Migrating off Freshdesk: what transfers, and what you rebuild
Relay ships real Freshdesk importers for tickets, conversations, contacts and companies. The part nobody warns you about is that the obvious CSV export leaves your conversation history behind.
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The short answer
Tickets, ticket conversations, contacts and companies import from Freshdesk into Relay through Relay's Freshdesk connector. Automations, canned responses, SLA policies, dispatch rules and business hours do not transfer to any help desk, including Relay, and must be rebuilt. Relay starts at $9 per user per month with AI included and no per-session meter.
What moves, and what you rebuild by hand
Relay ships real Freshdesk importers. They are honest about their scope: ticket and customer data moves, and platform-specific automation logic does not — not into Relay, and not into any other help desk either. Anyone promising a lossless migration of Freshdesk automation is overclaiming.
Relay's importer moves this
- TicketsSubject, status, priority, requester, assignee, custom fields and timestamps, imported into Relay tickets with an ID mapping back to the Freshdesk ticket.
- Ticket conversationsReplies and private notes imported as Relay conversation messages in order — the part the Freshdesk UI export does not give you.
- ContactsFreshdesk contacts become Relay customers, deduplicated on email.
- CompaniesImported and linked to their contacts, so account context survives the move rather than arriving as a flat customer list.
You rebuild this by hand
- Automations and dispatch rulesFreshdesk Dispatch’r, Supervisor and Observer rules are platform-specific and have no import path into any help desk. Rebuild the ones that earn their keep as Relay automations.
- Canned responsesRelay ships macros with variables, but the bodies are recreated. Export your canned-response list from Freshdesk first so this is a copy-paste job rather than an archaeology project.
- SLA policiesRelay ships SLA policies with breach tracking, but the policy definitions are rebuilt from scratch.
- Business hoursReconfigured in Relay. Minutes of work, not a project.
- Scenario automations and ticket templatesRebuilt as Relay macros and automations. This is usually where teams discover how many they had stopped using.
The obvious Freshdesk export is the wrong one
Freshdesk gives you three export paths and they are not equivalent. The one in the UI — the ticket list export to CSV or Excel — is the one everybody reaches for, and it gives you ticket properties like subject, status, priority and custom fields but not the conversation threads, and not archived tickets. That is fine for a spreadsheet and useless as a migration. The account export produces a fuller XML or JSON dump. The REST API is the most complete of the three but is rate limited, with per-endpoint sub-limits that are not obvious until you hit them, which is why a naive export script stalls halfway through a large account. Relay’s importer uses the API and paces itself against those limits, tracking progress and per-record errors on the import record so a rate-limit pause is not a silent data loss.
Verified 2026-08-25 against Freshdesk's own documentation.
The migration, step by step
- 1
Inventory the logic that will not move
List your Dispatch’r, Supervisor and Observer rules, your canned responses and your SLA policies. That count, not your ticket count, is the real size of the migration.
- 2
Connect Freshdesk to Relay
Create your Relay workspace and connect your Freshdesk domain and API key. Relay authenticates and enumerates what it can import before writing anything.
- 3
Run the import
Relay imports companies and contacts first, then tickets, then conversations, maintaining an ID mapping so relationships survive. Progress and per-record errors are tracked on the import record rather than failing the whole run, and you can cancel mid-flight.
- 4
Rebuild automations and canned responses
Recreate the rules you actually use as Relay automations, and your canned responses as Relay macros with variables. Most teams rebuild a third of what they had and do not miss the rest.
- 5
Rebuild SLA policies and business hours
Set your response and resolution targets by priority in Relay SLA, and configure business hours. Usually under an hour combined.
- 6
Cut the email over, keep Freshdesk read-only for a month
Point your support address at Relay and leave Freshdesk alive but read-only until you are confident, then cancel.
Should you migrate at all?
The honest case for staying: Freshdesk Growth at $19/agent/mo (Growth, annual) is genuinely competitive, it has a free plan, and if your AI usage stays under the 500 included Freddy sessions a month you are not being metered at all. That is a real answer for a small, low-volume team, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. The case for moving is what happens past that line. Freddy sessions bill at $49 per 100 sessions ($0.49 each) once the included 500 are used, they are sold in 100-packs so a busy month rounds up, and Freddy AI Copilot is a further $29 per agent per month on top of the seat. Relay is $9 per user per month with AI reply drafts included and no session meter — the bill moves with headcount, not with how much you use the AI.
Migration questions
Does Relay import Freshdesk automations and canned responses?
No. Automations, Dispatch’r and Supervisor rules, canned responses, SLA policies and business hours are platform-specific and do not transfer to any help desk. Relay imports tickets, ticket conversations, contacts and companies.
How do I export tickets from Freshdesk with their conversations?
Not through the UI CSV export — that gives you ticket properties without conversation threads or archived tickets. Use the account export for an XML or JSON dump, or the REST API for the most complete data. Relay’s importer uses the API and paces itself against Freshdesk’s rate limits.
How much does Freshdesk cost compared to Relay?
Freshdesk Growth is $19/agent/mo (Growth, annual), Pro $55 and Enterprise $89 per agent per month, with 500 Freddy AI sessions included and $49 per 100 sessions ($0.49 each) after that, plus $29 per agent per month for Freddy Copilot. Relay is $9 per user per month with AI included and no session meter. Verified 25 August 2026.
Will I lose ticket history?
No, provided the import runs through Relay’s Freshdesk connector rather than a hand-rolled CSV. Relay imports ticket conversations as messages in order, so replies and private notes move with the ticket.
Is Freshdesk or Relay better for a small team?
It depends on AI volume. Under a few hundred AI-handled conversations a month, Freshdesk’s included 500 Freddy sessions mean you are not metered, and its free plan is a real option. Above that, Relay’s included AI at $9 per user per month is the cheaper and more predictable bill.
Move your Freshdesk data into Relay
Connect your Freshdesk account, import tickets and customers, and start answering in Relay the same day.