LiveAgent vs Zoho Desk
A side-by-side comparison of LiveAgent and Zoho Desk on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
3 of the 12 capabilities tracked on both differ, mostly in Channels. LiveAgent starts at Free, then $15/seat/mo, Zoho Desk at Free, then $7/seat/mo.
| Measure | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Free, then $15/seat/mo | Free, then $7/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | Not published | API credit allowance, no rate published |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 0 capabilities |
Capability by capability
3 of the 12 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Included1 email channel on Free. 3 in/outbound email accounts on Small business, 10 on Medium business, 150 on Large business, 500 on Enterprise. | IncludedAll editions, including the three-user free plan | |
| Live chat | Included2 chat buttons on Small business, 5 on Medium business, 50 on Large business, 100 on Enterprise. Not on the Free plan. | IncludedBusiness messaging widget from Standard. Zoho SalesIQ live chat is an Enterprise bullet. |
| Voice | IncludedUnknown as a plan gate. The call centre is built into the product rather than sold as a separate SKU, but the per-plan values in the matrix are icons that did not survive text extraction. The FAQ places the call centre among the features that higher tiers add. | IncludedTelephony from Professional. Multi-level IVR is Enterprise. |
| Paid add-on$39/mo per account on Small business and Medium business. 5 numbers included on Large business, 20 on Enterprise. | IncludedStandard and above, in the instant messaging module | |
| Instagram / Facebook | Paid add-onFacebook $39/mo per account. Instagram is a further $19/mo and requires the Facebook channel. Both included on Large business and Enterprise. | IncludedSocial module from Express; Instagram and Messenger as instant messaging channels from Standard |
| X / Twitter | Paid add-on$39/mo per account on Small business and Medium business; included on Large business and Enterprise. | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Slack Connect | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Microsoft Teams | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Community forum | Not published | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Video | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Co-browsing | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
Ticketing
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket queues | Not published | IncludedStandard and above. |
| SLA policies | IncludedMedium business and above. 5 SLA rules and 5 SLA levels on Medium business, 50 rules on Large business, 100 on Enterprise. Absent from Small business. | Not published |
| Macros / saved replies | IncludedCanned messages: 20 on Small business, 100 on Medium business, 500 on Large business, 1000 on Enterprise. | 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 | Not published | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Custom objects | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Ticket forms | Not published | IncludedExpress and above. |
Routing & automation
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Skills-based routing | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Round-robin assignment | Not published | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Triggers | IncludedEvent rules: 50 on Small business, 150 on Medium business, 500 on Large business, 1000 on Enterprise. Time rules start at Medium business (30), rising to 200 on Enterprise. | Not published |
| Workflow builder | Not published | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Escalation rules | Not published | IncludedExpress and above. |
AI resolution
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | Not published | 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) | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Multilingual AI | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
AI assist
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | 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. |
| Tone rewrite | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Summarization | 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. |
| Translation | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | 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. |
| IVR replacement | 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. |
| Real-time transcription | 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. |
| 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 | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | Included1 knowledge base on Small business and Medium business, 2 on Large business, 10 on Enterprise. Extra knowledge bases are $19/mo each on every plan. | IncludedKnowledge base and ASAP self-service widget from Standard |
| Custom domain | Not published | IncludedExpress and above |
| Multi-brand | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Localization | Not published | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| In-product widget | Not published | IncludedStandard and above. |
| AI answers over KB | Not published | IncludedStandard and above. |
Self-service
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot flows | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Order lookup | Not published | 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 | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation QA scoring | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Automated QA coverage | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Calibration | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Agent scorecards | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Forecasting | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Scheduling | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Adherence tracking | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
Reporting
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Custom reports | Not published | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Raw data export | Not published | 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 | Not published | IncludedStandard and above. |
Collaboration
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| @mentions | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Assignment | Not published | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Collision detection | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Approvals | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
Enterprise
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Custom roles | IncludedMedium business (2), Large business (5), Enterprise (40). Blank on Small business. | 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 | IncludedUnknown. The audit log is a plan-matrix row but its per-plan values are icons that did not survive text extraction. | IncludedEnterprise only. Unavailable on all four cheaper editions. |
| Sandbox environment | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Multi-brand | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| SOC 2 | Not publishedNot claimed. liveagent.com/security returns 404, and neither the footer Security policy page nor the Awards & Certificates page surfaced a SOC 2 claim. | 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 publishedNot claimed anywhere on the site. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Listed for every datacenter region. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated. A dedicated GDPR page is linked in the site footer, the legal entity is Slovak (Quality Unit, s.r.o., Bratislava) and an EU data centre is selectable. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Desk publishes anonymisation of agent and customer records as outlined in the GDPR. |
| Data residency | IncludedNot an add-on and not plan-gated. Americas (US), Europe & Africa (EU) or Asia & Pacific (SG), chosen at account creation. | 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. |
Developer
| Capability | LiveAgent | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedAPI keys are capped per plan: 1 on Small business, 5 on Medium business, 10 on Large business, 100 on Enterprise. The Free plan has no integrations at all. | IncludedAll editions, budgeted in daily credits rather than a call rate. Free 5,000 credits per 24 hours. |
| Webhooks | Not published | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Published rate limits | Not publishedNo req/min or req/hour figure was found. LiveAgent publishes a per-plan cap on the number of API keys instead, which is a different control. | 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 LiveAgent costs
$15/seat/month
5 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
Seat (agent) per month - Free tier
Yes - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
Not published - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Not published
6 of 9 not published by LiveAgent, 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