Honest comparison

Stop paying per agent.
Start paying per company.

Freshdesk, Zendesk, Jira Service Management and Spiceworks all have significant limitations. Most charge per agent — and costs spiral fast as your team grows. As your team grows, so does your bill. OperonITSM charges one flat annual fee — no matter how many agents you have.

Prices accurate as of May 2026. Always verify current pricing on vendor websites.

10

Commonly searched as: Freshdesk alternative · Jira Service Management alternative · Zendesk alternative · ServiceNow alternative for SMEs · ManageEngine alternative

Freshdesk

Growth Plan

£5,280
per year (£44/agent/month)
£4,280 more than OperonITSM
OperonITSM

All Modules Included

£1,000
per year — unlimited agents
You save the most here
Jira Service Management

Standard Plan

£8,700
per year (£17.65/agent/month)
£7,700 more than OperonITSM
Zendesk

Suite Team

£6,600
per year (£55/agent/month)
£5,600 more than OperonITSM

What 10, 25 and 50 agents actually costs

Per-agent pricing sounds reasonable until your team grows. Here's what you're actually signing up for.

Freshdesk Growth

£44/agent/month

10 agents£5,280 / yr
25 agents£13,200 / yr
50 agents£26,400 / yr
100 agents£52,800 / yr

Prices exclude additional modules. Problem Management, Change Management and Project Management require the Enterprise plan at £79/agent/month.

OperonITSM

£1,000 flat — all modules

10 agents£1,000 / yr
25 agents£1,000 / yr
50 agents£1,000 / yr
100 agents£1,000 / yr

All six modules included: Help Desk, Project Management, Change Management, Problem Management, Systems Inventory and Service Catalogue. No per-agent fees. No add-ons. One price.

Jira Service Management Standard

£17.65 / agent / month

10 agents£2,118 / yr
25 agents£5,295 / yr
50 agents£10,590 / yr
100 agents£21,180 / yr

Project Management (Jira Software) and Change Management are separate products at additional cost. Prices require Atlassian Cloud subscription.

£52,800
What 100 agents costs on Freshdesk Growth per year. OperonITSM costs £1,000.
All-in-One
Six modules included: Help Desk, Projects, Changes, Problems, Systems & Service Catalogue. No add-ons.
0
Data sent to third-party servers. Self-hosted means your data stays on your infrastructure.

What you actually get

OperonITSM was built for operations teams who need more than a ticketing system but can't justify enterprise pricing.

Feature OperonITSM Freshdesk Growth Jira SM Standard Zendesk Suite Spiceworks
Pricing
Pricing model Flat annual fee Per agent / month Per agent / month Per agent/month
£55/agent
Free, ad-supported
Cost for 10 agents / year £1,000 £5,280 £2,118 £6,600Free
Cost for 25 agents / year £1,000 £13,200 £5,295 £16,500Free
Cost for 50 agents / year £1,000 £26,400 £10,590 £33,000Free
Unlimited agents
Self-hosted option
No vendor lock-in
Help Desk
Ticket management
SLA policies with business hours PartialPremium plan only Basic only
Email-to-ticket intake
CSAT surveys
Canned responses Partial
Auto-assignment rules Basic only
Problem Management Enterprise only£79/agent/month Premium only Add-on only
Service catalogue
Three-tab queue (My/Team/All) Views only Views only
Bulk ticket actions
File attachments
Change Management
Change request workflows Enterprise only£79/agent/month Add-on
CAB multi-approver workflows Premium only
Change calendar
Risk and impact documentation Enterprise only
Rollback planning Manual only
Project Management
Project tracking Separate product Jira SoftwareSeparate licence
Gantt charts Premium add-on
RAG status reporting
Project approval workflows Jira Software
Linked to change requests Complex setup
Infrastructure & Control
Self-hosted deployment
Your server, your data
AD / LDAP authentication Enterprise only Add-on
Microsoft Teams integration
Full audit log Basic
No internet dependency Cloud only
GDPR — data stays on your premises Cloud only Cloud only Cloud onlyCloud only

Ready to stop paying per agent?

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