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Technology · head to head

Height vs Kayako

H

Height

Technology

A project management tool from a small independent vendor that uses AI agents to handle routine ticket maintenance.

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Kayako logo

Kayako

Live Chat

Effortless customer service

From
$30/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Height has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Height it is one product from one small venture-funded company with no second line of business underwriting it, so adopting it as your system of record is a bet on that company's funding, and the tool holds work history you would have to reconstruct elsewhere if the bet fails.; Kayako the AI agent is billed at $1 per resolved ticket, so support cost scales with ticket volume rather than being a fixed subscription
  • They diverge on capability: Height covers Autonomous triage, Kayako covers Unified inbox.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Height and Kayako actually diverge.

Attributes where Height and Kayako differ
AttributeHeightKayako
Starting priceFree$30/month
Pricing modelUnknownsubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, Ios, Android
CategoryTechnologyLive Chat
Founded20182001

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Height

  • Autonomous triage
  • Duplicate detection
  • Attribute maintenance
  • Per-task chat
  • Multiple views
  • Developer integrations
  • Custom fields and filters
  • Public API

Only in Kayako

  • Unified inbox
  • Live chat
  • Help center
  • Customer journey
  • Automation
  • Reporting
  • Slack
  • Salesforce

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Height

  • A product or engineering team with no dedicated project manager, where backlog upkeep currently falls on whoever has timenot Kayako
  • Teams leaving Jira because its configuration and administration cost more attention than the tracking is worthnot Kayako
  • A support or intake queue where incoming requests need categorising and deduplicating before anyone can plan themnot Kayako
  • Startups that want tasks, chat and progress tracking in one tool rather than stitching a tracker to a chat appnot Kayako

Kayako

  • Help desk ticketing with a unified inbox and knowledge basenot Height
  • Resolving support tickets automatically with an AI agentnot Height

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Height

  • It is one product from one small venture-funded company with no second line of business underwriting it, so adopting it as your system of record is a bet on that company's funding, and the tool holds work history you would have to reconstruct elsewhere if the bet fails.
  • The 2024 relaunch as Height 2.0 reoriented the product around AI agents and changed workflows customers had already built on, which is the clearest available evidence of how much the product may be re-shaped again under you.
  • The ecosystem is small next to Jira, Linear and Asana: fewer third-party integrations, no consultancy market, and far less written material to search when something behaves unexpectedly, so support questions go to the vendor and wait.
  • The automation only pays off if tasks contain enough substance for a model to work with; on a team whose tickets are two-word titles, the agents have nothing to triage or deduplicate and the product reduces to an ordinary tracker at a premium.
  • Task content is processed by hosted large language models, so a security review becomes a question about subprocessors and data handling, and there is no self-hosted or on-premises deployment to fall back on if the answer is unacceptable.
  • There is no widely used two-way synchronisation with Jira, so an organisation where one team adopts Height and the rest stay on Jira ends up with two systems of record and manual reconciliation between them.

Kayako

  • The AI agent is billed at $1 per resolved ticket, so support cost scales with ticket volume rather than being a fixed subscription
  • A resolution counts when the AI solves the issue without human involvement, so the definition of a billable event is set by the vendor's own system
  • No per agent monthly price is published for the full Kayako One platform
  • Full platform pricing requires talking to an expert

Pricing, plan by plan

Height

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Height review.

Kayako

$30/month
  • Inbox$30/month
    • Email & live chat
    • Help center
    • Basic automation
  • Growth$60/month
    • Everything in Inbox
    • Customer journey
    • SLA management
  • Scale$100/month
    • Everything in Growth
    • Advanced reporting
    • Custom roles

Which should you pick?

Choose Height if

  • You need autonomous triage.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want duplicate detection.
Height review

Choose Kayako if

  • You need unified inbox.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want live chat.
Kayako review

Questions people ask

Is Height or Kayako better?
Neither clearly leads. Height starts at Free and Kayako at $30/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Height or Kayako?
Height has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Height and $30/month for Kayako.
Does Height or Kayako run on more platforms?
Height runs on Web. Kayako runs on Web, Ios, Android.
Can I use Height for free?
Yes. Height has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Kayako starts at $30/month.
What is Height best used for?
Height is most often used for a product or engineering team with no dedicated project manager, where backlog upkeep currently falls on whoever has time, teams leaving jira because its configuration and administration cost more attention than the tracking is worth, a support or intake queue where incoming requests need categorising and deduplicating before anyone can plan them, startups that want tasks, chat and progress tracking in one tool rather than stitching a tracker to a chat app. Of those, a product or engineering team with no dedicated project manager, where backlog upkeep currently falls on whoever has time and teams leaving jira because its configuration and administration cost more attention than the tracking is worth are not what Kayako is typically brought in for.
What can Height do that Kayako cannot?
Height covers Autonomous triage, Duplicate detection, Attribute maintenance, Per-task chat. Kayako covers Unified inbox, Live chat, Help center, Customer journey.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Height: How is this different from Jira automation?

Jira automation is rule-based: you define a trigger and an action. Height's agents read the content of tasks and act on judgement, such as recognising that two tickets describe the same bug, which no rule can express.

Kayako: How much does Kayako charge?

Kayako uses results-based pricing where customers pay $1 per resolved ticket when Kay AI Agent solves the issue without human intervention. There are no seat fees or setup fees. Kayako One helpdesk platform pricing requires contacting sales.

Source
Height: Can we self-host it?

No. It is software as a service only, with no on-premises or private-cloud deployment. If your requirements rule out a hosted tracker, this is not a candidate.

Kayako: What counts as a resolved ticket for Kayako pricing?

A resolution occurs when Kay solves the customer's issue without human agent involvement, whether by taking action or providing an answer the customer confirms solves their problem. Escalations to humans and simple deflections do not count.

Source
Height: What happens to our data if the company fails?

You would need an export and a migration to another tool. This is the standard risk with a single-product startup, and it is worth confirming the export path covers task history, comments and custom fields before committing to it.

Kayako: What is Kayako's AI resolution rate?

Kayako reports a 68 percent AI resolution rate for Kay AI Agent. The platform claims a cost advantage of $1 per resolution versus $4.60 for competitors, with reported CSAT improvement of 14 points.

Source
Height: Does it work for non-engineering teams?

Yes, the views and custom fields are generic enough for marketing, operations or support queues. Its integrations, though, are aimed at software teams, so a non-engineering team gets less of the surrounding value.

Height: Do the AI features need our tickets to be well written?

In practice, yes. Triage, deduplication and attribute maintenance work from what is written in the task, so the return is much higher on a team that already writes descriptive tickets than on one that does not.

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