Crisp vs Zoho Desk
A side-by-side comparison of Crisp and Zoho Desk on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
12 of the 50 capabilities tracked on both differ, mostly in Channels and AI resolution. Crisp starts at Free, then $45/mo, Zoho Desk at Free, then $7/seat/mo.
| Measure | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Free, then $45/mo | Free, then $7/seat/mo |
| Charged per | The workspace | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | Hugo credit allowance, no rate published | API credit allowance, no rate published |
| Included, where the other says no | 8 capabilities | 3 capabilities |
Capability by capability
12 of the 50 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| IncludedMini $45 and above. The shared email inbox and a custom email domain are the headline Mini upgrade; Free has no email channel. | IncludedAll editions, including the three-user free plan | |
| Live chat | IncludedAll plans including Free. The chat widget and contact form are the only two channels on Free. | IncludedBusiness messaging widget from Standard. Zoho SalesIQ live chat is an Enterprise bullet. |
| In-app messenger | IncludedAll plans. Chat SDKs, live typing preview and typing indicators are on every tier; widget customization and proactive chat messages start at Mini; the help widget starts at Essentials; removing the "We run on Crisp" watermark needs Plus. | Not published |
| Voice | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. "Answer phone calls and trigger outbound calls right from Crisp." | IncludedTelephony from Professional. Multi-level IVR is Enterprise. |
| SMS | IncludedEssentials $95 and above, alongside Viber and Line. | Not published |
| IncludedEssentials $95 and above, as WhatsApp Business. One WhatsApp connection per workspace: "One and only one of each, except emails, can be centralized in one workspace. You can connect more by subscribing to higher limits." | IncludedStandard and above, in the instant messaging module | |
| Instagram / Facebook | IncludedSplit across two tiers. Facebook Messenger arrives at Mini $45, Instagram Direct at Essentials $95. | IncludedSocial module from Express; Instagram and Messenger as instant messaging channels from Standard |
| X / Twitter | IncludedMini $45 and above. | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Slack Connect | Not publishedSlack is an integration ("reply straight from your Slack Workspace") rather than a channel. Whether that covers Slack Connect shared channels, which is what a B2B support team needs, is not stated. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Microsoft Teams | NoNot a channel. The Channels block enumerates chat widget, contact form, email, Telegram, Messenger, X, Instagram, SMS, Viber, phone, Line and WhatsApp Business. Microsoft Teams is absent from that list, and Slack appears only under Integrations rather than as an inbox channel. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Community forum | NoNo community product. The Help Center section covers articles, categories, search, feedback, a custom domain and SEO metadata, and offers no forum, member profiles or moderation. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Video | IncludedEssentials $95 and above, as video and audio chat inside the widget. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Co-browsing | IncludedEssentials $95 and above, published as MagicBrowse. Crisp documents it as passive, scoped to your own site and covered by privacy controls. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
Ticketing
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | IncludedAll plans. Sub-inboxes are the part that is gated: 0 on Free and Mini, 2 on Essentials, 5 on Plus. | Not published |
| Ticket queues | IncludedTwo separate things. Sub-inboxes start at Essentials $95 (2, rising to 5 on Plus). The ticketing system with a customer portal, where customers open and follow requests, is Plus $295 only. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| SLA policies | IncludedEnterprise only, listed on the plan card as "Personalized SLA" alongside custom onboarding. No SLA policy engine appears on Free, Mini, Essentials or Plus. | Not published |
| Business hours | IncludedAll plans including Free. | Not published |
| Macros / saved replies | IncludedMini $45 and above, published as canned responses and managed as message shortcuts. Import and export both run on CSV. | Not published |
| Merge & split | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Side conversations | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Custom fields | IncludedAll plans, as custom attributes on customer profiles. Customer segmentation, smart filters and profile notes start at Mini; lifecycle tracking and timeline activity at Essentials. | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Custom objects | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Ticket forms | Not published | IncludedExpress and above. |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Skills-based routing | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Round-robin assignment | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. "Assign conversations automatically to available agents in a fair, rotating manner." | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Triggers | IncludedMini $45 and above for chat triggers on visitor behaviour. Keyword, CRM-based and AI-based triggers belong to the workflow builder at Essentials and Plus. | Not published |
| Workflow builder | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. Conditional flows, custom input fields, webhook actions, iframes and API automation are all on this tier; unlimited chatbot templates and AI-based triggers need Plus. | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Escalation rules | Not publishedNot published as a row. The Workflow section carries keyword, CRM and AI-based triggers plus conditional flows, which could implement an escalation, but no escalation rule is named as a capability. | IncludedExpress and above. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedHugo, the AI agent, from Mini $45 upward. Metered against the plan's USD credit allowance rather than sold per resolution, and it stops rather than overspending unless Pay-As-You-Go is enabled. | IncludedExpress and above. Bring your own key or use Zoho's LLM, with up to 30M tokens a month free. |
| Resolution over knowledge base | Not published | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Action-taking (API calls) | IncludedHugo integrations and the MCP server start at Essentials $95; unlimited task automations, which connect the agent to third-party tools, are Plus $295. Crisp describes order and account lookup and refunds as in-scope actions. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Handoff to human | IncludedBuilt into the billing model as well as the product: when credits run out, "New conversations are escalated to human operators until credits reset or additional usage is enabled." Hugo routing also escalates by situation. | Not publishedThe Answer bot and AI Agents are described by what they answer, not by what they do when they cannot. |
| Multilingual AI | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. LiveTranslate covers over 50 languages on any channel. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
AI assist
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | IncludedEssentials $95 and above, as the AI writing assistant and the internal Hugo Copilot. Copilot output consumes Hugo credits. | IncludedExpress and above, but you bring the model: connect your own OpenAI or DeepSeek key. Zoho meters no per-use AI price because the inference is billed by whoever holds the key. |
| Tone rewrite | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Summarization | IncludedConversation summary is a Plus $295 row in the compare table, though Copilot-generated summaries are documented from Essentials and consume credits. | IncludedExpress and above, but you bring the model: connect your own OpenAI or DeepSeek key. Zoho meters no per-use AI price because the inference is billed by whoever holds the key. |
| Translation | IncludedEssentials $95 and above, as LiveTranslate. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Next-best-action | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Auto-tagging | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. Hugo Topics classify conversations by intent and a single conversation can match several. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Sentiment analysis | Not published | IncludedExpress and above, but you bring the model: connect your own OpenAI or DeepSeek key. Zoho meters no per-use AI price because the inference is billed by whoever holds the key. |
AI voice
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | Not publishedNot established. The AI Agent resolves conversations end-to-end and phone is a supported channel, but nothing states that the agent answers calls, and Crisp does not publish a voice-specific AI surface. | NoNot on any edition. Telephony arrives on Professional and a multi-level IVR on Enterprise, both of them conventional, with no AI layer over the call. |
| IVR replacement | NoNo IVR. Phone is a channel on every plan and the voice feature set stops at answering calls, triggering outbound ones and transcribing recordings. No phone tree, queue or routing menu appears anywhere in the comparison. | NoNot on any edition. Telephony arrives on Professional and a multi-level IVR on Enterprise, both of them conventional, with no AI layer over the call. |
| Real-time transcription | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. "Get immediate voice-to-text transcription for every audio message or recorded phone calls." | NoNot on any edition. Telephony arrives on Professional and a multi-level IVR on Enterprise, both of them conventional, with no AI layer over the call. |
| Call summarization | Not published | NoNot on any edition. Telephony arrives on Professional and a multi-level IVR on Enterprise, both of them conventional, with no AI layer over the call. |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. "The Knowledge Base feature is available on Crisp Essentials and Crisp Plus plans." Articles are written in Markdown. | IncludedKnowledge base and ASAP self-service widget from Standard |
| Custom domain | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. Defaults to a Crisp-hosted domain such as acme.crisp.help; a custom help.acme.com can be configured. | IncludedExpress and above |
| Multi-brand | Not publishedNot stated. Sub-inboxes are capped at 0, 0, 2 and 5 across the plans, but nothing says whether each carries its own help centre. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Versioning | NoNo versioning. The Help Center section enumerates articles and categories, customisation, multilingual content, the SDK, search, article feedback, a custom domain and sitemap metadata. Revision history, drafts and rollback are not among them. | Not published |
| Localization | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. Languages are added per knowledge base and "Articles are not translated automatically, so each language should be reviewed and localized manually." | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| In-product widget | IncludedAll plans, twice over: a help widget that surfaces answers inside the site, and a help centre SDK for embedding it anywhere. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| SEO controls | IncludedEssentials $95 and above, published as sitemap and SEO meta data. | Not published |
| AI answers over KB | IncludedEssentials $95 and above for AI-generated answers and AI knowledge training. Customer-facing AI-powered site search is Plus $295. | IncludedStandard and above. |
Self-service
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot flows | IncludedEssentials $95 and above, as the no-code AI chatbot builder. Scenario drafts let flows be tested before going live. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Order lookup | IncludedThe Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce and PrestaShop integrations are checked on all four plans including Free. Letting Hugo perform the lookup needs the integrations and MCP server at Essentials $95. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Returns / RMA | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Account actions | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation QA scoring | NoNo quality management of any kind. Crisp's plan comparison enumerates twelve feature sections and none covers scoring, reviewing or grading conversations. It is an inbox, and measuring the work done in it is somebody else's product. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Automated QA coverage | NoNo automated scoring. The Artificial intelligence section is substantial (AI agent, knowledge training, copilot, multilingual, auto-tagging, spam filter, conversation summary) and every entry in it faces the customer or assists the agent. None of it evaluates the agent. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Calibration | NoNo calibration. Follows from there being no scorecard to calibrate against. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Agent scorecards | NoNo agent scorecards. The Analytics section covers prebuilt analytics, data export, custom dashboards and API access, and reports on conversations and operator activity rather than scoring individuals against a rubric. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Forecasting | NoNo workforce management. Nothing in the feature comparison forecasts contact volume, and the only capacity-shaped control is the agent count bundled into each plan. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Scheduling | NoNo shift scheduling. "Working hours settings" defines when the business is open so responses can be automated outside them, which sets expectations rather than rostering anyone. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Adherence tracking | NoNo adherence tracking, which follows from there being no schedule to measure against. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
Reporting
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | IncludedEssentials $95 and above. Custom dashboards and API analytics are on the same tier; advanced analytics is a separate Plus row. | Not published |
| Custom reports | IncludedEssentials $95 and above for custom dashboards, which export and re-import as .json. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Raw data export | API onlyContacts are the exception with a real CSV export, and it starts at Essentials $95. Everything else is the API: "Conversation data cannot be exported as a native CSV from the Crisp dashboard at the moment." Analytics CSV covers report data, not messages. | IncludedModule export is self-serve on all editions, capped at 50,000 records per export. Attachment-inclusive Data Backup is Standard and above, one full backup per month. |
| CSAT / NPS | IncludedEssentials $95 and above, as conversation ratings. Free and Mini cannot collect them. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Real-time reporting | NoNo live dashboard. Analytics covers prebuilt reports, data export, custom dashboards and API access. The only real-time surface in the product is the live geolocation map of current site visitors, which is a visitor view rather than an operations one. | Not published |
Collaboration
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Internal notes | IncludedMini $45 and above. Private notes and mentions are absent from Free. | Not published |
| @mentions | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Assignment | IncludedRound-robin routing and routing rules start at Essentials $95. Free and Mini have no automatic assignment. | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Collision detection | Not publishedNot published. Live typing preview and typing status indicators exist for the customer-facing conversation; nothing states whether two operators opening the same conversation are warned about each other. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Approvals | NoNo approval workflow. Nothing in the comparison routes a reply or a change through a reviewer before it goes out. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
Enterprise
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | NoNot offered as far as Crisp publishes. The pricing page's Data & Security section enumerates five items, two-factor authentication, EU hosting, a data processing agreement, TLS encryption and data replication, and SSO is not among them. Neither the help center nor the developer hub documents SAML, OIDC or an identity provider connection anywhere, and 2FA is the only authentication article. Third-party pages claiming Crisp SSO refer either to a different company (gocrisp.com) or to external broker services. | Not publishedThe matrix publishes SAML single sign-on for the help center (end users, Standard and above) and federated login, but has no row for agent-side SAML. Zoho handles agent identity at the Zoho Directory layer, outside this page. |
| Role-based access control | IncludedTwo fixed roles. The terms name "the relevant Workspace role of 'Workspace Member' or 'Workspace Owner'", and operators and teams are managed under Workspace Settings. No plan gate is published. | Not published |
| Custom roles | NoCrisp publishes a two-role model, Workspace Member and Workspace Owner, and no mechanism for defining additional roles or per-permission grants on any plan, including Plus and the sales-gated Enterprise tier. | IncludedFree and Express get default non-editable profiles. Standard 5 profiles and roles, Professional 25 and 25, Enterprise 50 profiles and 250 roles. |
| Audit logs | Not publishedNo audit log feature appears in the compare table, the help center or the REST API reference. Crisp publishes internal access logging for its own staff ("different permission levels, access logs, TOTP, rate-limits and safety checks") but nothing customer-facing. | IncludedEnterprise only. Unavailable on all four cheaper editions. |
| Sandbox environment | Not publishedNo test workspace is listed. The Workflow section offers "Scenario drafts" for rehearsing chatbot flows before going live, which covers the automation rather than the workspace. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Multi-brand | IncludedGated by count, as sub-inboxes: 0 on Free, 0 on Mini, 2 on Essentials and 5 on Plus. A second brand is the reason to leave the $45 plan. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| SOC 2 | NoExplicitly denied by the vendor rather than merely unclaimed: "Please note that Crisp hasn't been over any SOC2 audit but we wish to show we are fully compliant with these specific needs." The article walks the five trust service principles as a self-assessment. No auditor, report or bridge letter is published. | IncludedNot plan-gated. SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II attested at datacenter level for the US, Canada, Japan, UAE and Singapore facilities. |
| ISO 27001 | Not publishedCrisp publishes an ISO 27001 article that claims alignment, not certification: "Crisp is committed to aligning with ISO 27001 standards and we wish to show we are fully compliant with these specific requirements." It names no accredited certification body, certificate number or scope statement, and unlike the SOC 2 article it does not state whether an audit happened. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Listed for every datacenter region. |
| GDPR | IncludedAll plans including Free. A data processing agreement is a checked row on every tier. Crisp is the customer's processor, names a DPO at dpo@crisp.chat, answers data subject requests within a week against the GDPR's one-month limit, and its supervisory authority is the French CNIL. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Desk publishes anonymisation of agent and customer records as outlined in the GDPR. |
| Data residency | IncludedEU on every plan, Free included, and fixed rather than selectable. "All Crisp data is held on servers hosted in the European Union. Our Messaging data is stored in The Netherlands and our Plugin data is stored in Germany." Servers are DigitalOcean's EU subsidiary. Relay servers in the US, UK and Singapore reduce latency and "do not store any data except connection logs (IP address, date of connection, user-agent and source website)". No non-EU region is offered and none is planned. Sub-processors are Cloudflare, DigitalOcean and Stripe, with AI running on Mirage, Crisp's own service. | IncludedNot plan-gated, but fixed at signup: "Based on the country chosen there, the corresponding datacenter is chosen for your account." Nine regions (US, Europe, India, Australia, Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore) plus China on a separate datacenter. |
| Data retention policy | IncludedUnlimited data retention and full conversation history start at Mini $45; Free has neither. Crisp's own backups are GPG-encrypted and "retained for a maximum of 1 week". | Not published |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | IncludedNot plan-gated, and offered free to paid and free workspaces alike. "Crisp has set out to reply to all access requests (positively or negatively or when we must forward the request) under 1 week." End-user requests are referred back to the customer as controller. | Not published |
Developer
| Capability | Crisp | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedDeveloper APIs are checked on all four plans including Free. Tokens come in user, website and plugin tiers with per-scope permissions. | IncludedAll editions, budgeted in daily credits rather than a call rate. Free 5,000 credits per 24 hours. |
| Webhooks | IncludedWebhook actions inside workflows start at Essentials $95. The developer platform also carries its own webhook and plugin event system. | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| SDKs | IncludedAll plans. JavaScript web SDK plus published iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter chat SDKs, and a help center SDK from Essentials. | Not published |
| App framework | IncludedA plugin marketplace with plugin tokens, scoped permissions and per-plugin daily quotas. Third-party plugins include Jira Service Management, Briskport, IsDown and ChargeDesk. The 100+ integrations row is a Plus line item. | Not published |
| Published rate limits | IncludedPublished in structure, thin on numbers. Four limiters are named with their classifiers and tiers, and one figure is given: website tokens are "Limited to 10,000 requests per day". The load balancer, API Global and API Route limits carry no published values, and plugin quota increases are requested through the Marketplace, so an API-only conversation export cannot be planned against a fully known ceiling. | IncludedPer-edition daily credit budgets are published, along with a 50-record cap per request. The separate per-edition concurrency limit is acknowledged but its value is not published. |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What Crisp costs
$45/month
4 published plans, billed monthly- Billing unit
$45 a month for the workspace - Free tier
Yes - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
Hugo credit - Human handoff
Still billed - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Partial
3 of 9 not published by Crisp, checked
What Zoho Desk costs
$7/seat/month
5 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
Per agent seat - Free tier
Yes - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
API credit - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Not offered
4 of 9 not published by Zoho Desk, checked