Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

General

What is Helpium? Helpium is a customer support platform with AI-powered self-service and live chat. It combines a knowledge base, AI chatbot, and multi-channel inbox to help you support customers efficiently.

How is Helpium different from Help Scout or Intercom? The biggest difference is pricing: Helpium offers unlimited seats on all plans. You pay a single monthly fee regardless of team size. Most competitors charge per agent, which gets expensive as your team grows.

Is there a free trial? Yes! New workspaces start with a free trial of the Pro plan. You get full access to all Pro features during the trial period.

Do I need a credit card to start? No. You can create a workspace and start using Helpium without entering payment information during the trial.

Pricing

How much does Helpium cost?

• Basic: $14.99/month (or $12/month billed annually)
• Pro: $49.99/month (or $42/month billed annually)
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Are there per-seat charges? No. All plans include unlimited seats. Invite your entire team at no extra cost.

What happens if I exceed my AI message limit? On the Basic plan, additional AI messages cost $1.99 per 1,000. On Pro, it's $0.99 per 1,000. Enterprise has unlimited AI messages.

Can I change plans at any time? Yes. Upgrade or downgrade at any time from Settings → Billing. Changes are prorated.

Setup & Installation

How do I install the chat widget? Add a small JavaScript snippet to your website. Go to Settings → Channels → Widget to copy the embed code. See the Widget JavaScript SDK Reference article for detailed instructions.

Does the widget work with React/Vue/Angular? Yes. The widget is framework-agnostic and works with any website or SPA. It uses Shadow DOM for style isolation.

Can I customize the widget appearance? Yes. You can customize colors, position, greeting messages, and more from Settings → Channels → Widget or programmatically via Helpium.init() options.

AI & Knowledge Base

How does the AI chatbot work? The chatbot uses your knowledge base articles to answer customer questions. It performs semantic search to find relevant content and generates natural-language responses. It can also call your APIs via AI Actions.

What AI model does Helpium use? Helpium uses OpenAI's GPT-4o-mini for chatbot responses and text-embedding-3-small for semantic search embeddings.

How do I improve AI accuracy? Write comprehensive, well-structured articles. Use clear headings, specific terminology, and cover topics thoroughly. The more detailed your knowledge base, the better the AI performs.

Can the AI take actions (not just answer questions)? Yes! With AI Actions (available on Pro and Enterprise plans), the chatbot can call your external APIs to look up orders, check account status, manage subscriptions, and more.

Channels

What communication channels does Helpium support? Live Chat (widget), Email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, and Facebook Messenger.

How do I set up email support? Go to Settings → Channels → Email and follow the setup wizard. You'll configure email forwarding from your support address to Helpium.

Data & Security

Where is my data stored? Your data is stored in encrypted databases. Each workspace is completely isolated from others.

Can I export my data? Yes. Go to Settings → Data Export to export conversations, articles, and customer data.

Is Helpium GDPR compliant? Yes. You can delete customer data on request, and we don't share data with third parties beyond what's needed for core functionality (e.g., AI processing via OpenAI).