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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Gist

    Score9.5 out of 10
    N/AGist is a unified marketing, sales, and support platform. It includes live chat, a help desk, knowledge base, email marketing, marketing automation, opt-in forms, and more.

    $29

    per month

    Kayako

    Score6.9 out of 10
    N/AKayako is a help desk and customer support platform that helps businesses automate workflows, improve agent productivity, and deliver personalized customer experiences across email, chat, and social media.

    $79

    per month

    Pricing
    GistKayako
    Editions & Modules
    Professional
    $29.00
    per month
    Premium
    $99.00
    per month
    Kayako One
    $79
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    GistKayako
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    GistKayako
    Considered Both Products
    Gist
    No answer on this topic
    Kayako
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    19 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    21 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    21 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    20 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    GistKayako
    Chat Analytics and Reports
    Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of Gist and Kayako
    Feature
    Gist
    8.9
    2 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    Chat history and transcripts8.92 Ratings00 Ratings
    Chat reporting8.92 Ratings00 Ratings
    Chat and web analytics8.92 Ratings00 Ratings
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Gist and Kayako
    Feature
    Gist
    -
    Ratings
    Kayako
    2.0
    11 Ratings
    120% below category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings1.05 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings1.08 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings1.07 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings7.011 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Gist and Kayako
    Feature
    Gist
    -
    Ratings
    Kayako
    1.0
    9 Ratings
    155% below category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings1.09 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings1.08 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Gist and Kayako
    Feature
    Gist
    -
    Ratings
    Kayako
    1.0
    10 Ratings
    154% below category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings1.07 Ratings
    IVR00 Ratings1.02 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings1.04 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings1.010 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings1.06 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    GistKayako
    Small Businesses
    Olark
    Score10 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Zoho SalesIQ
    Score8.3 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Genesys DX (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Front
    Score7.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    GistKayako
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (112 ratings)
    1.0
    (22 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    7.8
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    6.7
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.6
    (9 ratings)
    2.1
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    GistKayako
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Gist
    If your marketing model is selling products, services, or SAAS where you are doing inbound marketing and your website will do most of the lead generation and conversion, this is a great product. From live chat, support, event tracking, and automation, you could almost put your entire business on autopilot. If your marketing model is mostly outreach to cold leads and conversion, this software currently does not have any type of sales stages or task generation. I would still use Gist for website inbound but use another software for outreach and cold leads then when they become a lead put them into Gist for marketing automation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    When it works, It's without a doubt a great help desk solution. It is perfect for our usage, and have rolled it out company-wide. It's great if you have multiple departments. We have it set up so most items come through a single desk that then hands out tickets to their proper department. There may be cheaper options for smaller organizations but for one that is as service-driven as ours, we really think Kayako is a great fit.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Gist
    • Customer service via a unified inbox so you dont have to separately monitor your twitter, Facebook or IG account for consumer communication there. Gist unified all into one inbox, better than anyone else I've seen in the market. They archive all communications and tie them back to a single user so you get unified customer history / data.
    • Marketing segmentation and automation: they track user history and behavior across the site and have super detailed segmenting capability, on par with ActiveCampaign's, but better I'd say. Better UI for the marketing admin person, and more unified data than in AC.
    • Live chat and chatbot. Usually it's either one or the other but with Gist you can do both seamlessly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • Gives a very good report on an individual level of what is being done for a customer or corporate issue.
    • Easy to understand who has what, what the tickets are about, how long they have been opened and how many times the customer/employee have gone back and forth with each other.
    • Nice dashboard view.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Gist
    • Plan limits can be confusing. For example, there is a monthly charge for support and a monthly charge for "growth," plus there's a separate charge depending on how many contacts and seats you have. Perhaps this is normal in the industry, but it can make it a little challenging to understand the bill every month.
    • The vast amount of features means development will never be as fast as you'd like it to be (even though they release updates all the time). This may not actually be a valid concern, and it certainly isn't unique to Gist (who doesn't have a wishlist they're waiting on their favorite SaaS to get to?), but I do believe the likelihood of being stuck without your desired feature being developed goes up a lot as the product gets bigger and bigger.
    • Email deliverability has been less than perfect in the past, but it has improved drastically in the last year.
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • Departments need a bit of work. Even though you can have multiple departments, the only changes that can be made are globally. If you want independent queues within the departments, you have to do a lot of work that can be very confusing.
    • Survey system is not up to speed. Kayako really needs to add Net Promoter Score into their system. Also, if a staff user removes their name from an incident ticket, it removes them from the survey so you really can't even get a good estimate of how well your staff is in the eyes of the customer.
    • Very difficult to implement when you already have a customer base. Setting them up in organizations is difficult. Also, the sign-up for new customers is quirky. If you send an email to Kayako, it will say you are not an authorized user, however, it will store your email address. If you try to send an email a second time, it will go through. This is one of many reasons why we decided to move from Kayako to Oracle Service Cloud.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Gist
    Gist is a quite reliable service with a lot of added values. We don't need to pay for different Saas for these important features. If I had an issue the team was super responsive and helpful, that is essential for every business. The email delivery is great, so virtually no email has landed into spam folder
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • We are grandfathered in on their old Software-assurance pricing and our continued use costs us only a few hundred dollars a year (excluding hosting expenses)
    • Our team's processes are now heavily ingrained in the system
    • We have not been shown a more compelling option that is more cost-effective while still offering all the features we've come to expect
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Gist
    It’s pretty simple, but it does a lot so there are more complicated features which depend on an individuals ability for software implementation. I am not an IT expert and I’ve managed to implement everything myself, others that are more tech-minded may find everything easier.
    Read full review
    Kayako
    I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Gist
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    They are really good, but it takes a while to get back, because of the large time difference to the Eastern US. However, they are very helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Gist
    Fantastic support. Ask a question, get an answer within 24 hours every time. And sometimes within a few minutes. They've always come through for me, helpful and, even when it's an issue on my end, they point me in the right direction.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • We didn't have to use support too much, but when we did, they were able to assist us and help us make everything work.
    • Mostly we used their Online KB and step by step instructions to get all of our issues resolved.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Gist
    No answers on this topic
    Kayako
    Three years in we are about as happy with Kayako as we could be. We've had several employee's leave and on-boarding new hires was easier than it has ever been as things are uniform and consistent across the entire application.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Gist
    Gist combines all our previous products into one application and adds many more features that would require more apps. Gist is excellent and a no-brainer all-in-one application when compared to having to manage multiple applications at higher cost. The support from the whole Gist team has been extremely responsive.
    Read full review
    Kayako
    We were using Spiceworks for a few years before switching to Kayako but found that it wasn't as customizable or as user friendly for our customers. The SNMP scanning and inventory features with Spiceworks was nice but we needed more of a Help Desk that would allow us to scale our services to more companies.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Gist
    • They are perfect for me as a someone who needs a lot of bang for the buck. The chat messenger device on my website alone has brought me new prospects that I did not have to spend money recruiting.
    • I am able to save hours of time with the automated emails that are GDPR compliant.
    • I don't have to pay for a designer to have excellent looking emails either.
    Read full review
    Kayako
    • Tickets were definitely responded to faster once we implemented the audible alarm that would go off when new tickets came into the queue. This was possible because of the API.
    • Since the system was email based we could set our monitoring software up to generate tickets automatically via email for customers when it found something out of the ordinary.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Gist Screenshots

    Screenshot of Live ChatScreenshot of Email MarketingScreenshot of Marketing Automation WorkflowsScreenshot of Knowledge BaseScreenshot of Meetings