Zendesk competitors compared on seats and AI prices

Four things send founders looking for Zendesk competitors. There’s no free plan, and live chat on your site starts on Suite Team, at $55 an agent a month billed yearly. The AI agent is billed by the automated resolution, and past its allowance it keeps answering at $2.00 a resolution unless you switch overage off. Zendesk’s own pages disagree on what that allowance is. And hiding the Zendesk logo in the messaging widget needs Suite Enterprise, which has no public price.

Below are Zendesk’s main competitors, eight helpdesks and one AI agent, with each one’s free plan, its first paid plan, what it charges by and what an AI answer costs on top. We read every price on the vendors’ own pages on 23 September 2026, in US dollars, and each one links to where we read it. Zendesk and Freshdesk set a separate price for each currency, and both list their cheapest plan at £15 in the UK against $19 in the US.

Deacon is ours, and it’s the one that isn’t a helpdesk. It’s an AI customer support agent for founders who answer support themselves. It answers your customers from your own docs in seconds, and it shows you what they’re stuck on and what they want next. There’s a free plan with no card, and every plan includes its seats.

Zendesk competitors side by side

Zendesk is in the last row, so you can hold each one up against it.

What Zendesk charges for, plan by plan

Zendesk is the helpdesk the others measure themselves against, and for a support team it earns that. Email, chat, social messages and calls land in one place, with routing, a help centre and more than 1,800 apps in its marketplace. These figures are from its pricing page and its help centre.

Every agent is a seat. Support Team, the cheapest plan, is $19 an agent a month billed yearly or $25 monthly, and it covers email and ticketing. Messaging and live chat on your site start on Suite Team, at $55 an agent a month billed yearly or $69 monthly. Suite Growth is $89 or $115 and Suite Professional $115 or $149. Suite Enterprise shows only a Talk to Sales button, though the page’s own data carries $169 billed yearly. Zendesk pricing sets out every plan and its add-ons, and what one to three agents pay.

The AI agent is on every plan and billed by the automated resolution, a customer request it settles without a person stepping in. Zendesk describes the allowance two ways. The pricing page counts resolutions, 5 an agent a month on Support Team and Suite Team, 10 on Suite Growth and Professional and 15 on Enterprise, up to 10,000 a year. Its help centre describes resolution tiers introduced on 18 May 2026, with a dollar pool instead, $2 an agent a month on Support Team and Suite Team, $5 on Suite Growth and Professional and $10 on Enterprise, up to $5,000 a year. Its upgrade guide says new accounts see the new tiers, and that tier pricing during the move “will be negotiated”.

Past the allowance, the default is to keep answering and bill you. The pricing page gives $2.00 a resolution on pay as you go, or $1.50 if you commit in advance, and the help centre says overage is billed monthly, whatever your subscription terms. You can switch overage off instead, and then the AI agent pauses and more requests go to your team. Zendesk AI pricing works through both allowances with a month priced for one or two agents.

Copilot, the AI assistant for your agents, is an optional $50 an agent a month on Professional and above. Hiding the Zendesk logo in the messaging widget needs Suite Enterprise. There’s no free plan, though the 14-day trial needs no card, and Zendesk for Startups gives eligible early-stage companies six months free for up to 50 agents, or up to two years through some funding partners. For Zendesk set against a free live chat inbox, see Tidio vs Zendesk.

Deacon

Deacon isn’t a helpdesk, and that’s the point. It’s an AI customer support agent for founders who handle support themselves and don’t want to run a support team’s software to do it. It goes on your site with one script tag, learns from your help pages, files or text you paste in, and answers your customers in seconds, day or night, in the language they write in.

When your docs don’t cover a question, Deacon says it doesn’t know rather than guessing, and asks for the visitor’s email. You get an email only when a visitor leaves an address or asks for a person, so nobody has to watch a queue. Reply from the dashboard, and your words appear in their chat if it’s still open, or reach them at the address they left in that conversation.

Then answer that question once. Your answer becomes part of what Deacon knows, so it can answer the next visitor who asks, and the more you answer, the less Deacon needs you. Save & check shows you the reply Deacon now gives and how many other open questions your answer covers.

It also tells you what customers need. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what visitors asked. Topics group their questions, count the people who asked and label most of them, for example as a feature ask, a bug report or a how-to, so you can see what to fix and what to build next. The same script runs your website analytics, with visitors, sources, goals and funnels.

There’s no price per seat and no charge per resolution. Every feature is on every plan, and the plans differ only in answers, knowledge, pages from your website and seats. Free gives you 50 answers a month and 1 seat, with no card and no end date. Starter is $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers a month and 3 seats. Growth is $150 a month, or $120 a month billed yearly, for 4,000 answers a month and 10 seats.

Nothing is billed past your plan’s answers, and no plan upgrades itself. If a month’s answers run out, visitors get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into it right now and are asked for their email, unless they already left it in that conversation, and you can still read and reply to every conversation. There’s no “powered by” line to pay to remove. There’s more in Deacon vs Zendesk.

What a helpdesk does that Deacon doesn’t

A helpdesk is software for a support team, and if you have one, it does jobs Deacon was never built for.

• It pulls email, chat, social messages and often phone calls into one queue, so nothing slips between channels.
• It decides who owns each conversation, with assignment, routing, rotas and business hours.
• It holds a team to reply times with service levels, and reports on how fast the team answers.
• It keeps each customer’s history across channels and connects to your CRM, billing and bug tracker.
• It hosts your help centre, so your articles and your tickets live in one place.
• Its AI agent can often take actions, such as issuing a refund or changing an order, once you connect it.

Deacon does none of that. It answers on your website, emails you when a visitor leaves an address or asks for a person, and you reply from its dashboard. It has no ticketing, routing, assignment or rota, no support inbox for email, no phone, WhatsApp or social channels, and no integrations. If several people share a busy inbox, buy a helpdesk. Helpdesk automation shows which Zendesk, Freshdesk and Help Scout plan unlocks routing and deadlines. If you’re a founder answering support between everything else, a helpdesk mostly divides work you don’t have, and Deacon answers the questions your docs already cover.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is the closest match to Zendesk in shape and price, a ticketing helpdesk priced per agent. Growth is $19 an agent a month billed yearly, or $23 monthly, Pro is $55 or $66, and Enterprise $89 or $107. After the 14-day trial, a team of up to 2 agents can move to the Free Program, which is free for 6 months and covers Freshdesk alone, not Freshdesk Omni.

The AI is Freddy AI Agent. Each paid plan comes with 500 sessions once per account, and after that they’re $49 per 100. A session is a 72-hour window from the customer’s first email, however many replies the AI sends in it. On Freshdesk the AI answers email, and its chat AI agent is in Freshdesk Omni, from $29 an agent a month billed yearly. When the sessions run out, the AI stops responding and conversations go to your agents, unless you’ve switched on auto-recharge, which adds a pack of 100 once fewer than 50 are left. There’s more in Freshdesk pricing, Zendesk vs Freshdesk and Freshdesk alternatives.

Help Scout

Help Scout is a shared inbox a small team can start on for free. The free plan gives up to 5 users one inbox and one Docs site, with no payment method. Standard is $25 a user a month billed yearly, or $30 monthly, and adds live chat, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. Plus is $45 or $54, and Pro is $75 or $90, for 10 users at least.

AI Answers replies in its Beacon chat from your Docs and other public pages, at $0.75 a resolution on the paid plans, charged once per conversation. A resolution counts only when the customer doesn’t escalate, search the knowledge base, ask more or say they need more help. New accounts get three months of it free. You can set a monthly cap, and at the cap AI Answers switches off until the next cycle. The “Powered by Help Scout” mark stays on Standard and comes off from Plus. There’s more in Help Scout pricing and Help Scout vs Zendesk.

Intercom

Intercom is a helpdesk built around chat, and Fin is its AI agent. There’s no free plan, just a 14-day trial with no card. Essential is $19 or $29 a seat a month billed yearly, depending on which side of a price test you land on, and $29 or $39 monthly. Advanced is $85 a seat billed yearly, or $99 monthly.

Fin costs $0.99 an outcome, at most once per conversation. An outcome counts when a customer confirms the answer helped or leaves without asking for more, so one who simply stops replying is billed. It also counts when Fin completes a procedure you’ve set up, even one that ends in a handoff to your team. Fin also runs on other helpdesks, Zendesk among them, as well as Salesforce, HubSpot and Freshdesk. There it’s $0.99 an outcome with no seats, and Fin’s help centre sets a $49 base fee a month that includes 50 resolutions, which Fin’s pricing page calls a 50-outcome monthly minimum. Fin AI pricing prices it helpdesk by helpdesk. Removing Intercom’s branding takes Advanced or Expert. Companies new to Intercom, with up to $10 million in funding and fewer than 15 employees, can get Advanced with six seats for $65 a month in the first year, through Intercom’s Early Stage programme, which we read on 10 October 2026. There’s more in Intercom vs Zendesk, Intercom pricing and Intercom alternatives for startups.

HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot’s Service Hub suits a company that already runs its sales and marketing on HubSpot. The free tools cover up to 2 users with no card, including live chat with HubSpot’s branding and rule-based bots. Starter is $7 a seat a month billed yearly, or $10 monthly, marked down from $20, and it takes the branding off the chat.

Its AI agent, Customer Agent, starts on Professional, at $90 a seat a month billed yearly or $100 paid monthly on a yearly contract, with a one-time onboarding fee of $1,500. Each conversation it resolves costs 50 HubSpot Credits, or $0.50, and Professional includes 3,000 credits. A conversation counts as resolved when the agent answered from a content source or took an action, and no handoff the visitor asked for followed within 72 hours of their last message. Zendesk vs HubSpot sets the two side by side.

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk starts low, and its free edition gives 3 users email ticketing with no trial clock. Its pricing page picks a currency for you, and in US dollars Express is $7 a user a month billed yearly, or $9 monthly. Standard is $14 or $20, Professional $23 or $35 and Enterprise $40 or $50. Live chat for signed-in customers starts on Standard, and Zoho SalesIQ’s live chat comes with Enterprise.

Express includes Zia Agents, Zoho’s AI agents. They’re free to run on Zoho’s own models up to 30 million tokens a month, and after that it’s $1 per million tokens on its standard models, or you can bring your own key for another model. We couldn’t find what happens when the free tokens and any bought credits are used up. Zendesk vs Zoho Desk compares the two, AI meters included. Freshdesk vs Zoho Desk weighs Zoho’s free edition and token meter against Freshdesk’s six-month Free Program and AI sessions, and Zoho Desk alternatives prices six alternatives and Deacon against Zoho Desk’s editions.

Front

Front is a shared inbox for teams that live in email, priced per seat, with a seat cap on its two cheaper plans. There’s no free plan, and the 14-day trial needs no card. Starter is $25 a seat a month billed yearly, or $35 monthly, for up to 10 seats and one channel type, email, chat or SMS. Professional is $65 or $85, for up to 50 seats and all its channels.

Its main AI tools are add-ons, though every plan includes AI Topics and AI help polishing drafts, translating and summarising, up to 200 of each a teammate a day. The pricing page shows Autopilot, the part that answers customers, only as “Starting at $0.05 /conversation”, but Front’s help centre prints the full rates. Triage is $0.05 and excludes replying, a conversation that ends in a handoff is $0.39, and one it resolves is $0.89, charged once at the highest level reached. Copilot and Smart QA are $20 a seat a month each and Smart CSAT is $10, all included on Enterprise, at $105 a seat billed yearly. Front alternatives weighs Help Scout, Missive, Gmelius, Hiver, Zendesk and Crisp against Front, with their prices read on 8 October 2026.

Gorgias

Gorgias is the helpdesk for online shops, priced by tickets rather than agents. Starter is $10 a month for 50 tickets and 3 seats, billed monthly only, or $40 with its AI Agent. Basic is $60 a month, or $50 billed yearly, for 300 tickets, and every plan above Starter has room for 500 seats. There’s no free plan, and the 30-day trial needs no payment details.

The AI is billed twice. An automated interaction costs $1.00 on monthly plans and $0.90 on yearly ones, by its FAQ, though its comparison table puts Advanced at $0.85, and each costs $1.50 past your allowance. On top of that, Gorgias says “Each AI Agent interaction also counts as a helpdesk ticket and is billed accordingly.” If an agent replies within 72 hours, only the ticket is charged. From Basic, its AI can also cancel orders and apply discounts. There’s more in Gorgias pricing and Zendesk vs Gorgias.

Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is the enterprise option, though its cheapest suite is priced for small teams. Starter Suite, at $25 a user a month billed monthly or yearly, already has case management. A help centre starts on Core, at $195 a user a month billed yearly, and Max, with its contact centre, is $550. Its AI agent, Agentforce, is an extra on Core and Advanced and comes with Max. It costs $2 a conversation, or is paid for in Flex Credits at $500 per 100,000, with 20 credits to a standard action. It fits a service organisation already on Salesforce’s CRM, and it’s far more than a founder needs. Zendesk vs Salesforce sets Agentforce’s meters against Zendesk’s.

Which Zendesk competitor fits you

It depends on whether you’re buying for a support team or trying not to need one.

If you have people working tickets all day and want a helpdesk shaped like Zendesk, Freshdesk is the closest match, and Zoho Desk starts lower. If your team lives in email, Help Scout and Front are built around a shared inbox, and Help Scout lets a small team start free. If chat is how customers reach you, Intercom leads with it. If you sell online, Gorgias prices by tickets and knows your shop. If your company runs on HubSpot or Salesforce, their service tools keep everything in one CRM. If you’re picking a first product rather than leaving Zendesk, the best customer service software for startups ranks eleven for a small team.

If you’re a founder answering support yourself, you may not need a helpdesk at all. Deacon answers your customers from your docs in seconds, emails you when a visitor asks for a person or leaves an address, and shows you what customers are stuck on and what they want next. It’s free to start, with no card.

Questions about Zendesk competitors

What are Zendesk’s main competitors?

The names people most often set against it, going by Google’s suggestions for “zendesk vs”, are Salesforce, Freshdesk, ServiceNow, Jira, Intercom, HubSpot, Gorgias and Zoho Desk. Salesforce and ServiceNow are enterprise platforms. Among smaller teams, Freshdesk, Help Scout, Zoho Desk, Front and HubSpot Service Hub are the usual helpdesks, Intercom leads on chat and Gorgias on online shops.

Is there a free alternative to Zendesk?

Several helpdesks have a free plan. Help Scout’s covers up to 5 users, Zoho Desk’s 3 and HubSpot’s free tools 2, and Freshdesk offers a 6-month Free Program for up to 2 agents. Their AI agents cost extra, though Help Scout lets new accounts try AI Answers free for three months. Deacon’s free plan includes its AI agent, with 50 answers a month and every feature, but it isn’t a helpdesk.

Does Zendesk have a startup programme?

Yes. Zendesk for Startups gives eligible early-stage companies six months of the Zendesk Suite free for up to 50 agents, and up to two years through some funding partners. Its startup page asks for a company new to Zendesk, under 10 years old and no further than a Series B round, with fewer than 250 employees and a partner’s referral from 50. Intercom, HubSpot and Help Scout run startup offers too.

Can Deacon replace Zendesk?

For a founder or a small team whose support is mostly questions the docs answer, yes. Deacon answers those in seconds on your site, you reply from its dashboard when a visitor needs a person, and nobody works a queue. It can’t replace the helpdesk a support team works in. It has no ticketing, email inbox, routing, service levels, phone or social channels, and no integrations.

Can I use Deacon alongside Zendesk?

Yes, as separate tools. Deacon answers on your website and hands conversations to its own dashboard, with no connection to Zendesk, so a visitor Deacon can’t help doesn’t become a Zendesk ticket. You could keep Zendesk for email and put Deacon on your site.