There are a lot of customer communication channels companies use — email, social networks, messengers, and so on. As well, there are many tools to provide support across different channels. One of them is Zendesk — the customer support software suite that combines live customer support, CRM, marketing messages, and other tools developed for all-size organizations.
Why do companies love this software?
First, Zendesk tool is easy to use. It is known for its friendly interface and customizable admin panel. See what tools Zendesk provides
– live chatting tool;
– ticketing system to manage clients’ problems;
– automation, workflows, and AI-powered canned answers to save your agents’ time;
– 1000+ integrations to unite your business tool and data in one place;
– knowledge base to enable customers to find answers to their questions;
– up to 20 pipelines to close deals and move them through funnel stages;
– a dashboard to analyze the team’s performance.
This is why organizations such as Uber, Siemens, Khan Academy, and others choose in favor of Zendesk software.
But nothing is perfect, and neither is Zendesk. So customers start looking for Zendesk alternatives because of:
– difficult to implement integrations;
– complex setup;
– slow service;
– too high price.
If it bothers you too, we’ve reviewed the 17 best Zendesk alternatives with their features and pricing.
Dashly is the best alternative to Zendesk. This all-in-one conversational platform for SaaS and eCommerce organizations. Dashly may become a worthy alternative to Zendesk. It will fulfill the expectations of your sales, marketing, and support teams through the toolkit it provides. Also, Dashly offers one of the best chat software.
As promised, we’ll start with its chat features:
– analytics,
– chat widget,
– proactive chat invitation,
– mobile chat,
– in app chat.
Additional tools:
– Chat apps for web, WordPress, iPhone, Android, and Windows.
– There is a сhatbot to complement live chat.
– Team inbox to keep customer requests in one place.
– Knowledge base for self-service.
– Website visitors’ behavior tracking tool supplies your team with all the necessary data about a client.
– Dozens of integrations (Facebook, Instagram, Zoom, and so on).
– Pop-up builder.
– Analytics dashboard.
Website chat is a must-have tool to close more deals. Also, it will help you keep all the conversations from different channels in one place and improve customer experience. You’ll be able to launch marketing communications (pop-ups, emails, and others) and catch more prospects. Thanks to a chatbot platform, CRM, and other tools, you’ll boost sales and close deals faster. So, these and other features make Dashly software a good Zendesk alternative.
By the way, you can use Dashly tool without involving a developer. To set up, you need only to add the code block before the </head> tag. Regarding launching communications, there are numerous visual builders for all the tools — chatbot, chat, email, and pop-ups which you can create in two clicks.
Trial: 7 days, free plan: available.
As a Zendesk alternative, Dashly software offers a free plan that includes:
– chat for SaaS companies and eCommerce;
– one shared inbox;
– 30-day data history;
– two seats for agents;
– email replies to chat messages;
– 100 emails/month;
– canned responses to customers requests.
Note that you can use the free plan only if you have less than 1000 visitors/mo on your website. Otherwise, you can start on any paid plan. There are three plans starting from $39/mo. Each of the paid plans includes unlimited support agents seats.
The Support plan will suit you in case you search for the best Zendesk alternative software for customer service. It includes:
– chat for eCommerce and SaaS organizations with a shared inbox;
– integrations with communication tools and services;
– two chatbots;
– three targeted messages;
– user data collection;
– lead cards;
– automated conversation assignment;
– team performance report.
The Marketing plan will suit you if you want to use marketing tools such as online brochures, and boost lead generation. There are all the tools from the Conversation chat plan included, plus:
– customer satisfaction reports;
– targeted messages;
– A/B tests;
– funnels report;
– unlimited chat history;
– SEO settings, and other features.
Pros and cons
— Free plan and affordable pricing compared to Zendesk tool.
— An unlimited number of agent seats.
— 24/7 customer service.
— Detailed results on user tracking on website.
— Mobile apps (IOS, Android).
— Ability to work with leads that were inactive for 30 days.
— No AI.
— No Call and voice services.
Intercom is one of the most famous Zendesk alternatives and is usually associated with enterprise business. Intercom offers tools for support, sales, and marketing teams — this makes it one of the strongest Zendesk software competitors.
Intercom features
Many options make the Intercom tool an excellent alternative to Zendesk:
– chat, chatbot, team inbox, FAQs, and self-serve articles;
– automated follow-ups;
– personalized marketing campaigns using chatbots, banners, push notifications, mobile surveys, or email marketing;
– customer data collection, making segments, and sending messages to a particular group of customers;
– bots to automate sales workflows.
Pricing: from $74/mo
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Trial: available (14 days), no free plan.
Intercom is one of the most overpriced solutions that can be considered a Zendesk alternative.
To this customer engagement platform, customers have to choose from four plans: for small organizations (you can use this only in case there are less than 1000 website visitors per month on your website), for customer support, engagement, and sales. Customer support includes:
– chat and team inboxes;
– ticketing workflows;
– social media integrations;
– conversation routing bot and so on.
Pros and cons
— Integrates many communication channels into one.
— A lot of marketing instruments.
— User-friendly interface.
— Overpriced for small and growing organizations, so you can check out Intercom alternatives.
— Difficult to estimate the final cost, as too many parameters affect it.
— Poor customer service.
Zoho software is another Zendesk alternative. It offers all-in-one services for sales, marketing, support, and even HR and finance teams. Zoho will help in product adoption, client onboarding, and managing customer communication via chat, email, phone, social media, etc. Also, this alternative beats Zendesk by its cost. Zoho Desk software offers many apps and bundles so that each business will find something useful.
Zoho Desk features
– CRM, forms, surveys, and phone system integration;
– Marketing automation (forms, pop-ups, emails, visitors tracking) — lead generation, scoring, and customers nurturing;
– Integrations with dozens of communication channels (chat, email, social networks, etc.);
– Analytics.
Read more
Pricing: from $14/mo/agent
Paid monthly, Zoho’s plans start from $20. The free one includes:
– up to 3 agents;
– email tickets;
– knowledge base for customer support;
– default email templates.
To get advanced features, customers need to buy a standard plan, which starts from $14/mo/agent. Talking about the pricing, Zoho software is a worthy Zendesk competitor.
Pros and cons
— A huge number of features.
— A lot of seamless integrations.
— Pricing is more affordable than Zendesk’s one.
— Easy to implement.
— Bad UX.
— Ineffective customer support.
LiveChat is a platform that can also be considered a Zendesk alternative. This software enables customer support to chat with website visitors while sales and marketing teams capture emails from website visitors and nurture them. This tool suits SaaS organizations as well as eCommerce, EdTech, and FinTech teams that search for a Zendesk alternative.
Trial: available (14 days), no free plan.
The pricing will be affordable for organizations that search for Zendesk alternatives. Paid annually, the Starter begins from $16 ($19 if paid monthly). For this money, customers have:
– 60-day chat history,
– full channel support (except SMS and Apple Messages),
– basic chat customization.
To enable unlimited chat history, complete monitoring, and engagement toolset, choose the Team plan ($33/mo). The Business enables all the LiveChat features and costs $50/mo.
Pros and cons
— 45+ languages are supported.
— Auto greetings.
— Friendly interface.
— No spell-check.
— No free plan.
— Sometimes may work slowly, this sometimes makes customers look for LiveChat alternatives.
— No ability to see info about website visitors without clicking on it.
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Userlike software is an alternative to Zendesk with a very friendly and intuitive interface. It will help you combine chat and other customer communication channel messages in one window.
Userlike provides features for customer support only. Therefore, Userlike tool may become a Zendesk alternative only in case you’re searching for a customer communication platform:
Trial: available (14 days), free plan: available.
As a Zendesk alternative, Userlike software offers a free plan that includes:
The Team one enables:
– using up to four widgets;
– four agent seats;
– one messenger channel.
The Corporate enables analytics tools, video calls, and other features.
To use a chatbot, customers have to buy the Business plan, starting from $720/mo.
Pros and cons
Freshdesk tool is an all-in-one Zendesk competitor. This cloud-based customer service software combines tools for support, marketing, and sales teams. Freshdesk offers services for eCommerce, healthcare, SMB, and other organizations looking for a Zendesk alternative.
– chatbot;
– chat and team inbox;
– marketing automation (includes automated task assignment, follow-ups, event-based triggers, and so on);
– knowledge base;
– canned response suggested;
– multichannel support (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and so on);
– custom reports and dashboards.
Trial: available (21 days), free plan: available. As a Zendesk alternative, Freshdesk offers three paid plans: Free, Growth, and Pro.
The free plan includes:
– chat,
– reports,
– knowledge base, and so on.
The Growth additionally includes:
– automation tools,
– time tracking,
– integrations, and other vital support tools.
The Pro adds:
– surveys,
– customer service,
– multilingual knowledge base and other tools.
Finally, the Enterprise plan includes all the features listed.
Pros and cons
— Workflow automation.
— The long free trial period.
— Suitable for different business types.
— AI and chatbots are available only on the Enterprise plan.
— Limited integrations — you might need a developer.
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Tawk.to is a customer communication platform that can become a worthy Zendesk alternative. It combines chat, chat pages, and a knowledge base and helps organizations of all sizes connect with visitors and improve the customer experience for free.
– chat translated into 45 languages;
– shortcuts;
– tracking and reports to correct your customer engagement strategy;
– website visitors monitoring;
– chat pages that can substitute for landing pages;
– SEO-optimized knowledge base;
– the ability to hire a virtual assistant or chat agent.
What makes Tawk.to a good alternative to Zendesk is that it’s absolutely free. Hiring a chat agent costs $1/hour while hiring a virtual assistant from $7/hour.
Pros and cons
— Absolutely free.
— Easy to install.
— Ability to hire agents or virtual assistants.
— Notifications are inconsistent, so you can miss some messages.
— Unfriendly user interface.
— No branding removal.
LiveAgent is one of the alternatives to Zendesk that provides a personalized customer experience with a ticketing system. LiveAgent will help you start a chat (via a website and other communication channels), build a call center and knowledge base.
The platform is ideal for customer support teams in small and medium-sized organizations.
– Live-chat with a ticketing system;
– team effectiveness reports and advanced analytics;
– call center and video calls;
– proactive messages that will invite more website visitors to chat;
– customer satisfaction reports.
Trial: available (14 days), free plan: available.
LiveAgent offers four plans.
The Free one allows customers to:
– use one livechat with a ticketing system;
– use a phone number and email;
– create basic reports.
The Ticket includes:
The Ticket+Chat adds to the features below some others:
The All-inclusive includes all the LiveAgent features.
Pros and cons of LiveChat as one of Zendesk alternatives
— The free plan.
— Customizable design.
— Helpful customers support.
— Unfriendly UX.
— Glitches regarding some fonts and images.
HubSpot is an all-in-one alternative Zendesk CRM platform that includes Support, Marketing, and Sales tools. You’ll find everything to automate business processes. The biggest advantage for customers is that all the tools are under one roof. So if you’d like to use not only support features but also marketing or sales, it would be easy to start doing it.
This is one of the strongest Zendesk competitors that suits all-size organizations.
HubSpot offers these customer support features:
Also, there are a lot of marketing and sales tools (such as email marketing, marketing automation, meetings scheduler, and others). You can launch not only customer support but start marketing campaigns and boost customer experience using HubSpot tools.
Trial: not available.
Free plan: available.
This alternative to Zendesk offers organizations four plans.
The Free includes:
The Starter enables:
The Professional also includes:
– help desk automation (such as chat assignments, repetitive emails, and so on)
– knowledge base
– customer feedback collection, and other features.
The Professional starts from $450 and includes up to 5 five agents.
Finally, the Enterprise allows:
– building hierarchical teams
– setting team goals
– using AI
– library (Playbooks), and other features.
This plan starts from $1,200/mo and includes ten agents’ seats.
Pros and cons as one of Zendesk alternatives
— A lot of tools are combined into one platform.
— AI and Chatbot. Automation of many processes.
— Poor customer experience with pricing.
— Difficult to install.
— Reporting is limited and hard to interpret.
Help Scout is one of the best Zendesk alternative for small organizations. This help desk solution was developed to build the best customer communications in SaaS, eCommerce, Education, Healthcare, or Finance companies.
Trial: available (15 days), no free plan.
Compared to Zendesk, Help Scout is a very affordable alternative. There are three plans. The first one starts from $20/mo and includes:
The Plus starts from $35/mo/user and includes:
The Company starts from $60/mo/user and offers:
Pros and cons as one of Zendesk alternatives
— Friendly UX.
— Responsive customer support team.
— Easy to onboard new agents.
— No features for proactive customer support.
— No message scheduling.
HappyFox is an all-in-one ticketing system that can be considered one of Zendesk alternatives. This provides multichannel support and integrates with vital business services for accounting, CRM, customer feedback collection, commerce, etc. This is the best Zendesk alternative for small and middle-sized SaaS companies.
Free trial: available after a demo, no free plan.
As a Zendesk alternative, HappyFox starts from $27 if you make a three-year contract. There are four plans. Each one requires at least five agents.
The Mighty includes:
The Fantastic additionally allows you to use:
The Enterprise is more about management, so this also includes:
The Enterprise includes all the HappyFox features.
Also, HappyFox allows having an unlimited number of agents — the price starting from $1499/mo.
Pros and cons one of Zendesk alternatives
— User-friendly UX.
— Real-time data collection.
— Helpful customer support team.
— Sometimes code errors appear.
— Difficult to implement.
— No custom fields in reports.
— Five agents minimum in each pricing.
— The pricing may come unaffordable for startups.
This is another competitor that helps provide instant communication with website visitors. Using this customer support software as Zendesk alternative, you will be able to provide multichannel customer support, service, and boost sales using such tools as live chat, canned responses, customers actions monitoring, and others. The solution will suit small- and middle-sized organizations.
Free trial: available (14 days), free version: available. As a Zendesk alternative, Crisp offers three plans: Basic, Pro, and Unlimited.
The Basic one is free. It includes:
Starting from the Pro, you can also use:
Finally, the Unlimited enables using all the Crisp features, including:
Pros and cons of Dashly as a Zendesk alternative
— Easy to set up and integrate with other apps.
— Chatbot and built-in messages translator.
— The ability to preview what customers type.
— Sometimes mobile apps crash, and the live chat widget doesn’t load.
— A chatbot is available only on the Unlimited plan.
— Integrations don’t always work well.
This alternative to Zendesk will help you make a connection between customer information, support channels, and your support team. As a Zendesk alternative, Kayako service suits businesses of all sizes and all types, especially eCommerce.
Kayako features as a Zendesk alternative
Pricing: from $30/agent/mo
Free trial: available (14 days), no free plan.
To use this Zendesk alternative, you’ll have to choose from two plans: Growth and Scale. The Growth includes:
The pricing starts from $30/agent/mo. The Scale costs $60/mo/agent and offers all the Kayako features.
Pros and cons of Kayako as a Zendesk alternative
— Email folders.
— Nice design and UX, easy to use.
— This tool is the best way to collect emails.
— Expensive plan if you have only one agent.
— No ability to format text (underline, bold, etc.) in emails.
— Long time without significant platform updates.
Front is one of alternatives to Zendesk for support and success service. This competitor will be ideal for SaaS companies that search for an alternative to Zendesk and strive to provide a faster, more accurate, and personalized customer experience.
Front service features as a Zendesk alternative
Pricing: from $19/mo/agent
Free trial: not available, no free plan.
As a Zendesk alternative, Front offers three plans: Starter, Prime, and Enterprise.
Using the Starter, you’ll be able to use:
You’ll need to buy Prime to get CRM integration and analytics, starting from $49/mo. The enterprise includes all the Front features and costs $99/mo which is similar to Zendesk prices.
Pros and cons of Front customer service software as a Zendesk alternative
— Incredible support team.
— Ability to collaborate with teammates on emails.
— Tags and filters system.
— No free trial.
— Unable to edit sent messages.
— A few integrations.
Read also: how to find respondents for a survey or customer interview
Groove is a sales engagement service designed for Salesforce enterprise businesses. As a Zendesk alternative, this will boost sales by building communication with customers and providing key info about them. There are over 70 000 companies that chose Groove (including Google, Uber, Atlassian, and other businesses) among numerous competitors.
Groove service features as a Zendesk alternative
Free trial: available (14 days), no free plan.
To find this alternative solution to Zendesk pricing, you need to have a demo with the Groove team.
But here is what we found on the web. Some people say that the basic price per customer is $12/mo. However, it is $22 for a business.
Pros and cons of Groove service as a Zendesk alternative
— Easy to use.
— Native to Salesforce.
— Flows for prospects’ engagement.
— No pricing in free access.
— Bugs sometimes appear (broken integration, difficulties with templates, lost connections, etc.)
Read also: The North Star Metric and How Can This Lead to Success
This is a customer support platform that may be considered a Zendesk alternative. This competitor is easy to use and set up and will suit small businesses (eCommerce and SaaS) that search for a cheaper Zendesk alternative.
– Live chat
– Shared inbox
– CRM
– Knowledge base
– Integrations (including Slack, WooCommerce, Asana, HubSpot, Trello, and so on).
Free trial: available (14 days), no free plan.
As a Zendesk alternative, ThriveDeak competitor offers two plans: Starter and Pro.
The Starter costs $20 and includes:
– 3 mailboxes
– up to 5 users
– assignments
– mentions
– all the integrations
– reports.
The Pro includes:
– unlimited number of agents
– up to 5 mailboxes
– access to API
– dedicated success manager
– all other tools are included in the Starter.
Pros and cons of ThriveDeak as a Zendesk alternative
— Affordable pricing.
— Easy to configure.
— Many features are still under development.
— A few integrations.
— Unfriendly UI.
Read also: Find out the best Intercom alternatives and Drift alternative
This is a minimalistic tool for inbox optimization. If you’ve been searching for the best Zendesk alternative that will combine all the communication channels in one place, SmartInbox is a good Zendesk alternative. This competitor will suit support teams in small online shops.
– Customer communication channels integrations (FB, Instagram, WhatsApp, inbox);
– AI for replies suggestions;
– Team inbox;
– CRM;
– customer cards with the essential data.
Pricing: from $9/mo
Free trial: available (14 days), no free plan. As a Zendesk alternative, SmartInbox competitor provides only one plan which includes all the listed features. It’s very convenient to choose from one plan, isn’t it? 🙂
Pros and cons of SmartInbox as a Zendesk alternative
— The pricing is very affordable.
— AI.
— A limited number of features.
Here in the table, you can see which features are available on each of competitors platform:
Chabot | Free plan | Unlim. seats | AI | KB | Mark. tools | |
Zendesk | yes | no | no | yes | yes | no |
Dashly | yes | yes | yes | no | yes | yes |
Intercom | yes | no | no | yes | yes | yes |
Zoho Desk | yes | yes | no | no | yes | yes |
LiveChat | yes | no | no | yes | yes | yes |
Userlike | yes | yes | no | no | no | no |
Freshdesk | yes | yes | no | yes | yes | yes |
Tawk.to | no | yes | no | no | yes | no |
LiveAgent | no | no | no | no | yes | no |
HubSpot | yes | yes | no | yes | yes | yes |
HelpScout | no | no | yes | no | yes | no |
HappyFox | no | no | yes | yes | yes | no |
Crisp | yes | yes | no | yes | yes | no |
Kayako | no | no | no | no | yes | no |
Front | yes | no | no | no | no | no |
Groove | no | no | no | yes | no | yes |
ThriveDesk | no | no | no | no | yes | no |
SmartInbox | no | no | no | yes | no | no |
Too many competitors? Don’t know what to choose? Our experts will help 👇
FAQ
Zendesk is a Support suite that allows you to have conversations on different channels (including social networks, email, and so on). Also, this includes sales tools, such as pipelines and meeting schedules.
Compared to competitors, Zendesk is a relatively expensive tool. Also, it is claimed that it’s difficult to configure integrations, and customer support isn’t very helpful. However, there are a lot of alternative solutions, for example, Dashly.
There are several tools that you need to pay attention to when testing Zendesk competitors:
— Chatbot — this will help you automate answers to frequently asked questions;
— AI will offload both support and sales teams;
— Knowledge base;
— Marketing tools to enable prospects acquisition;
— Sales tools to nurture more leads.
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