Key takeaways
- Help Scout Reports show conversation volume to anyone with Reports: View reports, but Standard plans reach back two years while Plus and Pro cover the account's lifetime.
- For an all-time total on any plan, a developer lists conversations with status=all through the Inbox API and reads page.totalElements; without status=all only active conversations come back.
- Report exports (CSV or XLSX) need the Reports: Export reporting data permission and leave out the thread text, so the Inbox API is the only way to get the words.
- You don't need to export anything to apply: have your conversation count, years of history and paid users ready, and the data vendor anonymizes the records before any AI lab sees them.
01
What is Help Scout data, and why do AI labs and data vendors buy it?
The short answer
Help Scout data is the history of customer conversations a small team handles in Help Scout, its shared-inbox support software: each conversation is a thread of messages between a customer and the team, with tags, custom fields and ratings attached. AI labs (companies that build and train AI models) and data vendors (companies that anonymize business records and package them for those labs) buy a copy because the threads show how a team writes a careful, complete reply, and how a problem that takes several rounds finally gets settled.
What a Help Scout account records
A shared inbox is an email address or a chat widget that several people on a team answer together. Help Scout turns each message a customer sends into a conversation, and its Users, meaning the company's own staff, reply to it from the inbox.
- Conversation
- One thread between a customer and the team, from the first message to the last, with notes the staff leave for each other.
- Inbox
- A mailbox that a group of staff shares, such as one for general support and another for billing.
- Tag and custom field
- Labels and extra details a team adds to sort conversations, such as the product or the kind of request.
- Rating
- The satisfaction score a customer gives after the conversation is resolved, sometimes with a comment.
Why a Help Scout conversation teaches an AI model something
An AI model learns by studying a very large number of examples and finding the patterns in them, and those examples are called training data. Help Scout threads read like email, so they hold full sentences, the tone of a small team and the reasoning behind each answer.
AI labs now want to train AI agents, software that carries out a job step by step, and answering customers is one of the first jobs they try. A thread that took several rounds to settle shows an agent what to do when the first answer was not enough. The full mechanism is in AI training data: why AI companies want your company's data.
How Help Scout fits into a dataset
Help Scout is usually one of several apps in a company's dataset, next to email, documents and customer records. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to. The price covers the whole dataset, not each app on its own, and what your data is worth explains what moves it.
02
Where does Help Scout show how much data you have?
The short answer
Help Scout shows conversation volume in its Reports, which anyone with the Reports: View reports permission can open, but how far back a report reaches depends on the plan. Standard plans cover the last two years, and Plus and Pro cover the whole life of the account. For an all-time total on any plan, a developer reads the count from the Inbox API.
How to count conversations in Reports
The Email report and the All Channels report both show conversation volume. The email report is described in Help Scout's Email report guide and the other in its All Channels report guide.
- Open Reports and choose the Email report, or All Channels if you also take chat and phone conversations.
- Set the widest date range your plan allows.
- Read the Email Conversations figure, which counts the conversations created in the period.
How to get an all-time total with the Inbox API
An API is a way for a program to ask Help Scout for information. A developer calls the list conversations endpoint of the Inbox API with the option status=all, and the reply holds a page.totalElements value, which is the number of conversations in the account.
The option matters, because the endpoint lists only active conversations unless it is told otherwise.
Which plan and permission you need
| Plan | How far back reports reach |
|---|---|
| Standard | The last 2 years |
| Plus | The lifetime of the account |
| Pro | The lifetime of the account |
Viewing any report needs the Reports: View reports permission. A report shows only the inboxes that the signed-in person can open, so an owner or admin sees the most.
03
What should you know about your Help Scout data before you apply?
The short answer
Have three facts ready: how many conversations your account holds, how many years it covers and how many paid users you have. They go into the data manifest, the written summary of which apps hold your records, how many years each covers and roughly how much. Applying shares no data, and you don't need to run an export first.
The conversation count
Give the total number of conversations, from the Inbox API count if you could get it, or from a report, and say which. Each conversation already holds all of its messages, so you do not count messages separately.
The years of history
Your developer can run the same API call sorted by creation date, which puts the oldest conversation first. The year on that conversation is your years of history.
The number of seats
A seat is a paid Help Scout user, a member of your staff. The customers who write in are not seats.
What you don't need to do first
You don't need to export anything to apply, and you don't need to clean or scrub conversations. The data vendor anonymizes the records before anyone else sees them, and nothing moves until a lawyer-reviewed license is signed. The application, the intro call and each later step are laid out in how to sell your company's data.
04
How do you export your full Help Scout history?
The short answer
Help Scout has no button that exports the conversation text. A developer pulls it with the Inbox API, by listing the conversations with status=all and then retrieving the threads of each one. The reports can be exported as CSV or XLSX files, but those hold conversation properties and metrics without the words.
Which export to use
Help Scout's data export options page states that the API is the only way to obtain account data beyond reports.
- Inbox API
- Provides customers, users and conversations on demand, with their thread text. This is the route for training data.
- Report export
- A CSV or XLSX file of conversation properties and metrics from one report.
- Customer list
- A CSV of customer names and email addresses that the account owner can request from Help Scout support. It has no conversation history.
- Docs API
- Provides every article in a Help Scout Docs knowledge base.
The steps for the conversation text
- Have a developer set up access to the Inbox API, following Help Scout's developer documentation.
- Call the list conversations endpoint with status=all, which returns conversations of every status and pages through them 25 at a time.
- For each conversation, request its threads, which hold the messages and notes.
- Save the results as files and note the rate limit, which rises with your plan, so that a large account is paced and not blocked.
The steps for a report export
A report export is worth doing when you also want the figures that go with each conversation. Help Scout describes it in its guide to exporting reporting data.
- Sign in as a user who has the Reports: Export reporting data permission.
- Open the report, set the date range, and click the Export/Print icon beside the date filter, then choose Export.
- Choose CSV or XLSX and confirm the date range.
- Wait for an email titled Data export from Help Scout, sent to the address you log in with. The download works only while you are signed in as the same user.
The file lists the conversation properties, such as the subject, tags, status and dates, along with figures such as response time. It leaves out the thread text, the comments that customers leave with a rating, collected averages and totals, and conversations that are still open.
Sources: Help Scout Docs, Data Export Options, Export Reporting Data, Reports: All Channels and Reports: Email, and the Inbox API's List Conversations reference. Steps checked against these pages in November 2026.
05
What stays private when Help Scout data is licensed?
The short answer
The company chooses which inboxes are in scope, and the data vendor replaces names and other personal details with consistent stand-ins before an AI lab sees anything. The company keeps ownership of its Help Scout data, and the license covers defined records for a defined use.
You choose what is in scope
A billing or partnerships inbox can stay out of the dataset entirely, and the company can license only the conversations from its main support inbox. The data vendor also deletes records too sensitive to clean safely instead of anonymizing them.
Names are replaced before a lab sees them
Anonymization means replacing every detail that identifies a person or a company, such as a name or an email address, with a stand-in that is the same every time it appears. The conversation still reads in order, so a lab can learn from it, but it no longer says who the people are. The diagram below shows one conversation before and after.
The method, including what is deleted outright and how you review samples, is in how company data is anonymized for AI training.
Ownership and payment
Licensing gives the buyer limited rights to a copy, while the company keeps ownership of the originals. The terms that matter, such as exclusivity, permitted use and deletion, are covered in data licensing. micro1 pays in full within 30 days of accepting the data, usually as a single payment.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Do Help Scout report exports include the conversation text?
No. A report export holds the properties and metrics of each conversation, but not the thread text. The Inbox API is the way to get what was written.
Why are closed conversations missing from my Help Scout API results?
By default, the list conversations call returns only active ones. Add status=all to the request and conversations of every status come back.
Can Help Scout export our customer list?
Yes, on request. The account owner asks Help Scout support, who send a CSV of every customer's name and email address, without any conversation history.
How far back do Help Scout reports go?
The last two years on Standard plans, and the lifetime of the account on Plus and Pro plans. The Inbox API is not limited to those periods.
Why can't I download my Help Scout export?
Help Scout emails the link to the address you log in with, and the download works only when you are signed in as that same user. Large exports are queued and processed one at a time, so the email can take a while.
Do we need to export Help Scout before we apply?
No. The application takes about two minutes and shares no data. You only need your approximate conversation count, your years of history and your number of paid users for the intro call. The full export is needed later, when the records are transferred after you sign the license.
What is Help Scout data worth to AI labs and data vendors?
Help Scout history is priced as part of a whole dataset rather than on its own. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, and the price depends on the years of history and how completely the conversations show each problem being solved. What your data is worth explains the factors.
Bottom line
Know what is in Help Scout, then see what it is worth
You don't need to export anything to apply. Apply in two minutes, describe your records on the intro call, and micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, prices the whole dataset and sends an offer 1–2 days later.
Not legal, tax or financial advice. Figures come from micro1's published pages and public reporting as of November 2026.