For most under-ten-agent UK IT teams, Freshservice wins on price when only basic ticketing is needed. Starter costs $19 per agent a month billed annually against HaloITSM's £69 per agent a month billed annually for a team this size. But once change, problem and asset management are needed, the gap narrows or reverses. Freshservice Pro at $99 per agent converts to roughly £7,174 a year for eight agents, against HaloITSM's £6,624, before HaloITSM's mandatory onboarding fee is added.
Key pointers
- Freshservice Starter is $19 per agent a month, billed annually, but has no asset management, service catalogue or change, problem and release processes, so it only suits pure ticket logging.
- Freshservice Growth at $49 per agent a month, billed annually, adds a service catalogue and asset management, capped at 100 tracked assets on the plan.
- Freshservice Pro at $99 per agent a month, billed annually, is the tier that matches HaloITSM's scope, unlocking change, problem and release management.
- HaloITSM's UK calculator returns £69 per agent a month billed annually for 5, 8 or 10 agents, with every module, including full ITIL processes, already included.
- HaloITSM adds a mandatory onboarding package at a bespoke cost that is not published, so get that number in writing before comparing totals.
- For an eight-agent team with matching scope, Freshservice Pro converts to about £7,174 a year against HaloITSM's £6,624, before onboarding.
- If basic ticketing is genuinely all you need today, Freshservice Starter or Growth will beat HaloITSM by thousands a year.
- Ask both suppliers for a fixed, VAT-inclusive, sterling quote. The figures below are converted or published list prices, not invoices.
What "Per Agent" Actually Means Here
Both platforms charge for "agents", the IT staff who work tickets, run workflows or manage assets, not for every employee who might email the help desk. Freshservice's own pricing page treats agents and occasional agents as the billable unit, with unrestricted requesters implied by that distinction. HaloITSM is explicit on its pricing page that end users and portal customers "are always free", so a UK small business replacing an informal inbox will pay only for the handful of people actually answering tickets.
That single fact makes the comparison simpler than it looks. A team of eight agents supporting fifty staff pays the same either way as a team of eight agents supporting five hundred staff, because headcount on the requester side does not move the bill. The number that decides cost is agent count and the feature tier or all-inclusive rate you pick, not company size.
Freshservice Tiers and What Each One Unlocks
Freshservice's live pricing page lists three published per-agent tiers and a quoted Enterprise tier. All figures are billed annually; monthly billing is available at a higher per-agent rate that Freshworks does not publish on the same page.
| Tier | Price per agent/month (USD) | Converted estimate (GBP) | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $19 | ≈£14 | Incident management, knowledge base, support portal, workflow automation. No asset management, no service catalogue, no change, problem or release management. |
| Growth | $49 | ≈£37 | Adds the service catalogue, a CMDB and asset discovery within a 100-Asset-Unit capacity allowance, approval workflows and MSP mode. |
| Pro | $99 | ≈£75 | Adds problem management, change management, release management and project management, the processes a formal ITIL practice needs. |
| Enterprise | Custom quote | Not published | Adds Freddy AI Agent, a sandbox for testing changes, and audit logs, on top of everything in Pro. |
The converted GBP column is a labelled estimate, calculated by multiplying the published USD price by the European Central Bank reference rate of 0.75489 GBP per USD on 29 September 2026, sourced via Frankfurter. It is not a price Freshworks quotes.
The tier boundary that matters for a small IT team replacing an informal inbox is between Growth and Pro. Growth adds enough structure for most day-to-day requests: a self-service catalogue and basic asset tracking. Freshworks measures that tracking in "Asset Units", a weighted count where a desktop or laptop costs 1 unit and a server or network device costs 4, with 100 units bundled into Growth and Pro before extra capacity has to be bought. Contract and purchase-order tracking, software asset management and SaaS discovery are reserved for Pro. Pro is only necessary if the team is formally running change, problem or release management, the disciplines that mark a mature ITIL practice rather than a ticket queue.
HaloITSM Pricing and What's Included
HaloITSM, made by the UK company Halo Service Solutions, takes a different approach to features but not to scale-based pricing. Its UK calculator recalculates as you set the agent count: entering 5 or 8 agents both return £69 per agent, per month, billed annually; entering 25 agents drops that to £65. The vendor's own description of the feature model is direct: "Halo is priced per agent, with every feature, module and integration included in that one price... There are no feature tiers and no separate editions for IT, service, sales or projects."
That means the £69 rate this size of team sees already includes the CMDB, service catalogue, and change, problem and release management that Freshservice reserves for Growth and Pro. Named licences (one seat per agent) and Concurrent licences (a shared pool counted by simultaneous logins, suited to shift patterns) are both available at the same per-agent rate.
The catch for a small business is the onboarding fee. HaloITSM's pricing page states plainly that "onboarding packages are required with purchase at a bespoke cost depending on scope," with no published figure. Freshservice, by contrast, has no equivalent mandatory onboarding charge for a self-serve signup on Starter, Growth or Pro.
Nine Agents or Fewer, the Worked Numbers
Applying the published unit prices to an illustrative eight-agent team, comparing like for like, shows where the value actually sits.
| Option | Monthly | Annual (native currency) | Annual converted to GBP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freshservice Starter (basic tickets only) | $152 | $1,824 | ≈£1,377 |
| Freshservice Growth (+ catalogue, asset tracking) | $392 | $4,704 | ≈£3,551 |
| Freshservice Pro (+ full ITIL processes) | $792 | $9,504 | ≈£7,174 |
| HaloITSM (all modules, before onboarding) | £552 | £6,624 | £6,624 |
The arithmetic: eight agents multiplied by each plan's published per-agent price, multiplied by twelve months, then the USD totals converted at the 29 September 2026 ECB reference rate of 0.75489 GBP per USD. HaloITSM's figures came from entering 8 directly into its calculator, which returned £69 per agent, £552 a month and £6,624 a year, already in sterling.
Two conclusions follow. First, if the team genuinely just needs a structured place to log and track requests, Freshservice Starter at roughly £1,377 a year is far cheaper than anything HaloITSM can offer, because HaloITSM has no stripped-down entry tier. Second, once the team needs full ITIL processes, the comparison narrows: HaloITSM's £6,624 a year still undercuts Freshservice Pro's converted £7,174, by about £550, before HaloITSM's mandatory onboarding fee is added on top. Whether HaloITSM stays cheaper after onboarding depends entirely on that unpublished figure, which is the single most important number to get in writing from either supplier before deciding.
Vendor and Option Comparison
| Criterion | Freshservice | HaloITSM |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Four tiers, feature-gated, $19 to $99 per agent a month, billed annually, plus a quoted Enterprise tier | One rate per agent that scales down with headcount, £69 per agent a month billed annually at 5, 8 or 10 agents, every module included |
| Entry cost for basic ticketing | $19/agent/month billed annually (Starter) | No stripped-down tier; £69/agent/month billed annually at this team size, regardless of features used |
| Full ITIL threshold | Requires Pro, $99/agent/month billed annually | Included from the base rate |
| Asset management | From Growth, capped at 100 asset units | Included, no published cap |
| AI features | Freddy AI Copilot is a $29/agent/month add-on (billed annually) on Pro or Enterprise | Included in the per-agent rate, per the vendor |
| Free trial | 14 days, unrestricted access | 30 days, all modules unlocked |
| Mandatory onboarding fee | None published for self-serve signup | Yes, bespoke, unpublished |
| Currency billed | US dollars (headline price) | Pounds sterling (UK calculator) |
| End users who only raise tickets | Not billed as agents | "Always free" |
Neither option is a universal winner. Freshservice suits a team that wants to start small and pay only for what it uses today, accepting that moving up a tier later is a step change in price. HaloITSM suits a team that already knows it wants full ITIL discipline, asset tracking and AI features from day one and would rather budget one predictable per-agent number than track which module sits behind which tier.
A few questions are worth putting to both suppliers before signing. Ask Freshservice for the exact monthly-billing per-agent rate, since it is not published on the same page as the annual figures. Ask HaloITSM for a fixed onboarding quote in writing, scoped to an eight-agent implementation, before comparing its total cost with Freshservice Pro. Ask both for a sterling, VAT-inclusive invoice example rather than working from converted or headline prices.
If the team outgrows this tier, the shortlist changes. A separate look at ServiceNow, Freshservice and Jira Service Management for UK mid-market IT teams running 250 to 500 users covers that larger scale, where Freshservice competes against enterprise-oriented platforms rather than an all-inclusive rival like HaloITSM.
Sources
- Freshservice Pricing & Plans - Freshworks
- Freshservice IT Asset Management Plans and AU Pricing - Freshworks
- HaloITSM Pricing - Halo Service Solutions
- Frankfurter exchange rates (European Central Bank reference rates) - retrieved 29 September 2026
- ServiceNow vs Freshservice vs Jira Service Management for UK Mid-Market IT Teams with 250-500 Users - Compare the Cloud
