Simple GBP team bands, not a per-seat tax.
Solves prices by team band, in pounds, ex VAT, so you size the plan to your team and let helpers help without paying for a full seat each. Start with Starter at £29, then move bands when the work grows. Pay yearly and get twelve months for the price of ten.
Plans
Four bands, one honest queue
Prices are per month, ex VAT. Pay annually and get twelve months for the price of ten. Starter is the entry point at £29.
Starter
- 1 brand
- Owned tickets, ownership and states
- Public replies and private notes
- Saved replies and SLA timers
- Freshdesk import
- No per-seat penalty
Team
- Up to 3 brands
- Per-brand mailboxes and sender identity
- One unified queue with brand filters
- Reports: backlog, ageing, first response
- Team permissions and ticket visibility
- Everything in Starter
Growth
- Up to 10 brands
- Brand-scoped and organisation-wide saved replies
- Full SLA and breaching views
- Audit history, metadata only
- Everything in Team
Agency / MSP
- Up to 25 brands
- Per-brand access and visibility controls
- One workspace for every client brand
- Priority setup help
- Everything in Growth
All prices are ex VAT. Annual billing is the equivalent of twelve months for the price of ten. Plans are GBP team bands with plan limits; live Stripe checkout is coming.
How the bands work
What you are actually paying for
Most helpdesks charge per agent, per month. That punishes the very thing a small team needs: an extra pair of hands on a busy Monday. Solves charges by team band, so you size the plan to the work and let people help without a separate seat fee each.
What counts as a user
A user is anyone with a login who works tickets: replies, assignment, private notes and the rest. Light collaborators who only add private notes still need a login, so they count as users too. The number of users is set by your band rather than billed individually, which is why a helper who clears overflow does not push your bill up by a seat.
No zero-price plan to unwind later
Solves starts at Starter because a zero-price tier quickly becomes a promise customers build around. We would rather be plain from the beginning: the product is paid, the entry band is £29 a month ex VAT, and the annual discount is where you save.
Annual billing is twelve for ten
Pay yearly and you pay for ten months and get twelve. On the Team band, GBP 79 a month becomes the equivalent of roughly GBP 66 a month over the year. Monthly billing stays available if you would rather keep things flexible; you are never locked in to find the price worth paying.
VAT-visible invoices, no surprises
All prices are quoted ex VAT, in pounds. Your invoices show the VAT line clearly, so your bookkeeper sees exactly what was charged and why. Pricing is in GBP team bands with no setup fee on top of your band, and live Stripe checkout is coming. Because everything is priced and charged in GBP, there is no currency conversion to reconcile and no surprise on the exchange rate, which is a common annoyance with tools that headline a dollar figure and then bill you in pounds at a rate you did not pick.
Early-adopter pilot: Team at £49 a month
The first 20 paid customers get the Team band at GBP 49 a month for six months, then GBP 79 after that. The pilot includes setup help, saved-reply migration and guided mailbox setup, in exchange for a testimonial or honest feedback. If you want to be one of the first 20, ask us about early access when you sign up.
Per band vs per agent
Why team bands suit a small support team
Per-agent pricing looks cheap on the headline number and then climbs every time you add a person. A team of five on a mid tier at, say, GBP 70 to GBP 90 per agent each month is GBP 350 to GBP 450 a month before anyone has cleared a ticket. A team band caps that: the people who need access get it, and overflow helpers do not each add a seat fee.
The trade-off is honest. If you are a very large team where a per-agent deal still works out lower, or you need channels Solves does not offer, a broader platform may suit you better. For a small UK team on support email, team bands keep the maths simple and the bill predictable.
Choosing a band
How to pick the right band
The thing that moves you up a band is rarely headcount. It is usually the number of brands you run and the mailboxes behind them. Pick the band that fits how many separate inboxes you answer from, and the people side tends to look after itself.
Count your brands and mailboxes first
If you answer from one inbox under one brand, Starter at GBP 29 is usually enough: owned tickets with ownership and states, public replies and private notes, saved replies, SLA timers and the Freshdesk import are all there. The moment you run a second or third brand from their own mailboxes and sender identities, the Team band at GBP 79 is the natural home, because it gives each brand its own mailbox while keeping everything in one queue you can filter by brand.
Growth and Agency are about brand count, not extra channels
Growth at GBP 149 lifts the ceiling to ten brands and adds organisation-wide saved replies alongside brand-scoped ones, full SLA and breaching views, and metadata-only audit history. Agency or MSP at GBP 299 takes that to twenty-five brands with per-brand access and visibility controls, so an agency can keep every client brand in one workspace without anyone seeing across the wall. None of the bands bolt on phone, live chat or social: Solves is email-first on purpose, so what you are paying more for is brand capacity and control, not a different channel.
You can move bands as you grow
Bands are a ceiling, not a contract you are stuck inside. Start on the band that fits today and move up when you add a brand or need the wider reporting and visibility controls. Because pricing is by band rather than per seat, adding a colleague to help on a busy week never changes your bill, so you can size for the work in front of you rather than guessing at headcount a year out.
How the model differs
Team bands vs per-agent pricing
Most helpdesks charge per agent, per month, so every occasional helper costs a full seat. Solves charges for a band of usage instead. Here is how the two models behave.
| Solves team bands | Typical per-agent helpdesk | |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | One GBP price for a band of usage | A fee for every agent, every month |
| Cost of an overflow helper | Included up to your band limit | Adds another full agent fee |
| Entry point | Starter at GBP 29 a month, ex VAT | Often a trial or a time-limited free window only |
| What the bill scales with | Your plan band, chosen up front | Your headcount, which can creep |
| Phone, live chat and social | Not included, email-first by design | Often sold as add-ons |
This compares the pricing model, not a named competitor. For dated, source-checked comparisons against specific products, see the Freshdesk alternative and Zendesk alternative pages. Solves does not claim feature parity with a full Suite: if you need phone, live chat or social channels, or you are a large team where per-agent pricing works out lower, a broader platform is the better fit.
FAQ
Pricing questions
How much does a help desk cost?
Help desk pricing ranges from capped low-cost plans to roughly GBP 70 to GBP 90 per agent each month for established tools on their mid tiers, billed yearly. Solves prices by team band instead of per agent: Starter at GBP 29, Team at GBP 79, Growth at GBP 149 and Agency or MSP at GBP 299 a month, all ex VAT. You pay for a band of usage, so an occasional helper does not cost a full seat.
How much should IT or customer support cost a small business?
For a small team that has outgrown a shared inbox, a sensible budget is tens of pounds a month, not hundreds. Most small teams land on our Team band at GBP 79 a month, which covers the people, the brands and the SLAs they need without per-seat creep. If you are smaller, Starter at GBP 29 is often enough; if you run several client brands, Growth or Agency keeps everyone in one workspace.
What is the entry plan?
Solves starts with Starter at GBP 29 a month, ex VAT. That keeps the product promise clean: no zero-price tier to take away later, no branded testing plan, and no surprise move from zero to paid when you are ready to rely on it. If you want to save, annual billing is priced as twelve months for ten.
What counts as a user?
A user is any person with a login who works tickets: replies, private notes, assignment and so on. Light collaborators who only add private notes still need a login, so they count as users. The number of users you can have is set by your plan band, not billed individually, so you are never paying a separate per-seat fee for a helper who picks up overflow on a busy day.
What does annual billing save?
Paying annually means you pay for ten months and get twelve. On the Team band that is the difference between GBP 79 a month on monthly billing and the equivalent of around GBP 66 a month paid yearly. All prices are ex VAT, and your invoices show the VAT line clearly so your bookkeeping stays simple.
Can I cancel any time, and what happens to my data?
Yes. Monthly plans can be cancelled at any time and you keep access until the end of the period you have paid for; annual plans run to the end of the term. Your support content stays encrypted at rest with per-organisation keys throughout, and access is limited to authorised people in your organisation. A self-service data export is on the roadmap and is not a live feature yet, so if you need your data out before it ships, contact us and we will help.
Can I switch from Freshdesk without losing my history?
Yes. The built-in Freshdesk import brings across your contacts, saved replies, open tickets and their conversations into a brand you choose, with a preview before anything is committed and encrypted credentials in transit. Private notes stay private through the move. There is no charge for the import itself; you just need a paid band, and the early-adopter pilot includes setup help and saved-reply migration.
Pick a band and bring your inbox in
Start at £29, or ask about the early-adopter pilot and get Team at GBP 49 a month for six months with setup help included.