How we review and rank

Draft for the publisher's review. Not yet in force.

Every Siftola shortlist starts from a buyer need, such as a three-person team sharing one support inbox. We run the same tasks in every product we can test, record each result with its date and plan, and rank only the products that pass all of the need’s must-haves. A product we couldn’t test is marked “researched” and can’t be a pick. No vendor can pay to be included or to move up, and a person reviews every ranking before it’s published.

Where the help desk shortlist stands

We read the pricing pages of nine help desk tools on October 20, 2026 and started hands-on trials the same day. None is complete, so no help desk product is ranked yet. The tools table shows what each vendor’s pages say, and the buyer needs table lists what a tool must do for each need.

Which products we include

A product is listed when it is sold to US customers with public prices in US dollars. A team must be able to start a plan or a free trial without a sales call, and the product’s core job must match the shortlist. Products buyers often ask about but that fail these rules may appear as “researched”, never as picks.

How we test

We use the plan a product’s free trial gives, or its free plan, and say which one. Each task has a written pass condition. A result is pass, partial (works with a limit we describe), fail (tested and missing or broken) or unknown (not tested, or we couldn’t confirm it). Unknown never counts as a pass. Each result links to its entry in the test log, with a dated screenshot.

We never use a paid plan, a sales demo or access the public can’t get. If that ever changes, the page that relies on it says so next to the recommendation.

How the order is decided

For each buyer need:

1. Only products that pass every must-have qualify.
2. Among those, more nice-to-haves passed ranks higher.
3. Then the lower monthly cost for the need’s team size, on the cheapest plan that qualifies, billed monthly where the vendor offers it.
4. Then the shorter setup time in our test.

These steps apply to every product in the same way, and no position is reserved for anyone.

Prices

Prices are read on the vendor’s pricing page in a browser set to US English and a US time zone, on the date shown. We give the lowest advertised monthly price for each pricing unit, such as an agent or a block of tickets, and say whether it is billed monthly or yearly. A price the vendor’s page doesn’t show is marked “Not shown”.

Updates and corrections

We re-read prices every month and before republishing, and re-run tests when a product changes in a way that affects a result. Each change is logged on the page with its date. To report a mistake, write to the address on our contact page; our corrections policy says what happens next.