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Embarking on the quest for the perfect customer support and ticketing solution for your WordPress business can be both exciting and overwhelming. Support Candy and ThriveDesk are two prominent WordPress plugins that offer solutions for these key business aspects.
Choosing the right tool can be challenging, given the multitude of options available. To assist you in making an informed choice, we’ve prepared a comprehensive comparison of Support Candy and ThriveDesk. Both plugins have distinct features and functionalities.
This blog post will provide an in-depth analysis of both plugins, covering features, pricing, ease of use, integration options, and more. By the end, you’ll have the insights to select the best fit for your business.
Join us as we explore the strengths and weaknesses of Support Candy and ThriveDesk, helping you make an educated decision to meet your business requirements.
Table of Contents
Support Candy vs ThriveDesk at a Glance
Let’s start by seeing how they stack up against each other at a glance
| Feature | Support Candy | ThriveDesk |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $79/year | $25/month |
| Key features | Unlimited tickets Unlimited users Unlimited agents Ticket routing Canned responses Email notifications | Unlimited tickets Extensive eCommerce integrations Email, Chat, and Discord support WP Portal Unlimited live chat Mobile app |
| Ease of use | Good | Excellent |
| WordPress rating | 4.9/5 | 4.7/5 |
| Trial period | No trial period | 14 days |
Overview of ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk can be the ideal support solution for businesses that are looking for a customer support solution. Tailored for all sizes of businesses, ThriveDesk boasts a powerful yet user-friendly live chat assistant specially designed for eCommerce entrepreneurs. It’s the go-to choice for small businesses looking to manage real-time customer interactions efficiently.
ThriveDesk caters to small businesses, providing the tools needed to manage real-time customer interactions effectively. Features like a shared inbox, quick replies, seamless file sharing through the chat widget, the convenience of emojis, customer satisfaction surveys, sales tracking reports for eCommerce,
What elevates ThriveDesk above most helpdesk software is that it provides a tailor-made customer service portal for WordPress users called WP Portal with built-in knowledge base functionality, which you can host directly on your WordPress site.
Another thing that puts it ahead is its live chat. It’s USP being that since it’s their own custom live chat, people using ThriveDesk do not have to juggle multiple interfaces to handle support tickets. All tickets are viewable under one unified dashboard, drastically reducing support time.
And, if you’re concerned about system performance, rest assured – ThriveDesk’s lightweight, optimized design ensures smooth website functionality without any hiccups. Plus, their speedy agent interface guarantees swift responses for maximum efficiency, all while keeping your website running seamlessly.
They also provide a mobile app that empowers businesses to provide support for their customers 24/7, no matter where they are. They are extremely well optimized to enable their customers in providing top-notch customer experiences.
Overview of Support Candy
Support Candy is your trusty companion when it comes to handling customer support directly within your WordPress site. It’s a bit like having a personal assistant for managing all those customer inquiries and support requests, making sure everything is neatly organized in one place. With Support Candy, you can create, assign, and effortlessly keep track of support tickets, essentially turning it into your ultimate to-do list for customer service.
One handy feature of Support Candy is its email notification system. It keeps both your support team and customers in the loop by sending timely email notifications, ensuring that everyone stays informed about the status of support tickets and any updates. No more wondering or guessing – it’s all at your fingertips.
Support Candy also lets you create custom forms, which is incredibly useful for collecting specific information from customers when they reach out for support. This way, you can gather all the necessary details without the back-and-forth, making the support process more efficient.
Support Candy also provides knowledge base functionality but in the form of a third party integration. It possesses no native knowledge base functionality. Using this integration, you can create and share articles to answer common questions, saving time for your team and customers. Plus, it offers reporting and analytics tools to help you gauge your support team’s performance and customer satisfaction.
Ticket Management
ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk’s ticket management capabilities are designed to streamline and organize your customer support operations. With multiple shared inboxes, you can efficiently handle customer inquiries across various channels. The platform supports email ticketing, allowing for a seamless flow of communication. ThriveDesk’s assistive AI enhances response times and aids in prioritizing conversations.
You can easily manage conversation activities, set statuses, and access conversation history for reference. Teammate assignments and inbox access control ensure efficient distribution of tasks among your support team. Additionally, custom auto-replies, HTML signatures, and auto-bcc features offer flexibility and personalization in your customer interactions.
With attachment support and the ability to merge conversations, you can maintain comprehensive and organized customer support records. Whether you have two or unlimited shared inboxes, ThriveDesk provides the tools to deliver top-tier customer assistance.
One unique component of ThriveDesk’s ticket management is WP Portal, which allows you to add a help center right inside your WordPress website. You can view your entire support conversation history or even create a new ticket directly from the portal. This helps them enable their customers with lightning-fast support.
Support Candy
In the realm of ticket management, Support Candy stands out as a dedicated specialist. It provides a robust and effective ticket management system that covers all the essentials. Support Candy empowers you to effortlessly create new tickets, assign them to the relevant team members, and seamlessly monitor their status. Moreover, it includes email notifications, keeping both you and your customers updated on ticket statuses and any developments. If your primary focus is on top-tier ticket management and well-organized support, Support Candy is your go-to solution.
Our pick: ThriveDesk. WP Portal feature of their ticket management is a game changer.
Workflow Automation
ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk, much like Support Candy, focuses primarily on stellar support ticket management, with no built-in email marketing. However, ThriveDesk offers native workflow automations and robust CRM integration through plugins such as Funnelkit and Fluent CRM, which provides comprehensive email marketing and marketing automation capabilities.
With Fluent CRM integration, you gain the ability to create and execute targeted email campaigns, monitor their performance, and establish automated email sequences. This integration option makes ThriveDesk an appealing choice for those seeking a blend of support ticket management and robust marketing capabilities.
Support Candy
Support Candy is tailored for effective support ticket management but does not encompass email marketing or automation functionalities. If your core business requirement revolves around efficient customer support inquiry handling and ticket management, Support Candy is well-aligned with that purpose.
Our pick: ThriveDesk. Even though it lacks native email automation it makes up for it with 3rd party integrations. Same can’t be said of Support Candy.
Live chat
ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk offers a robust live chat solution that enhances your customer support capabilities. With features like lead identification, user and visitor information, live visitor tracking, and instant replies, it provides real-time insights and prompt responses to customer inquiries. ThriveDesk’s brandable chat widget for both web and mobile allows you to maintain a consistent brand image.
You can also seamlessly transition chats into tickets, ensuring no customer query goes unaddressed. Moreover, the integration with app and knowledge base services, along with multilingual support, empowers your team to deliver efficient and personalized assistance to customers, making it a valuable asset for your business.
Support Candy
Support Candy is a ticketing system designed for WordPress, but it lacks a crucial feature: live chat support. While it excels at managing and organizing support tickets, the absence of live chat can be a significant drawback. Live chat provides real-time assistance to customers and can quickly address their queries.
Without this feature, Support Candy misses the opportunity for immediate, one-on-one customer engagement, which is essential for handling urgent issues, providing instant solutions, and ensuring customer satisfaction. If your WordPress website requires both ticketing and live chat functionality, you may need to consider additional plugins or integrations, which can complicate your support system and potentially lead to a less seamless customer experience.
Our pick: ThriveDesk. They provide a live chat and Support Candy doesn’t. Live chat is an essential feature for customer support, no matter the industry or niche.
Reporting and Analytics
ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk offers the bare minimum in terms of reporting and analytics stats to help you determine the performance of your support. You have access to data such as the number of tickets assigned to particular agents, their average resolution times and the customer ratings they received. They keep it strictly functional.
Support Candy
Support Candy offers valuable reporting and analytics tools that empower you to assess the performance of your support team and monitor customer satisfaction effectively. With features such as ticket statistics, response delay tracking, ticket closing delay analysis, communication gap identification, ratings assessment, and customizable fields, you can gain insights into the efficiency of your support operations. These data-driven metrics facilitate informed decisions for enhancing your customer service quality.
Our pick: Support Candy. More comprehensive reporting capabilities.
Pricing and Plans
ThriveDesk
| Starter | $25/month (4 seats) |
| Plus | $85/month (10 seats) |
| Enterprise | $25/seat per month (Minimum 10 seats) |
Support Candy
| Personal | $79/year (Single site license) |
| Professional | $149/year (5 sites) |
| Agency | $299/year (20 sites) |
Both Support Candy and ThriveDesk offer a variety of pricing plans to choose from. However, with ThriveDesk you get more bang for your buck. Even their most basic plans come equipped with 2 mailboxes included, 1 knowledge base, live chat assistants, internal notes with @mentions, tagging, Basic automation rules and a whole lot more.
Overall, ThriveDesk just offers better value for the money than Support Candy. It offers more features and flexibility, and it is more affordable for mid to small sized businesses.
Our pick: ThriveDesk. Greater value for money.
Ease of Use
ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk shares a commitment to user-friendliness. Its intuitive interface caters to users of all skill levels, providing a seamless experience in managing support tickets. Beyond ticket management, ThriveDesk simplifies the onboarding process cutting down required learning time for new reps. They have a clean and clutter free dashboard allowing a clear visualization of open tickets, metrics and agent activity.
As part of its user support, ThriveDesk offers comprehensive documentation and resources which is instantly searchable and shareable from their knowledge base design, making it a quick and accessible option for those new to supporting plugins. There are also features such as ticket routing and macros which make it an overall human friendly software.
Support Candy
Support Candy prides itself on its simplicity and user-friendliness, offering an intuitive interface designed for efficient ticket management. This plugin streamlines the process of creating and assigning tickets, while customizing forms is a straightforward task. With ample documentation and resources, both novices and experienced users can easily set up and configure Support Candy, ensuring a hassle-free experience.
Our pick: ThriveDesk. Better and more user-friendly design.
Integration Options
ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk is a very capable support ticket management tool but It also includes features for email marketing and marketing automation, which means it integrates with email marketing platforms and third-party services to provide a seamless experience.
Here are some of the integrations that they offer:
- WordPress: Connect WordPress data to ThriveDesk and enable the use of WPPortal on your WordPress site.
- Wix: Provide live chat, email, and knowledge base support to Wix customers.
- Google Tag Manager: Add ThriveDesk Assistant to your website using Google Tag Manager.
- Joomla!: Set up a live chat on a Joomla website.
- Deep Ecommerce Integration: Integrate ThriveDesk with WooCommerce, SureCart, Easy Digital Downloads, and Freemius.
- Slack: Connect ThriveDesk with Slack for streamlined communication and collaboration.
- CRM: Access numerous services and solutions such as FunnelKit and Fluent CRM.
Support Candy
Support Candy offers a variety of integration options, allowing you to extend its functionality and connect with other tools that your business uses. While it primarily focuses on support ticket management, you can integrate it with plugins or third-party services that complement your customer support operations.
Common integration options for Support Candy include:
- Email Piping: Create or reply to tickets from an email account.
- WooCommerce Integration: Add a support tab on the My Account page and a help button for orders.
- Knowledge Base Integrations: Integrates popular knowledge base plugins for WordPress.
- FAQ Integrations: Integrates popular FAQ plugins for WordPress.
- EDD Integration: Integrates Easy Digital Downloads with the ticket.
- Gravity Forms Integration: Create multiple ticket forms using Gravity Forms.
- Slack Integration: Get instant notifications to your Slack Channel.
- LMS Integrations: Integrates popular LMS plugins for WordPress.
Our pick: Both plugins offer valuable integration options, but the extent and type of integration will depend on your specific business needs. Consider the tools and services you currently use or plan to implement and evaluate which plugin’s integration options align better with your workflow and goals.
Customer Support and Documentation
ThriveDesk
Experience top-tier customer support with ThriveDesk. Their team is dedicated to your success, ensuring that your queries are addressed promptly. Whether you choose to reach out via chat, email, or Discord channel, you can expect swift responses within minutes, not hours. Their support representatives are not only quick to assist but also deeply knowledgeable.
Their learn page is a masterstroke as well. It contains well-made and thorough video documentation that takes you through various “How to” style videos that make using their software and understanding their features a cinch. It can be extremely helpful for users during the on-boarding process.
They understand your questions and provide clear, concise guidance, making your interactions with ThriveDesk refreshingly effective. They prioritize customer success, and their exceptional customer support is there to ensure that you get the most out of your ThriveDesk experience.
Support Candy
Support Candy takes customer support seriously. They provide various support channels, including email support and a support forum where you can ask questions and seek assistance. Response times are generally prompt, and their support team is known for being helpful in addressing user inquiries.
In addition to direct customer support, Support Candy offers detailed documentation and guides. You can find resources that cover everything from installation to advanced configurations. This extensive documentation benefits users who prefer self-help and want to troubleshoot issues independently.
Our pick: ThriveDesk. Overall, better customer support performance and comprehensive resources available for customers making it much easier to use and adapt to.
User Reviews and Testimonials
ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk has mostly positive reviews. Users particularly appreciate its robust ticket management, sleek and user-friendly UI, live chat and the availability of a mobile app which allows them to provide support on the go.
It holds a modest 5/5 WordPress rating with user reviews such as
Reading user feedback and reviews is essential for understanding how each plugin performs in real-world scenarios. These insights can help you weigh the pros and cons and determine which plugin aligns best with your specific business needs.
Support Candy
Support Candy has garnered a dedicated user base who appreciate its simplicity and effectiveness in managing support tickets. Users often praise its user-friendly interface, ease of use, and the ability to create custom forms to collect specific information from customers.
Support Candy currently holds a quite robust 4.9/5 WordPress rating, accompanied by mostly positive reviews such as
However, some users have noted that while it excels in support ticket management, it may not offer the advanced CRM features required by businesses looking for more comprehensive customer relationship management capabilities.
Our pick: ThriveDesk. On average, ThriveDesk’s customer service agents reply faster than Support Candy. Quick and efficient customer support is hard to compete with when it comes to preference.
Security and Data Privacy
ThriveDesk
ThriveDesk takes data security very seriously. With a robust set of measures in place, they ensure customer information remains protected and their interactions with the platform are secure. Two-factor authentication is employed for ThriveDesk access, and their Secure Shell Protocol is password protected. The infrastructure is continuously hardened to withstand potential threats, and all servers receive regular security updates.
They host their servers in EU regions, maintain Denial-of-service protections, and implement a comprehensive monitoring system to identify issues proactively. Their encryption practices follow state-of-the-art techniques, including strong TLS keys and Forward-Secrecy, guaranteeing the confidentiality and integrity of customer data. ThriveDesk complies with GDPR regulations to safeguard customer privacy.
Support Candy
Support Candy places a strong emphasis on data privacy and security. They collect various types of personal data, such as comments, media uploads, and customer support information. To ensure the security of this data, Support Candy employs measures that protect against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction.
Personal data is handled with care and retained for specific duration, allowing users to request modifications or deletions. It’s essential to note that Support Candy explicitly states that they do not share user data with third-party individuals or services, providing a clear assurance of the privacy and security of user information.
Our pick: ThriveDesk. Their explicit mention of implementing GDPR principles and emphasis on transparency may provide a slightly higher level of assurance for users concerned about privacy and compliance with evolving privacy regulations.
Why ThriveDesk is your best bet?
When evaluating Helpdesk solutions for WordPress, some of the leading options are often ThriveDesk and, Support Candy. However, while both plugins offer ticketing systems, ThriveDesk stands out.
What defines a true Helpdesk solution? Built-in elements like knowledge bases, team workflows, self-service portals and automation. Lets look at a comparison table to get a more clearer picture.
| Feature | ThriveDesk | Support Candy |
| Knowledge base | ✅ Built-in | ❌ Only accessible through third party integration |
| Live chat | ✅ Integrated | ❌ No live chat available |
| Assistive AI | ✅ Smart replies | ❌ No AI assistive support available |
| Self service portal | ✅ Branded customer service portal | ❌ No customer service portal feature |
| Target audience | SaaS businesses, WordPress businesses, Agencies, Consultancies. No real limitations. | WordPress dependent |
| Pricing | $25/month | $79/year |
By centralizing tickets, docs, chat, portals, and automation into a single plugin, ThriveDesk delivers a all purpose Helpdesk for not just WordPress sites but also multiple types of businesses. Support Candy only offers subsets of these capabilities and are only the most effective in a WordPress environment.
For SaaS sites and busy support teams aiming to deliver 5-star customer service, ThriveDesk checks all the boxes as an all-around high-level Helpdesk.
Which one to pick for your business?
Support Candy shines in the realm of support ticket management. Its user-friendly interface, customizable forms, and knowledge base feature make it a valuable tool for businesses that prioritize efficient customer support. It places a strong emphasis on data privacy and security, assuring users that their information is handled with care and not shared with third parties.
It however falls short on its promise as a complete helpdesk as it lacks native knowledge base features and customer portal features. It has no live chat functionality and its customer support is slow and ignorant at times.
On the other hand, ThriveDesk offers a broad range of features, including support ticket management, workflow automation and live chat. While its perfectly suited for most small to mid sized businesses it can also support larger businesses, it also places a high value on data privacy and security.
Ultimately, the decision to pick between these two software will center round the requirements of a business but if these requirements translate to strong ticketing features, well rounded and designed UI with top notch customer service to boot at affordable prices then ThriveDesk should be your go to.
