desk Express. It pays $36 on SupportSystem Basic (billing period not stated), $48 on Desk365 Standard, $69 on Freshdesk Growth or Jitbit Startup, and $90 on Help Scout Standard.
Hiver Growth is $175, because seats go from 2 to 5. SherpaDesk Base Camp is $90 a month, because the first agent is free and you pay for 2; billed annually, it's $80.
These totals cover the ticketing plan only. Freshdesk's invoice path also needs QuickBooks Online Essentials or higher, Zoho Desk's starts on Standard ($60 a month for 3), and Help Scout's runs through Everhour. In the docs we read, only SherpaDesk logs time from an email reply.
Best For IT Teams That Bill
SherpaDesk
Best for IT teams and MSPs that answer support@ and bill the time
$45 per agent per month (Base Camp), billed monthly · $40 billed annually · High Camp $55
- First agent free, forever
- 14 days free, no card
- Log time by replying to the ticket email
- Team of 3: $90 a month ($80 billed annually)
You forward support@ to a dropbox address, and each email becomes a ticket. It runs as internal ticketing for your staff or as client-facing ticketing for businesses you support. Two founders who ran their own MSP have built it since 2001.
Recommendation
Choose SherpaDesk if the hour spent on an email ticket should land on an invoice, or if you want support@ in one queue with no contract. Consider another option if you only need a shared inbox, not tickets with time and billing.
Best For Customer-Facing Support Teams
These three support ticketing systems come from customer service. They fit an IT team whose users are customers, not colleagues.
Help Scout
Best for teams that want the queue to read like an email inbox
$30 per user per month (Standard), billed monthly · $25 billed annually · Plus $54
- Free plan: 5 users, 1 inbox, 100 contacts a month
- 15-day trial, no card
- Team of 3: $90 a month · SherpaDesk $90 ($80 billed annually)
You forward your shared address to a Help Scout inbox address.
Recommendation
Choose Help Scout if your support is customer service and you never bill for time. Consider another option if you need time entries and contracts on the ticket.
Freshdesk
Best for support teams that want mail-server options and automations
$23 per agent per month (Growth), billed monthly · $19 billed annually · Pro $66
- Forward, or connect Gmail, Office 365, or your mail server
- 14-day trial on the Enterprise plan
- Multiple SLA policies start on Pro
- Team of 3: $69 a month · SherpaDesk $90 ($80 billed annually)
Each account gets an address on its freshdesk.com subdomain, and mail sent there becomes a ticket. If forwarding is blocked, you can point Freshdesk at the mailbox instead; only mail in its primary folder becomes tickets.
Recommendation
Choose Freshdesk if your mail admin won't allow forwarding and you want the tool to read the mailbox. Consider another option if you need several SLA policies on the entry plan.
Hiver
Best for teams that want to keep working inside Gmail
$35 per user per month (Growth), billed monthly · $25 billed annually · Pro $65
- Seats sold 2, then 5, then in steps of 5
- 7-day trial of Elite, no card
- SLA targets start on Pro
- Team of 3: $175 a month on the 5-seat step · SherpaDesk $90 ($80 billed annually)
Hiver comes in two forms. Hiver in Gmail lives inside Gmail; Hiver Omni is a standalone app that works with Gmail, Outlook, and other providers.
Recommendation
Choose Hiver if your team refuses to leave Gmail. Consider another option if you're three people and don't want to pay for five seats.
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Best Low-Cost And Self-Hosted Options
Zoho Desk
Best for a team of up to three that needs a free plan
$9 per user per month (Express), billed monthly · $7 billed annually · Professional $35
- Free: 3 users, 1 email channel
- 15-day trial, no card
- Express caps at 5 users
- Team of 3: $0 Free or $27 Express · SherpaDesk $90 ($80 billed annually)
You set a forwarding rule from support@ to an equivalent address in Zoho Desk.
Recommendation
Choose Zoho Desk if you need tickets this month with no budget line. Consider another option if you'll outgrow one support address soon.
Desk365
Best for small teams that want SLA reminders on the entry plan
$16 per agent per month (Standard), billed monthly · $12 billed annually · Plus $28
- 21-day trial, no card
- Free plan: 50 tickets a month
- Round robin starts on Plus
- Team of 3: $48 a month · SherpaDesk $90 ($80 billed annually)
Desk365 gives you an address on its own domain; you forward support@ to it and grant permission to send as your address. Standard lists email to tickets and SLA reminders and escalations.
Recommendation
Choose Desk365 if you want a low per-agent price with response targets from day one. Consider another option if tickets should rotate between technicians on the entry plan.
Jitbit Helpdesk
Best for teams that want the option to self-host later
$69 a month for up to 4 agents (SaaS Startup), billed monthly · $58.25 a month billed annually · Self-hosted $2,490 one-time for 10 agents
- 21-day SaaS trial, no card
- Self-hosted renewal 50% before updates end or within 60 days, 80% later
- Priced in agent bundles; Freelancer covers 1 agent, so 3 need Startup
- Team of 3: $69 a month · SherpaDesk $90 ($80 billed annually)
Jitbit checks your mailboxes every 1 to 5 minutes. Microsoft's block covers inbox rules and mailbox forwarding to outside addresses; Jitbit reads the mailbox itself.
Recommendation
Choose Jitbit if you may need to move the helpdesk on-premises. Consider another option if your team will grow past one bundle soon.
osTicket
Best for teams with a server and no software budget
$0 open source, self-hosted · hosted SupportSystem from $12 per agent a month
- Unlimited email addresses
- Community support on the free edition
- Polling needs a scheduled fetch script
- Team of 3: $0 license, or $36 on SupportSystem · SherpaDesk $90 ($80 billed annually)
- SupportSystem billing period not stated
osTicket fetches mail from each mailbox by IMAP or POP3, or takes it by piping. Our free ticketing systems guide compares more $0 options.
Recommendation
Choose osTicket if someone on staff already runs Linux servers. Consider another option if nobody wants to own updates and backups.
What To Look For In Email Ticketing
The general trial tests, forwarding support@ and time to billing, are in our ticketing software checklist. These six are email-specific. Threading in the client's own mailbox is a separate test. One r/msp member, whose PSA's replies didn't thread there, asked: "isn't threaded email tickets table-stakes for a PSA?"
| Check | Why it matters | Test and pass result |
|---|---|---|
| Replies stay on the ticket | A reply that opens a new ticket splits the history | Reply-all with a CC from a phone; one ticket, not two |
| Sender kept on a forward | A client often emails a technician directly, who forwards it on | Forward one with FW:; you can set the client, not you, as the user |
| Attachments | Screenshots and logs arrive as files, and a helpdesk may accept only some types | Send a screenshot, a PDF, and a zip; each lands on the ticket or the sender is told why not |
| Two people replying | Two technicians can answer the same email at once | Reply from two technicians at once; a warning before the second reply goes out |
| Unknown senders | Anyone who emails support@ can become a user | Email from an allowed and an unknown domain; each follows your new-user setting |
| Auto-replies and loops | Out-of-office replies can bounce back and forth with ticket notifications | Send from a mailbox with an out-of-office on; one ticket, no reply chain |
The loop rule has a standard behind it. RFC 3834 says an automatic responder "MUST NOT blindly send a response for every message received." Ask the vendor whether its notifications carry the Auto-Submitted header and respect it. One r/sysadmin commenter whose departments each ran about five shared mailboxes with forwarding rules wrote: "Lots of forwarding loops as this got out of hand fast". Reply wording is a separate job; our support ticket response templates cover it.
How To Forward Support@ To A Ticketing System
The steps below set up SherpaDesk. The Microsoft 365 and Gmail parts apply to any ticketing system that takes forwarded mail.
-
Create a dropbox address
In SherpaDesk, an email dropbox is the address your mailbox forwards to. You give it a name and a technician, and can tie it to one client account.
-
Forward from Microsoft 365
For a shared mailbox, open Teams & groups, then Shared mailboxes, and turn on Email forwarding to the dropbox. A shared mailbox needs no license to forward. Microsoft may block automatic external forwarding by default, so check your tenant's outbound spam policy; blocked mail bounces with error 5.7.520.
Allow it for the support mailbox only, with a custom outbound spam policy set to "On - Forwarding is enabled". If mail still bounces with the policy On, check remote-domain settings and mail flow rules; when settings conflict, the block typically wins. Workarounds can backfire: one r/msp member found "the redirect causes O365 to send from the high risk SMTP pool".
Common mistake: turning forwarding on for the whole tenant instead of the one mailbox.
-
Forward from Gmail or Google Workspace
In Gmail, add the dropbox as a forwarding address. Google sends a verification email to it, and that email arrives in SherpaDesk as a ticket; open it to finish verification. Then go back to the Forwarding tab in Gmail settings, choose "Forward a copy of incoming mail to," pick the dropbox, and click Save Changes. A Workspace admin can turn user forwarding off. The other route is a Google Group as support@ that includes the dropbox and lets anyone post.
Common mistake: skipping the admin settings. Outside email to groups and external members are both off by default.
-
Decide who can open tickets
With "Allow new user creation via Email parser" on, any unknown sender becomes a new user. To limit new-user creation to your clients' domains, turn that off, turn on "Limit New Users to Only Matching Email Suffixes," enter the suffixes, and click Apply. Then test one new sender from an allowed domain and one from another domain.
-
Send test emails and read the log
Send three messages from outside addresses. The Email Diagnostic Logs list every received and sent email with its time and ticket ID. Identical emails within about 2 minutes are rejected as a potential loop.
Common mistake: assigning the public dropbox address to a user or technician, which creates a loop.
-
Teach the team the forward rule
When a client emails a technician directly, the technician forwards it to support@ with "FW:" or "FWD:" in the subject. The ticket lists the forwarder as the user; "cmd finduser" sets the original sender instead, and "cmd tech me" skips routing.
How To Choose
Answer these two in order before you trial a ticketing system.
-
Do you bill clients for the time on tickets?
- If yes
- Shortlist tools where a reply can log time that reaches an invoice. See the SherpaDesk entry.
- If no
- For internal IT, SherpaDesk still fits: one forwarded queue, the first agent free, no contract. For customer-facing teams, weigh setup and SLA features in the comparison table.
-
Can your mail admin allow forwarding for one mailbox?
- If yes
- Any forwarding tool works.
- If no
- Pick a tool that signs in to or polls the mailbox: Freshdesk, Hiver, Jitbit, or osTicket.
How this works in SherpaDesk
The Hour On The Reply Lands On The Invoice
You get a helpdesk and PSA a small IT team can run alone. Forward support@ to your dropbox, and each email becomes a ticket. When the fix is done, reply to the ticket email with "cmd time 0.25" to log 15 minutes, and add "cmd close" in the same reply.
That time joins the client's other uninvoiced hours in Ready to Invoice, sorted by contract.
Base Camp is $45 per agent per month ($40 billed annually). First agent free, forever. 14 days free, no card.
Who this isn't for
If support@ is really a sales or marketing inbox, a shared-inbox tool such as Hiver or Help Scout fits better than an IT ticketing system. If your team must work every email inside Gmail, Hiver in Gmail is built for that; SherpaDesk takes forwarded mail. SherpaDesk runs only in the cloud, so on-premises teams should look at Jitbit or osTicket.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do email tickets work?
The helpdesk receives each email sent to your support address, by forwarding, a mailbox sign-in, or polling. In SherpaDesk, routing rules can send tickets of a given class to a set technician, and technicians can act on a ticket by replying with commands.
What is the best free email ticketing system?
Zoho Desk Free covers 3 users and 1 email channel, and Help Scout Free covers 5 users and 1 inbox. osTicket is free if you host it. SherpaDesk's first agent is free, forever, with ticketing, time tracking, and invoicing included. Our free ticketing systems guide compares more.
What is SLA in ticketing tools?
An SLA in a ticketing tool is a response and resolution target, usually set by priority, with a due time on each ticket. In SherpaDesk, priorities carry response and completion goals, with business hours and holidays. See our guide to ticket priority levels.
Can a shared mailbox in Outlook work as a ticketing system?
Not on its own. A shared mailbox holds the email but gives no ticket number, owner, or status. You either add a tool that signs in to it, such as Hiver Omni, or forward it to a helpdesk. A Microsoft 365 shared mailbox can forward without a license.
How do you stop auto-replies from creating extra tickets?
Under RFC 3834, automatic replies should carry an Auto-Submitted header, and responders shouldn't answer such mail. In SherpaDesk, identical emails within about 2 minutes are rejected as a potential loop. Admins can also stop email replies from reopening closed tickets.
Patrick co-founded SherpaDesk and has led it as CEO since 2013. He has worked with IT service providers since 1998, first on network projects for schools and government offices, then on the helpdesk software their technicians use every day.