Nobody picks a helpdesk thinking about leaving it. You pick it for the inbox, the AI, the price. Then three years later the price changes, or the product goes a direction you don't want, and you find out what "your data" really means.
The time to find out is during the trial, while it costs you nothing. It takes about half an hour.
What lock-in actually is in a helpdesk
There are four layers, and they move with very different amounts of effort.
- History. Conversations, every message in order, internal notes, the customer each one belongs to, and the original dates. This is what people mean by "my data", and it is the layer most worth protecting.
- Knowledge. Your help-center articles. Usually the easiest to move, because they are just text.
- Configuration. Macros, saved replies, automations, routing rules, SLA targets, custom fields. These almost never move cleanly between products, because each product models them differently. Plan to rebuild them.
- Terms. Annual billing, notice periods, auto-renewal, and what happens to your data after you leave. This is the layer that turns "we should switch" into "we can switch next year".
The parts that usually don't come with you
When people describe a painful migration, the same things come up again and again. An export that technically exists but misses one of these is not the same as being able to leave:
- Attachments. Screenshots and files customers sent. Often left out, or exported as links that stop working once the account closes.
- Internal notes. Sometimes mixed in with public replies, sometimes dropped.
- Original timestamps. An import that stamps every message with the day you migrated wipes out your history's meaning.
- Who said what. Agent names and customer identities, not just message bodies.
- Automations and macros. Rarely exportable in any form another tool can read.
- Reports. Your past metrics are usually calculated live and vanish with the account. Export the numbers you care about as you go.
The 30-minute export test
Run this on any helpdesk you are considering, including the one you use today.
- Find the export in the docs. Note which plan it needs and which role can run it. An export that only exists on the top plan, or only through a paid API, is a cost of leaving you should know now.
- Run it on real data. Forward a few dozen real tickets in during the trial, reply to some, add internal notes and an attachment, then export. Testing on an empty account tells you nothing.
- Open the file. Check that messages are in order, notes are marked as notes, authors are named, dates are the original ones, and attachments are either inside the export or listed in a way you can download.
- Check customers separately. Contacts, organisations, and any custom fields you rely on.
- Check the help center. Can you get every article out as HTML or Markdown, with images?
- Check the API. If the export is API-only, is the API on your plan, and how many tickets can it list? A slow or capped API turns a large history into a weekend job.
- Read the cancellation terms. Is there a notice period? Does the plan auto-renew? How long is your data kept after you leave, and will anyone warn you before it is deleted?
- Ask support one question. "What can't I export?" How clearly they answer tells you a lot.
Write the answers down. If you ever need them, you will need them in a hurry.
For the record, here is our answer to the same test. In Kerux, Settings → Export data downloads your tickets, messages, internal notes and contacts as CSV, for owners and admins, on every plan. Attachments are not in the files, so count that against us. Run the test during the free trial before you believe us.
Contract lock-in is the other half
A perfect export doesn't help if you are paying for twelve months either way. Check whether the price you were quoted is a monthly price or an annual one. Of the four big helpdesks we track, the published seat prices for Zendesk (per agent/mo, billed yearly, checked 2026-11-05), Freshdesk (per agent/mo, billed annually, checked 2026-11-05), Gorgias (per month, billed annually (priced by tickets, not per agent), checked 2026-11-05) and Front (per seat/mo, billed annually, checked 2026-11-05) are annual-billing prices. That is a normal and often cheaper way to buy software. It just means the decision to leave has a calendar attached.
Seats matter too. On an annual plan, ask whether you can reduce the seat count mid-term if your team shrinks, or only at renewal.
The new lock-in: your AI
AI agents add a layer that didn't exist a few years ago. When the AI is the vendor's own, metered per answer, the tuning you do (the articles you rewrite for it, the rules you add, the answers you correct) lives inside that product. Leaving means starting the AI over, and the cost of staying grows with every answer it gives.
When the AI runs on your own key, the provider account is yours. The model, the bill and the usage history sit with a provider you chose, and they stay there whichever helpdesk you use. That is a smaller kind of lock-in, but it is real.
Where Kerux stands, honestly
Kerux is a helpdesk where the AI runs on your own key and you pay one flat price per agent. On the questions above, here is what is true today:
- Coming in: the importer brings conversations, customers and internal notes from Zendesk, Intercom, Help Scout and Freshdesk, with their original dates. Attachments are not imported. Freshdesk imports are limited to 7,500 tickets per run. Automations don't import; you set up workflows again in Kerux. Help-center articles move separately, as Markdown files.
- Terms: no contract and no cancellation fee. You cancel from Settings → Billing and the plan runs to the end of the period you paid for.
- After you leave: nothing is deleted right away. An inactive workspace is kept for 12 months, and the owner is emailed 90 days before it is deleted.
- Refund: if Kerux isn't right within 90 days of your first payment, we refund every dollar you paid us. AI provider charges are billed by your provider and are outside that.
Run the same 30-minute test on us during the free trial. That is what it is for.
If you're weighing a switch because of the AI line on your bill, see your number first: the calculator puts your volume next to each vendor's published rate. Per-agent prices are on the pricing page.