Search for an IT help desk service and the results answer in a dozen different names for what is broadly one purchase: somebody else answers the phone when a laptop will not log in. The names are not interchangeable in every respect, and the differences that matter are not the ones the words suggest. What decides the price and the experience is who staffs the desk, what it is allowed to touch, and whether you are buying it on its own or as one line of a managed contract.
IT helpdesk services by any name: which differences are real
Help desk, helpdesk, service desk and IT support desk are used interchangeably by most providers, and the record bears that out: of the 29 providers read for this site, the ones that describe a desk at all use whichever word their marketing settled on years ago. Two distinctions are real. A service desk, where anybody means anything by it, owns requests and changes as well as faults, so a password reset and a new starter both go through it. And an MSP help desk is a desk inside a managed contract, which means it is staffed against a monthly fee for a whole estate rather than billed against your tickets.
Help desk service providers: who actually sells a desk, and how they are shaped
Help desk companies fall into three shapes and the proposals read very differently. A managed service provider sells the desk as part of a per-user contract and will usually not sell it alone. A dedicated help desk provider sells the desk on its own, often per user or per ticket, and expects somebody else to own your servers and your network. And an outsourcing firm sells staffed hours, which is a labour contract wearing a service name. Ask which of the three you are reading before comparing any price: a per-user figure from the first and a per-hour figure from the third are not the same product.
What the desk is not allowed to do
Every desk has a boundary and almost none of them publishes it. The common exclusions are anything classed as a project, anything on an application the provider does not support, hardware, and moves and changes. This matters more on a standalone desk than inside a managed contract, because a standalone provider has no remit over the estate that generates the tickets: it can close a ticket correctly and be unable to fix the cause. Ask what happens to a ticket the desk cannot resolve, and who owns the fix once it is escalated out.
Reading help desk providers' prices so you can compare them
Desk pricing comes in three units and they are not convertible without knowing your ticket volume: per user per month, per ticket, and per staffed hour. Of the 29 providers read for this site, six publish a per-user figure and one publishes a band by business size; nobody publishes a per-ticket rate on their own pages. So the comparable number has to be asked for, and the question that gets it is how many tickets a month the quote assumes, because a per-user price is a bet on that number.
Questions people ask about it help desk services
Is there a difference between a help desk and an IT service desk?
Mostly not, in how providers use the words. Where a difference is intended, the service desk also owns requests and changes, not only faults.
Can I buy a help desk without buying managed IT?
Yes, from a dedicated desk provider or an outsourcing firm. An MSP will usually not sell one alone, because the desk's cost depends on the estate it is answering for.
What does an IT service helpdesk cost?
It is quoted per user, per ticket or per staffed hour. Six of the 29 providers on this site publish a per-user figure; none publishes a per-ticket rate, so that one has to be asked for.
What is an MSP help desk?
The desk as one line of a managed contract, staffed against a monthly per-user fee for the whole estate rather than billed against your ticket count.