Plain vs Zendesk
A side-by-side comparison of Plain and Zendesk on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
1 of the 12 capabilities tracked on both differs. Plain starts at $35/seat/mo, Zendesk at $19/seat/mo.
| Measure | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $35/seat/mo | $19/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | Sidekick credit allowance, no rate published | $1.50 per AI resolution |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 1 capability |
Capability by capability
1 of the 12 capabilities tracked on both products differs.
Channels
| Capability | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Included2 email addresses on Foundation, 10 on Horizon, 25 on Frontier | Included | |
| Live chat | IncludedListed on the integrations page and available from Foundation | 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 | Not published | Paid add-onContact Center add-on, $83/agent/mo. Not available on Support Team. |
| SMS | Not published | 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. |
| Not published | IncludedSuite Team and above, listed among the messaging apps in the social and business channels row, with additional fees. | |
| Instagram / Facebook | Not published | 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." |
| Slack Connect | Included25 Slack channels on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon and Frontier. Slack Enterprise Grid is Frontier only. | Not published |
| Microsoft Teams | IncludedHorizon and above. Not available on Foundation. | Not publishedNot published. The social and business channels row names Facebook, Instagram, X, WhatsApp, Slack, WeChat and LINE, and does not name Microsoft Teams. A Marketplace app may exist; the pricing page does not say. |
| Community forum | IncludedUnknown. A Discourse integration is listed on the compare table, but the per-plan checkmarks are images and could not be read. Plain ingests an existing forum rather than hosting one. | 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 | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | Not published | IncludedAll plans. The unified agent workspace is the one row in its block available on Support Team. |
| Ticket queues | Not published | IncludedAll plans, as "Custom & group views": collections of tickets by status, assignee, group or condition, with pre-configured views shipped. |
| SLA policies | IncludedSLAs and business hours start on Horizon | Not published |
| Business hours | IncludedHorizon and above | 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 | IncludedDocumented as Snippets, with full API read and write on all plans | 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 | Not published | IncludedSuite Professional only. Loops teammates in by email or Slack with the thread linked back to the ticket. |
| Custom fields | Not published | IncludedAll plans, for both user and organization fields, with workflows buildable on them. |
| Custom objects | Not published | 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 | Not published | IncludedSuite Professional only. Multiple ticket forms and conditional ticket fields are both unavailable on Support Team and Suite Team. |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Skills-based routing | Not published | 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. |
| Load balancing | Not published | 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 | Not published | IncludedAll plans. Triggers run on ticket create or update; time-based automations sit in the same row set, both shipped pre-configured. |
| Workflow builder | IncludedUp to 5 workflows on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon and Frontier | 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 | IncludedEscalation paths start on Horizon | Not published |
AI resolution
| Capability | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedAri, the customer-facing AI agent, is free on all workspaces and consumes no credits. Bring-your-own AI agent is Frontier only. | 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 | Not published | 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) | Not published | 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. |
| Multilingual AI | Not published | IncludedAll plans: "Automatically translate AI agent responses into 80+ supported languages". The agent-facing UI is separately localised into 28 languages. |
AI assist
| Capability | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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. |
AI voice
| Capability | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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. |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | Not publishedKnowledge bases are plan-limited (1 on Foundation, unlimited above) and a Help center API section is documented, but nothing states whether they are publicly hosted. The headless portal starts on Horizon. | 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 | Not published | IncludedGated by count: unavailable on Support Team, 1 help centre on Suite Team, up to 5 on Suite Professional, all inside one account. |
| Versioning | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | IncludedSuite Team and above. Contextual self-service embeds the help centre and suggests articles through the web widget and mobile SDK. |
| SEO controls | Not published | IncludedSuite Team and above: structured markup so search engines can parse articles, plus a generated sitemap. |
| AI answers over KB | Not published | IncludedAll plans. Generative search surfaces answers above the article list, drawing on connected knowledge sources. |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation QA scoring | Not published | 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 | Not published | Paid add-onSame QA add-on, described by the vendor as "automatic human and AI agent scoring". Unpriced. |
| Agent scorecards | Not published | 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 | Not published | Paid add-onWorkforce Engagement Bundle at $50 per agent per month, one of only four add-ons Zendesk prices publicly. |
| Scheduling | Not published | Paid add-onSame Workforce Engagement Bundle: "Forecast, staff, and manage agent schedules with AI-powered precision". |
Reporting
| Capability | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Not published | 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 | Plain | 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 | Not published | IncludedAll plans, through groups, views and conversation routing on agent status and capacity. |
| Approvals | Not published | 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 | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | IncludedFrontier only. Neither publicly priced plan includes SSO. | IncludedShown on Support Team, Suite Team and Suite Professional |
| SCIM provisioning | IncludedFrontier only | Not publishedNot listed in the published plan matrix or the trust center. |
| 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 | IncludedUnknown. A Custom roles row exists on the compare table but the per-plan checkmarks are images and could not be read. | IncludedSuite Enterprise + Copilot. Unavailable on all three publicly priced plans. |
| Audit logs | Not publishedNo row on the compare table, no docs page and no API object. | IncludedSuite Enterprise. The row reads as unavailable on all three publicly priced plans. |
| 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 | Not publishedNo claim on /pricing, the trust center notices or the help center. | 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 | IncludedUnknown. A SOC2 Type II Report row sits under Services and compliance; per-plan gating is not readable. A live trust center is published with dated subprocessor notifications. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Type II, available on request under NDA. |
| ISO 27001 | Not publishedNot claimed on the pricing page, the trust center notices or the help center. | IncludedNot plan-gated. ISO 27001:2022, plus 27017, 27018, 27701 and 42001. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated. A DPA is published at /legal/dpa, and the terms forbid training AI models on Subscriber Data without written consent. | IncludedNot plan-gated. DPA plus Binding Corporate Rules approved by EU DPAs. |
| Data residency | Not publishedNo published policy. The documented endpoint is core-api.uk.plain.com, which points to UK hosting, but no multi-region option is published and the data-residency help article returns 404. | 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 | Plain | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | Not publishedOnly a GraphQL API is documented. No REST surface appears in the docs navigation. | 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 | IncludedAll three plans. Plain is built on the same GraphQL API it exposes. | Not publishedNot published. Zendesk documents a REST API and no GraphQL endpoint appears on the pricing page or the developer rate-limit reference. |
| Webhooks | IncludedWebhooks and Events are shown on all three plans | Not publishedNot published as a matrix row. External events ingest third-party activity and the AWS Events Connector streams events out at Suite Professional, but outbound webhooks are not named or gated anywhere on the pricing page. |
| SDKs | Not published | IncludedAll plans. iOS, Android and Unity SDKs for embedding support natively in an app, plus the web widget. |
| App framework | Not published | 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 | NoNo rate-limit figure on the GraphQL Introduction or Authentication pages, and no rate-limit page in the docs navigation. | 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 Plain costs
$35/seat/month
2 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
$35/month - Free tier
No, 7-day trial - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
Sidekick credit - Human handoff
Not billed - Reopened chat
Refunded - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Partial
2 of 9 not published by Plain, 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