Help Scout vs Zendesk
A side-by-side comparison of Help Scout and Zendesk on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
25 of the 55 capabilities tracked on both differ, mostly in QA & workforce and AI assist. Help Scout starts at Free, then $25/seat/mo, Zendesk at $19/seat/mo.
| Measure | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Free, then $25/seat/mo | $19/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | $0.75 per AI resolution | $1.50 per AI resolution |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 10 capabilities |
Capability by capability
25 of the 55 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| IncludedAll plans, including Free | Included | |
| Live chat | IncludedStandard and above. Not on Free. | IncludedSuite Team and above; Support Team is email ticketing only |
| In-app messenger | Not published | IncludedWeb widget and the iOS, Android and Unity SDKs are on every plan; the live conversation behind them is not. Messaging and live chat start at Suite Team, so on Support Team the widget submits a ticket rather than opening a chat. |
| Voice | Paid add-onAircall add-on on Standard and Plus; preferred Aircall pricing on Pro. Help Scout publishes no price for it. | Paid add-onContact Center add-on, $83/agent/mo. Not available on Support Team. |
| SMS | IncludedStandard and above, listed alongside live chat. | Paid add-onAn add-on from Suite Team. The "Text messages" row is unavailable on Support Team and an add-on on Suite Team and Suite Professional, with "Additional fees apply". Inbound texts create tickets automatically. |
| IncludedStandard and above. | IncludedSuite Team and above, listed among the messaging apps in the social and business channels row, with additional fees. | |
| Instagram / Facebook | IncludedStandard and above. Instagram and Messenger. | IncludedSuite Team and above, inside one "Social and business channels" row covering Facebook, Instagram and X alongside WhatsApp, Slack, WeChat and LINE. Unavailable on Support Team, and the row carries "Additional fees apply". |
| X / Twitter | Not published | IncludedSuite Team and above, same social row, with a published cap: "With Zendesk Suite, you can add up to five X handles. Additional fees apply." |
| Community forum | Not published | IncludedSuite Professional only. The whole community forums block (user profiles, integrated search, similar posts, escalate posts to tickets, moderator groups, moderation queue, AI spam protection, user badges) is unavailable on both cheaper plans. |
Ticketing
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | IncludedAll plans. Free 1 Inbox; Standard 2, Plus 5, Pro 10 included, extras at $10/mo annual. | IncludedAll plans. The unified agent workspace is the one row in its block available on Support Team. |
| Ticket queues | IncludedStandard $25 a user and above. Not on Free. | IncludedAll plans, as "Custom & group views": collections of tickets by status, assignee, group or condition, with pre-configured views shipped. |
| SLA policies | IncludedOne basic SLA on Standard, two advanced on Plus, unlimited on Pro. None on Free. | Not published |
| Business hours | IncludedStandard $25 a user and above. Not on Free. | IncludedSuite Professional only, and only one schedule: the row reads "Single" there and is unavailable on the two cheaper plans. Multiple schedules are not offered on any publicly priced plan. |
| Macros / saved replies | IncludedSaved replies on all plans. Free caps at 10, paid plans unlimited. | IncludedAll plans. Pre-defined responses (macros) are available on every tier. AI-suggested macros are a separate row and sit behind the Copilot add-on at Suite Professional. |
| Side conversations | NoNot on any plan. The matrix has no row for a conversation held beside the customer thread. | IncludedSuite Professional only. Loops teammates in by email or Slack with the thread linked back to the ticket. |
| Custom fields | IncludedPlus and Pro. | IncludedAll plans, for both user and organization fields, with workflows buildable on them. |
| Custom objects | NoNot on any plan. Custom fields cap at 10 a conversation and customer properties at 50, which are fields rather than objects. | IncludedGated by count: unavailable on Support Team, up to 3 objects with 5 lookup fields each on Suite Team, up to 30 objects with 10 lookup fields on Suite Professional. |
| Ticket forms | IncludedEvery plan including Free. | IncludedSuite Professional only. Multiple ticket forms and conditional ticket fields are both unavailable on Support Team and Suite Team. |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Skills-based routing | NoNot on any plan. Routing is round robin on Plus $45 and load balanced on Pro $75, neither of which reads a skill. | IncludedSuite Professional only, and listed twice (under messaging and under workflows), unavailable on both cheaper plans. This is one of the three capabilities the vendor's own upgrade path leans on. |
| Round-robin assignment | IncludedPlus and Pro. | Not publishedNot published. Routing is described by agent status, capacity, skill and priority; round-robin is not named as a distribution method anywhere in the matrix. |
| Load balancing | IncludedPro only, listed as multiple routing types. | IncludedAll plans, but the basis changes: conversation routing runs "Based on agent status and capacity" on Support Team and Suite Team, and adds skill and ticket priority at Suite Professional. |
| Triggers | IncludedStandard $25 a user and above. Not on Free. | IncludedAll plans. Triggers run on ticket create or update; time-based automations sit in the same row set, both shipped pre-configured. |
| Workflow builder | Included150 basic workflows on Standard, 500 advanced on Plus, unlimited on Pro. None on Free. | IncludedAll plans as Action builder, metered rather than gated: up to 40K actions a month on Support Team and Suite Team, 100K on Suite Professional, with extra credits at $200 per 100K actions per subscription term. |
| Escalation rules | IncludedStandard $25 a user and above. Not on Free. | Not published |
AI resolution
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | Paid add-onAI Answers add-on at $0.75 a resolution, on Standard $25 and above. Three months free from signup and a monthly spend cap that switches it off rather than overrunning. | IncludedAll plans, with the allowance stepping 5, 5 and 10 automated resolutions per agent per month and a hard ceiling of 10,000 a year. Beyond that, $1.50 per AR committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. |
| Resolution over knowledge base | Paid add-onAI Answers add-on at $0.75 a resolution, on Standard $25 and above. Three months free from signup and a monthly spend cap that switches it off rather than overrunning. | IncludedAll plans. Generative search answers from the knowledge base at the top of help centre results, and the AI agent resolves against the same connected knowledge. |
| Action-taking (API calls) | NoNot on any plan. AI Answers is described as answering, never as doing. | IncludedAll plans through Action builder, which automates "multi-step action flows across Zendesk and third-party systems" with prebuilt connectors. Copilot's Auto assist can additionally "take approved actions across systems", but that is a Suite Professional add-on. |
| Handoff to human | Paid add-onAI Answers add-on at $0.75 a resolution, on Standard $25 and above. Three months free from signup and a monthly spend cap that switches it off rather than overrunning. | Not published |
| Multilingual AI | Not publishedAI Assist translates agent text; the page does not say whether AI Answers replies in the customer's language. | IncludedAll plans: "Automatically translate AI agent responses into 80+ supported languages". The agent-facing UI is separately localised into 28 languages. |
AI assist
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | IncludedPlus $45 a user and above. | Paid add-onCopilot add-on at $50 per agent per month, and only from Suite Professional: suggested first replies are unavailable on the two cheaper plans. |
| Tone rewrite | IncludedStandard $25 a user and above. Not on Free. | Paid add-onCopilot. "Rewrite in Your Tone" and "Communication guidelines" are both Add-on at Suite Professional. Basic writing tools are included there at 5 uses per agent per month, pooled across the team and capped at 500 per instance. |
| Summarization | IncludedPlus $45 a user and above. | Paid add-onCopilot writing tools and ticket summaries at Suite Professional, metered at 5 uses per agent per month, pooled: "10 agents = 50 total uses", capped at 500 a month however large the team. |
| Translation | IncludedStandard $25 a user and above. Not on Free. | IncludedSuite Team and above. Conversations are auto-translated in the dashboard via Google Translate, and knowledge base articles have a generative translate action. |
| Next-best-action | NoNot on any plan. The four AI rows are Assist, Drafts, Summarize and Answers. | Paid add-onCopilot's Auto assist, an add-on at Suite Professional and unavailable below it: proactive guidance that "suggests next steps, drafts accurate responses grounded in your procedures and knowledge" and walks agents through complex workflows. |
| Auto-tagging | NoNot on any plan. Tags are unlimited on paid tiers and applied by hand or by a workflow. | Paid add-onIntelligent triage at Suite Professional, and only partly even there: the row gives "Classifications only" and is unavailable on the two cheaper plans, with the triage dashboard unavailable on all three. |
| Sentiment analysis | NoNot on any plan. Not among the four AI rows. | Not publishedNot published. Intelligent triage is described as classifying "what customers need and why" without naming sentiment as an output, and no sentiment row exists in the matrix. |
AI voice
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | NoNot on any plan. The matrix lists phone and voice as "via integration" on every tier, which is Aircall billed separately, so there is no voice layer to put AI on. | IncludedAI agents run on voice, and the billing documentation is where that is confirmed: the automated-resolution tiers article defines the end of a voice conversation as "immediately upon hangup", alongside email and messaging. |
| IVR replacement | NoNot on any plan. The matrix lists phone and voice as "via integration" on every tier, which is Aircall billed separately, so there is no voice layer to put AI on. | IncludedSuite Professional only. Multi-level IVR phone trees are unavailable on Support Team and Suite Team, as are priority numbers, callback requests and call monitoring. |
| Real-time transcription | NoNot on any plan. The matrix lists phone and voice as "via integration" on every tier, which is Aircall billed separately, so there is no voice layer to put AI on. | Not publishedNot published. The only transcription named is optional voicemail transcription, which runs after the call rather than during it. |
| Call summarization | NoNot on any plan. The matrix lists phone and voice as "via integration" on every tier, which is Aircall billed separately, so there is no voice layer to put AI on. | Not publishedNot published for the publicly priced plans. Voicemail transcription is offered from Suite Team, and generative AI for voice is described as a Suite Enterprise capability without a matrix row to read a gate off. |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | IncludedAll plans. Free 1 Docs site; Standard 2, Plus 3, Pro 5 included, extras at $20/mo annual. | IncludedSuite Team and above. The entire help centre block is unavailable on Support Team, which is email and ticketing only. |
| Custom domain | Not published | IncludedAll plans, as host mapping: point a subdomain of your own domain at the help centre with an SNI-based SSL certificate. |
| Multi-brand | IncludedDocs sites by tier: 1 on Free, 2 on Standard $25, 3 on Plus $45, 5 on Pro $75, and $20 a month for each one beyond that. | IncludedGated by count: unavailable on Support Team, 1 help centre on Suite Team, up to 5 on Suite Professional, all inside one account. |
| Versioning | NoNot on any plan. The Docs rows cover sites, branding, articles, contact forms and access control. | IncludedSuite Professional only. Content and revision history with restore of deleted articles. Approval and publishing workflows and scheduled publishing are unavailable on every publicly priced plan. |
| Localization | NoNot on any plan. AI Assist translates agent text, not articles. | IncludedGated by count: unavailable on Support Team, one default language on Suite Team, 40+ languages on Suite Professional. A single-language help centre on the $55 plan is easy to miss. |
| Article analytics | Not published | IncludedSuite Team and above, via the Google Analytics integration for the help centre rather than a first-party article report. |
| In-product widget | IncludedThe embeddable support hub: 1 on Free, 5 on Standard $25, unlimited on Plus $45 and Pro $75. | IncludedSuite Team and above. Contextual self-service embeds the help centre and suggests articles through the web widget and mobile SDK. |
| SEO controls | Not publishedCustom site branding and CSS are in the matrix; nothing addresses indexing. | IncludedSuite Team and above: structured markup so search engines can parse articles, plus a generated sitemap. |
| AI answers over KB | IncludedAll paid plans, metered at $0.75 per resolution with no included allowance. Delivered through Help Scout's own Beacon widget over Docs content; there is no bring-your-own-helpdesk version. | IncludedAll plans. Generative search surfaces answers above the article list, drawing on connected knowledge sources. |
Self-service
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot flows | NoNot on any plan. AI Answers is a retrieval agent, not a flow anyone builds. | Not publishedNot published as a row. Third-party chatbots can be integrated through Sunshine Conversations at Suite Professional, and Action builder covers scripted multi-step flows, but no first-party conversational bot builder appears in the matrix. |
| Order lookup | NoNot on any plan. AI Answers replies from content; the matrix describes no transactional actions. | Not published |
| Returns / RMA | NoNot on any plan. AI Answers replies from content; the matrix describes no transactional actions. | Not published |
| Account actions | NoNot on any plan. AI Answers replies from content; the matrix describes no transactional actions. | Not published |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation QA scoring | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix runs to roughly sixty rows across ten sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Paid add-onRequires the Quality Assurance add-on on all three publicly priced plans, and the add-on carries no published price. |
| Automated QA coverage | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix runs to roughly sixty rows across ten sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Paid add-onSame QA add-on, described by the vendor as "automatic human and AI agent scoring". Unpriced. |
| Calibration | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix runs to roughly sixty rows across ten sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Not publishedNot published. The QA add-on is described without naming calibration sessions, and carries no price to compare against dedicated QA vendors. |
| Agent scorecards | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix runs to roughly sixty rows across ten sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Paid add-onPart of the same unpriced QA add-on rather than the Suite. The Agent Productivity Dashboard is separate again and sits behind Copilot at Suite Professional. |
| Forecasting | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix runs to roughly sixty rows across ten sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Paid add-onWorkforce Engagement Bundle at $50 per agent per month, one of only four add-ons Zendesk prices publicly. |
| Scheduling | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix runs to roughly sixty rows across ten sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Paid add-onSame Workforce Engagement Bundle: "Forecast, staff, and manage agent schedules with AI-powered precision". |
| Adherence tracking | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix runs to roughly sixty rows across ten sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Not publishedNot published. The workforce bundle is described as forecasting, staffing and scheduling; adherence tracking is not named and has no matrix row. |
Reporting
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | IncludedEvery plan, but the history is the gate: 30 days on Free, two years on Standard $25, all-time on Plus $45 and Pro $75. | IncludedAll plans, with the refresh rate as the real gate: 24 hours on Support Team and Suite Team, 1 hour on Suite Professional. |
| Custom reports | IncludedStandard $25 a user and above. Not on Free. | IncludedSuite Professional only. Custom data exploration builds metrics, charts, filters and dashboards point-and-click; scheduled delivery and sharing arrive at the same tier but only to Zendesk users. |
| Raw data export | IncludedPaid plans. Reporting data only, delivered to CSV or Excel "with the exception of conversation thread contents". | IncludedAll plans for report output in CSV, Excel, image or PDF. This is not the same thing as the account data export, which must be enabled by a support ticket and is unavailable on Team plans entirely. |
| Data warehouse sync | NoNot on any plan. The export row goes to CSV or Excel and no further. | Paid add-onAWS Events Connector, Suite Professional add-on only, streaming Zendesk events into AWS in real time. Carries a hard floor of 10 agent seats to purchase. |
| CSAT / NPS | IncludedStandard $25 a user and above. Not on Free. | IncludedSuite Professional only. CSAT ratings and follow-up surveys are unavailable on Support Team and Suite Team, so satisfaction measurement cannot be bought below $115 per agent per month. |
| Real-time reporting | NoNot on any plan. Reporting is described by history window, not as a live dashboard. | IncludedSuite Professional only, and partially: the live agent activity dashboard is limited to a default view and prebuilt live dashboards are included, while customisable live dashboards and visual alerts are unavailable on every publicly priced plan. |
Collaboration
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Internal notes | Not published | IncludedAll plans. Private comments are the mechanism light agents use, and whisper mode lets several agents collaborate silently during a live conversation from Suite Team. |
| Assignment | IncludedEvery plan including Free. | IncludedAll plans, through groups, views and conversation routing on agent status and capacity. |
| Approvals | NoNot on any plan. Nothing in the matrix reviews a reply or an article before it goes out. | IncludedSuite Professional only. Approval requests are made and tracked from the ticket interface for compliance. The broader approval workflows row is unavailable on every publicly priced plan. |
Enterprise
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | Paid add-onAdd-on on Plus and Pro, at a price Help Scout does not publish. Unavailable on Free and Standard. | IncludedShown on Support Team, Suite Team and Suite Professional |
| Role-based access control | Not published | IncludedAll plans carry role-based access with IP restrictions, password complexity and session length controls. Defining your own roles is the gated part: custom agent roles are unavailable on all three publicly priced plans. |
| Custom roles | Not publishedAdvanced permissions and Teams appear as rows in the plan matrix, but the matrix is icon-only and Help Scout publishes no text describing which plans carry them. | IncludedSuite Enterprise + Copilot. Unavailable on all three publicly priced plans. |
| Audit logs | Not publishedNot listed in the published plan matrix or the security page. | IncludedSuite Enterprise. The row reads as unavailable on all three publicly priced plans. |
| IP allowlist | Paid add-onAdd-on on Plus and Pro, at a price Help Scout does not publish. | Not published |
| Sandbox environment | Not published | Paid add-onSuite Professional add-on, unpriced. Replicates configuration and metadata into a non-production space; additional sandboxes are a further purchase. |
| Multi-brand | Not published | IncludedGated by count alongside the help centre: unavailable on Support Team, 1 brand on Suite Team, up to 5 on Suite Professional, all centralised in one account. |
| HIPAA / BAA | Paid add-onPro only, and an add-on even there. Requires a signed BAA. Price not published. | Paid add-onTriple-gated: buy the Advanced Security or Advanced Compliance add-on, enable a set of security configurations, and execute a BAA. Suite Professional only of the three public plans. |
| SOC 2 | IncludedNot plan-gated. SOC 2 Type 2 for Security and Availability, report on request. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Type II, available on request under NDA. |
| ISO 27001 | Not publishedNot claimed anywhere on the security page, which names only SOC 2 Type 2 and penetration testing. | IncludedNot plan-gated. ISO 27001:2022, plus 27017, 27018, 27701 and 42001. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated. A DPA is published, though the security page says only that Help Scout adheres to relevant privacy regulations without naming GDPR. | IncludedNot plan-gated. DPA plus Binding Corporate Rules approved by EU DPAs. |
| Data residency | Not publishedThe security page says only that Help Scout is hosted in AWS. No region choice is offered on the pricing page or the security page, and no data-residency product is published. | Paid add-onData Center Location add-on. US, EEA, UK and APAC. Unavailable on Support Team and Suite Team. |
| Data retention policy | Not published | IncludedSuite Enterprise only. Advanced data retention policies are unavailable on Support Team, Suite Team and Suite Professional alike. |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | Not published | IncludedSplit across tiers. Credit card redaction arrives at Suite Professional. Advanced redaction of email, phone and card data, data masking and advanced encryption are all unavailable on every publicly priced plan. |
Developer
| Capability | Help Scout | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedAll paid plans. Inbox API for customers, users and conversations; Docs API for articles. | IncludedAll plans, and the vendor's stated route out for accounts that cannot use the export UI: "customers on all Zendesk plans can use the Zendesk REST API to export data". |
| GraphQL API | NoNot on any plan. The matrix lists API access with per-tier rate limits and nothing else. | Not publishedNot published. Zendesk documents a REST API and no GraphQL endpoint appears on the pricing page or the developer rate-limit reference. |
| SDKs | Not published | IncludedAll plans. iOS, Android and Unity SDKs for embedding support natively in an app, plus the web widget. |
| App framework | IncludedEvery plan including Free. | IncludedBuilding your own apps is Suite Professional only, capped at 5 App Builder conversations, using App Builder or the Channel Framework. Consuming the 1,800+ Marketplace apps is not gated. |
| Published rate limits | IncludedPublished per plan in the pricing matrix: Standard 200 calls/min, Plus 400, Pro 800. | IncludedPublished per plan and unusually specific: 200 requests a minute on Team, 400 on Growth and Professional, 700 on Enterprise, 2,500 on Enterprise Plus, against a 100,000 a minute account ceiling. Incremental export endpoints are the exception at 10 a minute, or 30 with the High Volume add-on. |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What Help Scout costs
$25/seat/month
4 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
Per user per month - Free tier
Yes - AI pricing
$0.75 per AI resolution - Vendor calls it
AI Answers resolution - Human handoff
Not billed - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
None published - Automation export
Not offered
2 of 9 not published by Help Scout, checked
What Zendesk costs
$19/seat/month
3 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
Seat (agent) + usage hybrid - Free tier
No, 14-day trial - AI pricing
$1.50 per AI resolution - Vendor calls it
Automated Resolution (AR) - Human handoff
Not billed - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
2h of inactivity - Data export
Support ticket required - Automation export
Not offered
1 of 9 not published by Zendesk, checked