Quick summary
Plain vs Pylon, the short answer: pick Plain if you are a small technical team that wants Slack, email and Linear on a $45 entry plan. Pick Pylon if you run many shared Slack channels, need more channel types, or want account intelligence, and can sign an annual contract from $89 per seat.
What they cost: Plain lists $45 per user (up to 5 users) and $99 per user (3 to 10 users). Pylon lists $89 and $139 per seat, with a seat minimum. All are billed annually, and AI runs on credits on both.
What is the same: both create and link Linear issues from a support conversation and flag the ticket when the issue closes, so the customer hears about the fix.
Plain vs Pylon at a Glance
| Plain | Pylon | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Small technical teams on Slack, email and Linear | B2B teams running many shared Slack channels |
| Entry price, billed annually | Foundation $45 per user, up to 5 users | Professional $89 per seat, seat minimum |
| Next plan | Horizon $99 per user, 3 to 10 users | Advanced $139 per seat |
| Free trial | 7 days, no card | Not listed on the pricing page |
| Customer channels on the entry plan | Slack, email, in-app | Slack Connect, email, chat widget, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS |
| Microsoft Teams | Horizon | Advanced |
| AI | Credits: 1,000 a month on Foundation, extra packs $10 per 1,000 | Credits, 5,000 minimum commitment |
| Linear | Create and link issues, Close the Loop queue | Create and link issues, Linear comments as internal notes |
| HubSpot | Horizon: contacts and companies into Plain | Field sync both ways, contacts and AI summaries into HubSpot |
Three questions decide it faster than any feature list:
Answer these first
- How many people will answer customers in the next year? Plain's published plans stop at 10 users. Past that you are on a custom plan.
- Where do customers talk to you? If it is Slack and email, both work. If it is also WhatsApp, Telegram or SMS, only Pylon lists them on every plan.
- Where does your customer record live? If sales and success already work in HubSpot, a separate support tool means two records. Read the last section before you choose.
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Plain vs Pylon: The Core Difference
Plain and Pylon are both help desks built for B2B software companies, and both treat Slack as a real support channel rather than an afterthought. The difference is who they are shaped for.
Plain is the leaner tool. Its entry plan bundles Slack, email, in-app support, a help center, AI agents and the Linear and Jira integrations for up to 5 users, and its API is a big part of the pitch: teams build their own workflows on top of it.
Pylon is the broader platform. Every plan covers Slack Connect plus email, a chat widget, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS and Slack communities, and it sells account-level features on top, such as Account Intelligence, a customer portal on Advanced, and custom reporting. It is aimed at teams that support dozens or hundreds of customer channels.
So the Pylon vs Plain choice usually comes down to team size and channel count, not to which tool is "better".
Plain Pricing vs Pylon Pricing
Plain pricing is published in full. Foundation is $45 per user per month billed annually for up to 5 users, with 1,000 AI credits a month. Horizon is $99 per user for 3 to 10 users, with 2,500 credits, and adds Microsoft Teams, SLAs and business hours, escalation paths and CRM integrations. Frontier is custom and adds SSO, SCIM, HIPAA and a dedicated success manager. Viewer seats are unlimited, and there is a 7-day free trial with no credit card.
Pylon pricing is published too now. Professional is $89 per seat and Advanced is $139 per seat on annual contracts, and Enterprise is by quote. Pylon's FAQ says monthly billing is also offered. New customers have a minimum seat count, which the page does not state. Professional includes viewer seats, automations, analytics, the API and integrations. Advanced adds role-based access, the customer portal, custom reporting and a data warehouse sync.
Here is what the seats cost for a year, before AI credits:
| Team | Plain | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| 5 support users | Foundation: $2,700 | Professional: $5,340 |
| 5 users who need Teams or CRM sync | Horizon: $5,940 | Advanced: $8,340 |
| 10 support users | Horizon: $11,880 | Professional: $10,680 |
| More than 10 users | Frontier, custom quote | Same per seat price |
The 10-seat row is the one teams miss. Plain is cheaper at 5 seats, but once you outgrow Foundation, Plain Horizon costs more per seat than Pylon Professional. Pylon's seat minimum can cut the other way for a team of one or two.
Then budget for the extras. Pylon's Account Intelligence is $10 per customer account per month with a 50-account minimum, so at least $500 a month. Phone support is $35 per seat per month, and SAML SSO on Advanced is $125 a month.
Channels: Slack, Teams, Email and the Rest
Both tools turn a message in a shared Slack channel into a ticket an agent can work, reply to from the help desk, and track.
Plain
Slack, email and in-app support on Foundation. Microsoft Teams starts on Horizon. Plain also lists Discord and live chat.
Pylon
Email, chat widget, SMS, Slack Connect, WhatsApp, Discord, Telegram and Slack communities on every plan. Microsoft Teams and Google Chat start on Advanced. Phone is an add-on.
If your customers are all in Slack and email, this section is a tie. If some of them use WhatsApp or Telegram, Pylon is the only one of the two that lists them.
AI Agents and Credits
Both now sell a customer-facing AI agent and an internal assistant, and both price AI on credits rather than per seat.
Plain's numbers are on its pricing page. The Customer Agent uses 100 credits per resolution, and extra credits cost $10 per 1,000. That works out to about $1 per AI resolution, and Foundation's 1,000 monthly credits cover about 10 of them before you buy more.
Pylon lists its AI agents as "credits required" on every plan, with a minimum commitment of 5,000 credits, but does not publish a price per credit or per resolution. Ask for one before you sign, and model it against your ticket volume.
Pylon vs Plain for Linear Teams
For teams that build in Linear, the engineering handoff matters as much as the inbox. Both tools do the core job: create a Linear issue from a support conversation, or link one that already exists, then tell support when it is done. Linear's docs list both as third-party sources of customer requests.
Plain
Open a thread, use the Thread links panel (or press i) to create or link a Linear issue. When the issue is completed or canceled, the thread moves to Plain's Close the Loop queue, so someone replies to the customer. Plain also exposes thread links in its API.
Pylon
Create an issue from the ticket sidebar or from the triage channel, with an AI-drafted title, or search for and link an existing one. The Pylon issue goes On Hold while engineering works, Linear comments show up as internal notes, and the issue moves back to Waiting on You when the Linear issue closes. Pylon can also create the customer request in Linear for you.
One setup detail each: Plain's docs say its Linear app should have access to all teams, or issues in other teams send no updates. Pylon's help center says Linear teams must be public for linking to work.
Plain, Pylon and HubSpot
This is where many B2B teams get stuck, because the CRM often lives in HubSpot.
Plain's HubSpot integration is on Horizon and Frontier. It brings HubSpot contacts into Plain as customers and companies as tenants, along with the company fields you pick. It is one way: Plain does not update existing customers from later edits, and deleted or merged HubSpot companies leave stale tenants to clean up.
Pylon's HubSpot integration goes further. Pylon says it syncs fields in either direction, adds new people from customer channels to HubSpot as contacts, posts daily AI summaries of customer conversations to the matching account, and can open a Slack channel from a deal or company. Its integration page does not say which plan includes it.
Neither one puts tickets on your HubSpot records. With either tool, support lives in its own system, and sales and success see a summary in HubSpot.
Which One Should You Choose?
The lowest entry price of the two, Linear and a help center on the first plan, and published AI pricing.
The widest channel list on every plan, plus account intelligence and a customer portal on Advanced.
Plain's published plans stop at 10, and Pylon Professional is cheaper per seat than Plain Horizon.
Keep tickets on the same contact and company records, and add a Linear app for the engineering handoff.
Plain Alternatives and Pylon Alternatives
If neither fits, the usual shortlist is the same for both. Intercom suits AI-first chat support, Zendesk suits large multi-team support, and Front suits email-heavy account teams. Our guide to the best customer support software for B2B compares seven tools on price and the Linear handoff, and our Pylon alternatives guide goes deeper on that side.
The Most Expensive Mistake: Splitting the Customer Record
Teams compare Slack features and seat prices, sign, then find that sales still works in HubSpot and support now works somewhere else. The account owner can't see that a customer has three open bugs before a renewal call, and support can't see the deal. A field sync helps, but it is a summary, not the ticket.
So before you pick between Plain and Pylon, ask whether you need a new support tool at all.
The Third Option: Keep Support in HubSpot
If your company already runs on HubSpot, HubSpot Service Hub puts tickets on the same contact and company records your sales and success teams use. The free plan covers up to 2 users, Starter seats start at $20 per month, and the full help desk is Professional at $90 per seat billed annually plus a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee. See our HubSpot Service Hub review for the trade-offs.
The gap is Linear, which has no native HubSpot integration. IssueLinker fills it. Every ticket gets an IssueLinker card. From it, support creates a Linear issue in one click, optionally drafted by AI from the ticket conversation with screenshots attached, or links an existing issue. Comments sync both ways, and the Linear status is written to the ticket, so the agent knows when the fix ships. It works on any HubSpot plan, including free, with unlimited users.
See the HubSpot Linear integration, or compare every option in our Linear HubSpot integration guide.
Already on HubSpot and building in Linear?
IssueLinker creates and links Linear issues from HubSpot tickets and syncs comments and status back. $39 per month flat, unlimited users, 14-day free trial.
Who IssueLinker Is Not For
If you choose Plain or Pylon, use their own Linear integration; you don't need IssueLinker. The same goes if HubSpot isn't your CRM, or if most of your support has to happen inside shared Slack channels, which Service Hub is not built for. Our Plain vs IssueLinker comparison covers that choice in detail.
