Richpanel vs Zendesk
A side-by-side comparison of Richpanel and Zendesk on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
6 of the 25 capabilities tracked on both differ, mostly in Channels. Richpanel starts at $99/seat/mo, Zendesk at $19/seat/mo.
| Measure | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $99/seat/mo | $19/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | $0.20 per conversation | $1.50 per AI resolution |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 1 capability |
Capability by capability
6 of the 25 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Included | Included | |
| Live chat | Included | 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 | Via partner"There is no native voice or phone. Richpanel integrates with Aircall, Dialpad, and JustCall. It does not host VoIP." | Paid add-onContact Center add-on, $83/agent/mo. Not available on Support Team. |
| SMS | IncludedTwilio is the named sub-processor for SMS connectivity. | 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. |
| IncludedConnectivity runs through 360dialog GmbH, the one sub-processor hosting customer data outside the United States. | IncludedSuite Team and above, listed among the messaging apps in the social and business channels row, with additional fees. | |
| Instagram / Facebook | Included | 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 | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | Included | 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 | IncludedProduct SLA policies are ungated and count time against configured business hours. Richpanel's own response targets are contractual only on Enterprise. | Not published |
| Business hours | Not published | 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 | Included | 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 | Richpanel | 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. |
| Round-robin assignment | IncludedPublished as "Round Robin & Balanced Assignment". | 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 | 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 | IncludedPublished as Workflows: "Design custom workflows using rules and triggers to automate actions like ticket routing, response templates, and customer notifications." | 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. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedMetered on the AI line rather than gated by plan. Not optional either: the helpdesk is never sold without the AI. | 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) | Included"Order lookups, tracking, address edits, exchanges, store credit, subscription skips, pauses and swaps, cancellations and returns run as real tool calls against Shopify, Recharge, Loop, Skio and the rest of your stack. Each action carries its own permission." | 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 | Included"Missing instructions escalate. Always. Where your policy is silent it hands over, every time." | Not published |
| Guardrails & citations | IncludedFive published layers: pre-ship evals, a second model reviewing drafts that state a dollar amount or touch an order, mandatory escalation on missing instructions, per-tool permissions, and QA review of every closed conversation. | Not publishedNot published. The matrix describes what the AI agent resolves and how resolutions are verified, and says nothing about citation of sources or configurable guardrails on answers. |
| 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 | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | IncludedCollaborative mode: "AI drafts, your team approves. Nothing sends without a person." | 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 | Richpanel | 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 | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | Not published | 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. |
Self-service
| Capability | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Order lookup | IncludedThe self-service portal is free on every plan with no per-order fee and no volume tier. | Not published |
| Returns / RMA | Paid add-onSeparately billed from $99 a month, ecommerce brands only, never sold standalone. | Not published |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Richpanel | 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 | Included"The QA Agent reviews closed conversations and reports the knowledge gaps, missing tool calls, and instruction fixes." No per-seat or per-conversation charge of its own, though the conversations it touches still meter. | 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 | Richpanel | 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 | No"Analytics-derived data is not subject to portability." Conversation CSV export is unaffected; the reporting layer is what cannot leave. | 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 | Included | 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 | Richpanel | 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 | Included | 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 | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | Included"SAML Single Sign-on (SSO) and 2-factor authentication (2FA) supported." No plan gate is stated and Richpanel publishes no plan ladder. | 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 | Included"Permission levels cover app settings, billing, user data, read/send messages." | IncludedSuite Enterprise + Copilot. Unavailable on all three publicly priced plans. |
| Audit logs | Not publishedAudit logging is documented as an internal control ("logs shipped to ELK and Cloudwatch; S3 for archival"), not as a log a customer can read or export. | 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 | Included"One inbox for every channel and every brand." | 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 | IncludedThird-party audited by Scrut Automation in December 2025. BAA available on request for customers processing PHI. | 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 | IncludedType II, audited annually. Report on request through the DPO. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Type II, available on request under NDA. |
| ISO 27001 | Not publishedNot claimed. The compliance section lists CASA and HIPAA; the trust portal adds SOC 2 Type II and GDPR. ISO 27001 appears only as a bar Richpanel holds its own sub-processors to. | IncludedNot plan-gated. ISO 27001:2022, plus 27017, 27018, 27701 and 42001. |
| GDPR | IncludedDPA covering GDPR, SCCs and the UK IDTA, plus a named DPO and a 15-business-day sub-processor objection window. | IncludedNot plan-gated. DPA plus Binding Corporate Rules approved by EU DPAs. |
| Data residency | Not publishedHosting is AWS us-west-2 in Oregon and every sub-processor bar the WhatsApp connector sits in the United States. EU-only processing is directed to sales before signing rather than published as an option. | 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 | IncludedDeletion runs 60 days to "Up For Deletion" then 15 more to purge, and can be accelerated to within a few hours on request. | 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 | Richpanel | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | Includedv1.1, covering conversations, customers, orders, subscriptions, users, teams, tasks, tags, channels, files and reports, plus a separate Returns API. | 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". |
| Webhooks | IncludedPublished as "Webhooks: HTTP Targets". | 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 | Included50 requests per 30 seconds, uniform. No per-plan tier is published because there are no plans. | 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 Richpanel costs
$99/seat/month
1 published plan, billed annually- Billing unit
Two line items and no plan ladder - Free tier
No, 14-day trial - AI pricing
$0.20 per conversation - Vendor calls it
AI-handled conversation - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Refunded - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Not published
3 of 9 not published by Richpanel, 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