Key takeaways
- Create the inbox first, then connect your own email address and set up forwarding from your email provider.
- Help Scout has four roles: Account Owner, Administrator, User and Light User. Light User is on Plus and Pro.
- A new user cannot log in until the invite email is sent. Resend it from the user's profile if it expires.
- Help Scout lists its Envoy chatbot as off by default, and you can set a monthly spending cap.
By the end of this walkthrough your team will share one Help Scout inbox. It will be connected to your support email, your teammates will have roles, and you will have three first things to try. Help Scout puts customer email in a shared inbox that feels like regular email.
Before you start
Choose the Account Owner. Only that role can change the plan or payment details. Decide the support address customers write to, and who needs to reply versus who only needs to read.
Help Scout’s pricing page lists these plans per user per month.
| Plan | What it adds for a team | Price as listed |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 5 users, 1 Inbox, 1 Docs site | $0 |
| Standard | Multiple Inboxes, live chat and SMS, AI Inbox assistant, up to 25 users | $25 per user |
| Plus | Round robin routing, unlimited AI Drafts, up to 50 users | $45 per user |
| Pro | SSO/SAML, HIPAA compliance, unlimited users with a minimum of 10 | $75 per user |
Standard and Plus list a 15-day free trial with no credit card. Extra Inboxes are listed at $10 a month billed annually. The Envoy chatbot is a separate add-on at $0.75 per resolution.
Create the account and workspace
These steps come from Help Scout’s inbox article.
- Open Settings (the gear icon), then Inboxes, and select New Inbox.
- Enter an Email address and an Inbox Name. This makes an address on your Help Scout subdomain that works on its own.
- On the confirmation screen, select Open Inbox, or Inbox Settings to customize it.
To use your own domain, click the add it here link. Enter an email address you already have at your domain, click Send Code, then enter the code sent to that mailbox and click Confirm. Then set up forwarding or redirection in your email provider. For Google Workspace, Help Scout has a separate auto-forwarding article.
Invite your team
Only Account Owners and Administrators can add users. The steps are in Help Scout’s user accounts article.
- Go to Settings (gear icon) and then Users.
- Click Add User.
- Enter the name and email address.
- Choose a role and which Inboxes the user can access.
- Leave Send an invite email? on, then click Create User.
The user cannot log in until the invite is sent. If the link expired, open the user’s three-dot menu or profile and choose Resend invite email.
Help Scout’s roles article describes four roles. The Account Owner has full access. An Administrator manages company settings and users except the owner. A User sees conversations in assigned Inboxes but cannot change Inbox settings. A Light User can view conversations and leave notes but cannot reply, and is listed on Plus and Pro.
Set the admin and data settings
Check permissions under Settings and Role Permissions. The Account Owner sets permissions for the Administrator, User and Light User roles. To change one person, open their row under Users, use the three-dot menu and choose Edit role & permissions. On Plus and Pro, the owner can pick Custom under Feature Permissions.
On AI, Help Scout’s AI transparency page says customer data is not used to retrain OpenAI’s global model. It says Help Scout may use limited samples to evaluate and improve feature quality. It says Envoy is off by default and appears to customers only if you enable it in your Beacon settings. To remove AI features entirely, the page says to contact Help Scout.
Connect your other apps
Email is the main connection. To add or change a custom address on an existing inbox, go to Settings > Inboxes, select the inbox, and click Channels. Click Connect next to Email, enter the address, and click Connect Email. Copy the Help Scout inbox address it shows and set up forwarding to it with your provider. When forwarding is active, click Send Test.
Help Scout’s setup articles do not cover chat, calendar or CRM connections. Check Help Scout’s integrations in your account for those.
Tasks to try first
Pricing lists an AI Inbox assistant on Standard and AI Drafts on Plus and Pro. These tasks work on any plan.
Send a test email through forwarding
Use this to confirm customer mail will arrive before you switch over.
Inbox: Settings > Inboxes > your inbox > Channels
Step 1: Click Connect next to Email and enter your support address.
Step 2: Copy the Help Scout inbox address shown.
Step 3: Set up forwarding to that address in your email provider.
Step 4: Click Send Test and wait a few minutes.Draft a reply for a booking question
Use this when the same question arrives every week. Paste into your AI assistant and edit the result before you send it.
Write a short, friendly email reply for a small business. A customer asks how to book an appointment. Include: [your booking steps]. Keep it under 100 words. Do not promise times or prices I did not give you.Give a manager read-only access
Use this when an owner wants to follow support without replying.
Settings > Users > Add User
Name and email: the manager
Role: Light User (Plus and Pro plans)
Inbox access: your support inbox
Send an invite email?: onFrequently asked questions
How do I add a user in Help Scout?
Help Scout's docs say an Account Owner or Administrator goes to Settings, then Users, and clicks Add User. Fill in the name, email, role and inbox access, then click Create User.
Can a Help Scout Light User reply to customers?
No. Help Scout's roles article says a Light User can view conversations in assigned inboxes and leave notes but cannot reply to customers. Light Users are listed on Plus and Pro plans.
Why can't my new Help Scout user log in?
Help Scout's docs say a user cannot log in until the invite email is sent. If you turned that email off, send it later from the user's profile, or resend it if the link expired.
Sources
About the author
Andy Kang, AI Partner Team. Andy Kang writes the AI directory for AI Partner Team, which sets up and builds AI tools for small businesses alongside managed IT. Each page is written from the vendor’s own pricing, help and trust pages, and shows the day those pages were checked.
- Facts come from the vendor’s own website and help docs, linked on every page.
- Each page shows the date we last read those sources.
- We do not score or rank tools. We say who each one suits and who it does not.
- If a vendor does not publish a price, we say so instead of guessing.