A guide to the Freshdesk AI chatbot free plan

Thinking about using AI to handle customer questions? It’s a smart move. Lots of teams are looking for a Freshdesk AI chatbot free solution to help lighten the load on their support agents. The promise of instant answers and happier customers is hard to ignore.

But when you start digging into Freshdesk, things can get a little fuzzy. It's not always clear what’s genuinely free versus what’s just a free trial or a paid add-on. It’s pretty common to get started, only to run into a paywall you didn't see coming.

This guide will give you a clear, honest look at Freshdesk's AI chatbot. We’ll break down what you actually get, what’s missing, and how you can boost your Freshdesk setup with a more flexible AI that works with the tools you already have.

What is the Freshdesk AI chatbot (Freddy AI)?

When you hear about AI in Freshdesk, you'll see the name "Freddy AI." Freddy isn't a single chatbot; it's just the brand name for all the artificial intelligence features Freshworks builds into its products. Think of it as the umbrella for a few key tools designed to make support life easier.

For anyone using Freshdesk, Freddy AI typically shows up in two main ways:

• Freddy AI Agent: This is the autonomous chatbot you’re probably looking for. It’s on the front lines, talking to customers on your website, in emails, or on social media. Its goal is to understand what people are asking, pull answers from your knowledge base, and solve problems without needing a human.

• Freddy AI Copilot: This tool is more like a sidekick for your human agents. It works behind the scenes inside Freshdesk, helping your team by summarizing long ticket threads, suggesting replies, and tweaking the tone of an agent's response. It’s all about helping your agents work faster and more consistently.

A screenshot displaying the main features of the Freddy Copilot for Freshdesk integration within the helpdesk.

So, when we talk about the "Freshdesk AI chatbot," we're mostly focused on the Freddy AI Agent, the part that chats directly with your customers.

The reality of the 'free' Freshdesk AI chatbot

Here’s the part that trips most people up. You’re searching for a Freshdesk AI chatbot free of charge, but the reality is a bit more complicated. It’s key to understand the difference between their forever-free plan and a temporary free trial.

Freshdesk's free plan vs. a free trial

Freshdesk offers a "Free" plan that’s great for small teams (up to 10 agents). It gives you the basics like ticketing and a knowledge base, which is a decent starting point. The catch? This forever-free plan does not include Freddy AI Agent or Copilot features. You simply can't build or use an AI chatbot on this plan.

So, how do people try the chatbot for free? Through a 14-day free trial of one of the paid plans, like Pro or Enterprise. During the trial, you get access to all the bells and whistles, including the AI chatbot. This is a good way to see what it can do, but it only lasts two weeks. After that, you either have to upgrade to a paid plan or you lose access to the AI.

"Included" AI sessions on paid plans

Once you’re on a paid plan like Pro or Enterprise, Freshdesk gives you 500 "Freddy AI Agent sessions" to get started. A "session" is just a unique conversation between a customer and your bot within a 24-hour period.

Five hundred sessions might sound like a lot, but for a growing business, you can burn through them surprisingly fast. Once they're gone, the chatbot becomes a pay-as-you-go service, costing $100 for every 1,000 sessions. This can make your monthly bill pretty unpredictable, especially if you have a sudden spike in support questions. One busy week could blow your budget.

This session-based model can be confusing and lead to surprise costs. It’s one reason many teams prefer a platform like eesel AI, which offers clear and predictable pricing. Our plans come with a straightforward monthly limit on AI interactions, and we never charge per resolution. You get all our tools, AI Agent, Copilot, and Triage, from day one, so you always know what you're paying for.

Key features and capabilities of Freddy AI

To be fair, if you're on a paid Freshdesk plan, Freddy AI has some decent capabilities. It's built to be user-friendly and can be a solid tool for teams that are fully committed to the Freshworks ecosystem.

Here’s a look at what it can do:

• A no-code bot builder: Freshdesk gives you a visual, drag-and-drop tool to build conversational flows without writing code. You can map out how the bot should respond to different questions, making it easy for non-technical teams to get involved.

• Intent detection and NLP: The chatbot uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to figure out what customers are actually asking. This means a customer can ask a question in their own words, and the bot can still understand what they mean.

• Omnichannel deployment: You can use your chatbot across multiple channels. Whether a customer is on your website, Facebook Messenger, or sending an email, the bot can be there to offer a consistent experience.

The user interface of Freddy AI on Messenger, showcasing its main features for customer support automation.

• Agent assistance (Freddy AI Copilot): The tools for your human agents are actually pretty helpful.

  • AI-Generated Summaries: When a ticket gets passed to an agent, they don't have to read through a long, winding conversation. The Copilot summarizes it for them in a few seconds.

A screenshot showing the summarization feature of the Freddy AI writing assistant, which condenses long ticket threads for agents.

*   **Smart Reply Suggestions:** The AI suggests relevant answers from your knowledge base and past tickets, helping agents respond much faster.  

*   **Tone Enhancement:** Agents can write a quick reply and ask the AI to make it sound more professional, empathetic, or casual, depending on what's needed.  

Limitations of Freshdesk's native AI chatbot

While Freshdesk's AI is a good starting point, many teams run into some frustrating walls as they grow. These limitations usually pop up because it's a feature built into a bigger platform, not a dedicated, specialized AI tool.

It can only learn from Freshdesk

The biggest hurdle with Freddy AI is that it really only learns from your Freshdesk knowledge base and FAQs. But let's be real, where does your company's actual knowledge live? It's probably scattered across Google Docs, Confluence pages, Notion databases, and old Slack threads. Freddy AI can’t easily tap into any of that scattered knowledge, which means it often gives incomplete answers or has to escalate tickets it should have been able to solve.

This is a common reason teams look for a separate AI layer. A tool like eesel AI was built to solve this exact problem by unifying all your scattered knowledge. With one-click integrations for tools like Confluence and Notion, it learns from everything. It can even train on your past support tickets to pick up your brand voice and common solutions automatically, so it provides complete, accurate answers right away.

No way to roll it out with confidence

Deploying a new chatbot can be a bit scary. If it messes up, you risk annoying customers and hurting your brand's reputation. You really need a way to test it thoroughly before it ever talks to a real person. While Freshdesk lets you build a bot, it doesn't offer an easy way to see how it would have performed on your past tickets. You're basically launching it and hoping for the best.

We built eesel AI with a powerful simulation mode to prevent this. Before going live, you can run the AI over thousands of your past tickets in a safe environment. You'll get an accurate prediction of its resolution rate, see exactly how it would have responded to real questions, and find any gaps in your knowledge base. This lets you launch with total confidence, knowing exactly how it will perform.

Limited workflows and customization

Built-in AI tools often come with rigid, one-size-fits-all automation rules. You might be able to set up simple escalation paths, but what if you need more? What if you want the bot to look up an order status in Shopify, check a user's subscription level in your database, or create a ticket in Jira? With native tools, these custom actions are often complicated or just not possible without a developer.

Screenshot of Freshdesk's Branch Logic Condition

With eesel AI, you get a fully customizable workflow engine. You can create specific rules to decide which tickets the AI handles and which get escalated. You can even define a custom persona and tone of voice. Most importantly, you can build custom actions that let the AI look up live data from other systems or trigger workflows in other apps, turning it from a simple Q&A bot into a true automated agent.

Think of it this way: The Freshdesk AI is stuck in its own bubble, only able to see what's in your Freshdesk knowledge base. If the answer isn't there, it gives up and sends the ticket to an agent. An AI like eesel works differently. It connects to Freshdesk, Confluence, Google Docs, and past tickets all at once, pulling information from everywhere to give a complete answer.

Freshdesk AI chatbot free vs. paid plans: Pricing explained

Alright, let's talk numbers. Since the chatbot isn't available on the free plan, you have to look at the paid tiers to see the real cost.

Here’s how the AI features fit into their plans:

Note: Freddy AI Agent sessions beyond the initial 500 cost $100 per 1,000 sessions on Pro and Enterprise plans.

This video explains how Freshdesk simplifies customer support with its modern AI-assisted software.

Is the supposed Freshdesk AI chatbot free plan right for you?

So, back to the big question: can you get a Freshdesk AI chatbot free? The short answer is no, not really. What you can get is a free trial of their paid plans, which is a good way to test the waters.

The native Freddy AI is a decent starting point, especially for teams whose entire world lives inside the Freshdesk ecosystem and who have a perfectly maintained knowledge base.

However, if your company's knowledge is spread across multiple tools, if you want to test and launch your AI with confidence, and if you need predictable pricing without surprise fees, you’ll probably hit a wall.

Looking for an alternative? Give your Freshdesk a smarter brain

This is where eesel AI comes in. We’re not here to replace your helpdesk; we're here to make it smarter. eesel AI plugs right into Freshdesk in minutes, acting as an intelligent brain that enhances your existing workflows.

With eesel AI, you can go live in minutes, not months. You can connect all your scattered knowledge sources, test everything risk-free with our simulation mode, and enjoy simple, predictable pricing that grows with you.

Ready to see how much you can really automate?

Start your free eesel AI trial