Zendesk vs HubSpot Service Hub, and what their AI agents cost

Zendesk is a helpdesk first. HubSpot is a CRM, and Service Hub is the part of it that handles support, so that’s what this page sets against Zendesk. Both sell an AI agent billed per resolution, but they put it in very different places. Zendesk includes its AI agents on every plan, with a small allowance. HubSpot keeps Customer Agent for Professional, which comes with an onboarding fee, and spends 50 credits on each conversation it resolves. Here are the plans, what the AI costs and what happens when it runs out. The third column is Deacon, an AI customer support agent for founders who answer support themselves. It has a free plan, and it needs no card.

Prices read on zendesk.com/pricing and hubspot.com/pricing/service on 23 September 2026

How Zendesk and HubSpot bill their AI agents

Zendesk includes its AI agents, then bills each resolution

Every Zendesk plan, from Support Team up, comes with AI agents and a small allowance of automated resolutions, requests the AI settles without a person. The pricing page gives 5 an agent a month on Support Team and Suite Team, 10 on Suite Growth and Suite Professional and 15 on Suite Enterprise, up to 10,000 a year. The help centre describes newer resolution tiers that hold the allowance as money instead, $2, $5 or $10 an agent a month by plan, up to $5,000 a year, with a language model checking each conversation so only verified resolutions count. Beyond the allowance, each resolution is $2.00 on pay as you go, or $1.50 committed in advance. The AI keeps answering by default and the overage is billed monthly, unless you turn overage off, which pauses it.

HubSpot keeps its AI agent for Professional, and bills it in credits

Customer Agent comes with Service Hub Professional and Enterprise, not the free tools or Starter. Professional is $90 a seat a month billed yearly, or its $100 list price monthly on a yearly commitment, plus a one-time onboarding fee of $1,500. Each conversation the agent resolves uses 50 HubSpot Credits, or $0.50, and Professional includes 3,000 credits a month, enough for 60 resolutions if nothing else spends them. HubSpot counts a resolution when the agent shared a content source or took an action and the visitor didn’t ask for a person within 72 hours of their last message, so a customer who gets an answer drawn from your content and simply leaves is billed. When the credits run out, the agent stops taking new conversations until they reset or you buy more. Buy a Professional seat, and the agent is free for its first 14 days.

The figures in these cards are from zendesk.com/pricing, Zendesk’s help centre, hubspot.com/pricing/service and HubSpot’s guide to Customer Agent, read on 23 September 2026. Zendesk AI pricing prices a month of Zendesk’s AI for one or two agents.

“Zendesk vs HubSpot” is partly a CRM question. HubSpot’s Service Hub runs on the same CRM as its marketing and sales tools, so support shares its contacts with them. Zendesk’s Suite is built around the support queue, and the two can be joined, one way, by Zendesk’s integration, which puts ticket events on the HubSpot contact’s timeline. This page compares the support side.

On price, HubSpot starts lower and climbs faster. Its Starter is $7 a seat a month billed yearly, or $10 monthly, on an offer for new customers against a $20 list price, and it already takes HubSpot’s branding off live chat. But the AI agent needs Professional, at $90 a seat billed yearly or its $100 list price monthly, with the $1,500 onboarding on top. Other Professional hubs include the agent too, and the cheapest is Smart CRM Professional, from $45 a seat billed yearly against a $50 list price. Zendesk’s AI agents come with every plan, and chat on your site starts on Suite Team, at $55 an agent a month billed yearly, or $69 monthly.

Say your AI resolves 200 chats a month for a team of one, by our arithmetic. On HubSpot, that’s 10,000 credits, so 7,000 beyond Professional’s 3,000, or $70 if nothing else uses credits. On Zendesk’s Suite Team, the allowance covers a handful and the rest cost $2.00 each, close to $400. HubSpot charges a quarter of Zendesk’s rate for a resolution, but it counts a customer who read an answer and left as one, and it asks for a Professional seat and the onboarding fee before the agent answers anyone.

Zendesk, HubSpot and Deacon, line by line

Free plan

Zendesk
None. A 14-day trial of Suite Professional, with Copilot on and no card
HubSpot
Free tools for up to 2 users, with no card. Live chat carries HubSpot’s branding, and the bots follow steps you build, with no AI agent
Deacon
50 answers a month on one seat, with every feature, no card and no end date

Cheapest paid plan

Zendesk
Support Team, $19 an agent a month billed yearly, or $25 monthly, for email and ticketing
HubSpot
Starter, $7 a seat a month billed yearly, or $10 monthly, on an offer for new customers against a $20 list price
Deacon
Starter, $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers on three seats

Where the AI agent starts

Zendesk
Every plan. Chat on your site starts on Suite Team, $55 an agent a month billed yearly, or $69 monthly
HubSpot
Service Hub Professional, $90 a seat a month billed yearly, or $100 monthly on a yearly commitment, which is the list price HubSpot strikes through, plus a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee
Deacon
Every plan, the free one included

How the AI is billed

Zendesk
An allowance comes with each plan, then $2.00 a resolution pay as you go, or $1.50 bought in advance
HubSpot
50 HubSpot Credits, or $0.50, for each resolved conversation. Professional includes 3,000 credits a month, and more cost $10 per 1,000, or $9 when you pay yearly
Deacon
It isn’t billed on its own. The answers are the plan

What counts as resolved

Zendesk
A request the AI agent settled without passing it to a person. On the newer tiers, a language model reads the conversation and only a verified resolution counts
HubSpot
A conversation where the agent shared a content source or took an action, and the visitor didn’t ask for a person within 72 hours of their last message. A lead it qualifies counts too
Deacon
Nothing is judged. Each reply Deacon writes on your live site is one answer, and Playground chats never count

When the AI’s allowance runs out

Zendesk
It keeps answering at the pay-as-you-go rate, billed monthly, unless you switch overage off. Then it pauses and customers go to your team
HubSpot
It stops taking new conversations until your credits reset or you buy more. Unused credits expire at the end of each month
Deacon
Nothing more is billed. Visitors get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into that one right now, and are asked for their email unless they’ve already left it in that conversation

Removing their branding

Zendesk
From the messaging widget, only on Suite Enterprise, which the pricing page sells through sales
HubSpot
From live chat on Starter and above. The free tools keep it
Deacon
No plan shows a “powered by” line, so there’s no badge to pay to remove

Seeing what customers ask

Zendesk
Prebuilt dashboards on every plan. Intelligent triage, which classifies each ticket by what the customer needs, from Suite Professional
HubSpot
Reporting dashboards on every plan, from 10 on the free tools to 100 on Enterprise
Deacon
Every conversation, searchable by what visitors asked, and Topics that group questions, count who asked and label most of them, on every plan. Website analytics come from the same script

What the AI learns from

Zendesk
Your Zendesk help centre, plus outside content brought in by a web crawler or a knowledge connector
HubSpot
Your existing HubSpot content, such as knowledge base articles, and your website, with up to 5,000 of its pages crawled and synced
Deacon
A crawl of your website or single pages, files (PDF, Word, Markdown, text, CSV or HTML), pasted text and the answers you write

Channels

Zendesk
Email and the web widget on every plan. Messaging, live chat, social channels and voice from Suite Team, and IVR phone menus and callbacks from Suite Professional
HubSpot
Live chat and Facebook Messenger on every plan, calling from Starter and WhatsApp from Professional. The AI agent answers on chat, email, forms, WhatsApp, Messenger and voice
Deacon
The chat widget on your own website

Seats

Zendesk
Priced per agent on every plan
HubSpot
Priced per seat. The free tools cover up to 2 users
Deacon
one seat on Free, three seats on Starter

For startups

Zendesk
Zendesk for Startups, a 6-month trial of the Suite for up to 50 agents, as its pricing page puts it
HubSpot
HubSpot for Startups, up to 90% off the first year of a new Professional or Enterprise product, then 50% and 25%, for startups at Series A or earlier with verified funding or an approved partner
Deacon
The free plan, with every feature on it

Zendesk’s prices come from zendesk.com/pricing and HubSpot’s from hubspot.com/pricing/service, both read in US dollars on 23 September 2026. HubSpot’s credit prices are from its credits page, and the other pages used are listed at the end.

Which of the two suits your company

Zendesk suits you if support is its own team with its own queue. Suite Team brings messaging, live chat, social channels and voice into one workspace, and Suite Professional adds IVR phone menus, callbacks and skills-based routing. Its marketplace lists more than 1,800 apps, and its AI agents come with every plan, so you can try the AI without moving up a tier.

HubSpot suits you if your marketing and sales already run on HubSpot and support should share the same contacts. Two people can start on the free tools with live chat and ticketing, and Starter takes the branding off chat for a few dollars a seat. When you want the AI agent, Professional brings it with 3,000 credits a month and 14 days free. If you’re at Series A or earlier, with verified funding or an approved partner, HubSpot for Startups can take up to 90% off the first year of a Professional product.

Both expect you to buy a platform first, a helpdesk or a CRM, and then the AI on top of it. If you’re a founder answering support yourself, you may need neither, and there’s a third option.

Deacon, the AI without the platform underneath

When you’re the one answering support, every repeated question is time off the product. Deacon answers those questions on your site in seconds, day and night, from your own docs and in whatever language the customer writes in. There are no bots to script and no flows to build. When your docs don’t cover a question, it says it doesn’t know instead of guessing, and asks for the visitor’s email. You get an email when they leave one or ask for a person, and your reply from Deacon’s dashboard appears in their chat if it’s still open.

It doesn’t need a CRM to know who’s asking, either. Your site can pass details about the visitor, such as their plan, and Deacon takes them into account when it answers and shows them beside the conversation.

Deacon gets better the more you answer. Each question your docs didn’t cover waits in your dashboard with an Answer this button. What you write becomes part of what Deacon knows, so it can answer the next person who asks, and Save & check shows you the reply it now gives and how many other open questions your answer covers.

And you see what customers need, which is customer feedback you never had to ask for. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what visitors asked. Topics group the questions about your product, count the people who asked each one and label most of them, for example as a feature ask, a bug report or a how-to. That’s on every plan, free included, while Zendesk’s intelligent triage starts on Suite Professional. The same script runs your website analytics, with visitors, sources, goals and funnels.

The bill doesn’t depend on anyone judging a conversation. Each reply Deacon writes on your live site is one of your plan’s answers, and when they run out, nothing more is billed. Every feature is on every plan, there’s no onboarding fee, no plan upgrades itself and none shows a “powered by” line. The free plan needs no card, has no end date and deletes nothing for inactivity.

What buyers ask about Zendesk and HubSpot

It starts cheaper and gets dearer sooner. HubSpot’s Starter is $7 a seat a month billed yearly, or $10 monthly, on an offer for new customers, against Zendesk’s Support Team at $19, or $25 monthly. But HubSpot’s AI agent needs Professional, at $90 a seat billed yearly or its $100 list price monthly on a yearly commitment, plus $1,500 for onboarding, while Zendesk’s AI agents come with every plan and its chat starts on Suite Team, at $55 or $69. Per resolution, HubSpot charges $0.50 and Zendesk $2.00 on pay as you go, though they don’t count resolutions the same way.

Not one that writes answers. HubSpot’s free tools include live chat and bots that follow the steps you build, to qualify a lead, book a meeting or open a ticket. Its AI agent, Customer Agent, needs a Professional or Enterprise plan, and new users can opt in to 14 days of it free. There’s more in HubSpot AI chatbot pricing.

Differently, and it matters most for the customer who goes quiet. HubSpot looks 72 hours after the visitor’s last message. If the agent shared a content source or took an action, and the visitor didn’t ask for a person, it’s a resolution, and a teammate picking the chat up by hand doesn’t change that. On Zendesk’s newer tiers, a language model reads the conversation, and only a verified resolution counts. A contained one, where the customer asked for nothing more but the model couldn’t confirm their request was resolved, doesn’t.

Yes, one way. Zendesk’s HubSpot integration sends ticket events from Zendesk to HubSpot, so a contact’s timeline shows their new and solved tickets and the conversation. Only the user’s email address is synced, and nothing flows back from HubSpot. It works on every Zendesk plan and every HubSpot subscription. That setup suits a company whose sales team lives in HubSpot and whose support team lives in Zendesk.

No. Deacon has no integrations or webhooks, so its conversations and the emails visitors leave stay in its own dashboard, where you read and reply to them. It can sit on a site that also runs HubSpot’s tracking code or Zendesk’s widget, as a separate tool. A visitor Deacon can’t help doesn’t become a ticket or a HubSpot contact.

Plenty, for a team. HubSpot is a CRM, with marketing, sales and service on one contact record, and Zendesk is a full helpdesk. Between them they cover email, phone, WhatsApp, social channels, tickets, routing and service levels, and their AI agents can take actions once you set them up. Deacon is a chat widget for your own website. It isn’t a CRM or a helpdesk, and it takes no actions in other systems. If your customers reach you on those channels, or a team shares the work, choose one of them.

Where each figure was read

Every figure above was read on 23 September 2026, from these pages.

Try Deacon for free

Deacon answers your customers in seconds from your own docs, tells them honestly when it doesn’t know, and shows you what they want next, with no helpdesk or CRM to buy first. Every feature is on the free plan, and it needs no card.

For Deacon set against Zendesk directly, see Deacon vs Zendesk. Zendesk also meets Freshdesk, Salesforce, Gorgias, Zoho Desk and Tidio on pages of their own. HubSpot AI chatbot pricing goes deeper on Customer Agent, Zendesk competitors prices more helpdesks side by side, and Deacon’s plans are on the pricing page.

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