Zendesk vs Zoho Desk
A side-by-side comparison of Zendesk and Zoho Desk on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
20 of the 52 capabilities tracked on both differ, mostly in AI assist and QA & workforce. Zendesk starts at $19/seat/mo, Zoho Desk at Free, then $7/seat/mo.
| Measure | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $19/seat/mo | Free, then $7/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | $1.50 per AI resolution | API credit allowance, no rate published |
| Included, where the other says no | 7 capabilities | 0 capabilities |
Capability by capability
20 of the 52 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Included | IncludedAll editions, including the three-user free plan | |
| Live chat | IncludedSuite Team and above; Support Team is email ticketing only | IncludedBusiness messaging widget from Standard. Zoho SalesIQ live chat is an Enterprise bullet. |
| In-app messenger | 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. | Not published |
| Voice | Paid add-onContact Center add-on, $83/agent/mo. Not available on Support Team. | IncludedTelephony from Professional. Multi-level IVR is Enterprise. |
| SMS | 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. | IncludedStandard and above, in the instant messaging module | |
| Instagram / Facebook | 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". | IncludedSocial module from Express; Instagram and Messenger as instant messaging channels from Standard |
| X / Twitter | 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." | 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 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. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Community forum | 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. | 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 publishedNot published anywhere in the plan matrix. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
Ticketing
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | IncludedAll plans. The unified agent workspace is the one row in its block available on Support Team. | Not published |
| Ticket queues | IncludedAll plans, as "Custom & group views": collections of tickets by status, assignee, group or condition, with pre-configured views shipped. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Business hours | 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. | Not published |
| Macros / saved replies | 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. | Not published |
| Merge & split | Not publishedNot published as a plan-matrix row. AI merging suggestions appear as a Copilot add-on item at Suite Professional, which implies a merge action exists, but the underlying capability and its plan gate are not stated. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Side conversations | IncludedSuite Professional only. Loops teammates in by email or Slack with the thread linked back to the ticket. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Custom fields | IncludedAll plans, for both user and organization fields, with workflows buildable on them. | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Custom 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. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Ticket forms | IncludedSuite Professional only. Multiple ticket forms and conditional ticket fields are both unavailable on Support Team and Suite Team. | IncludedExpress and above. |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Skills-based routing | 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. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Round-robin 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. | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Load balancing | 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. | Not published |
| Triggers | IncludedAll plans. Triggers run on ticket create or update; time-based automations sit in the same row set, both shipped pre-configured. | Not published |
| Workflow builder | 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. | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Escalation rules | Not published | IncludedExpress and above. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | 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. | IncludedExpress and above. Bring your own key or use Zoho's LLM, with up to 30M tokens a month free. |
| Resolution over knowledge base | 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. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Action-taking (API calls) | 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. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Multilingual AI | IncludedAll plans: "Automatically translate AI agent responses into 80+ supported languages". The agent-facing UI is separately localised into 28 languages. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
AI assist
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | 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. | 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 | 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. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Summarization | 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. | 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 | IncludedSuite Team and above. Conversations are auto-translated in the dashboard via Google Translate, and knowledge base articles have a generative translate action. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Next-best-action | 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. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Auto-tagging | 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. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Sentiment analysis | 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. | 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 | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | 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. | 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 | 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. | 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 publishedNot published. The only transcription named is optional voicemail transcription, which runs after the call rather than during it. | 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 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. | 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 | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | IncludedSuite Team and above. The entire help centre block is unavailable on Support Team, which is email and ticketing only. | IncludedKnowledge base and ASAP self-service widget from Standard |
| Custom domain | IncludedAll plans, as host mapping: point a subdomain of your own domain at the help centre with an SNI-based SSL certificate. | IncludedExpress and above |
| Multi-brand | IncludedGated by count: unavailable on Support Team, 1 help centre on Suite Team, up to 5 on Suite Professional, all inside one account. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Versioning | 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. | Not published |
| Localization | 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. | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Article analytics | IncludedSuite Team and above, via the Google Analytics integration for the help centre rather than a first-party article report. | Not published |
| In-product widget | IncludedSuite Team and above. Contextual self-service embeds the help centre and suggests articles through the web widget and mobile SDK. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| SEO controls | IncludedSuite Team and above: structured markup so search engines can parse articles, plus a generated sitemap. | Not published |
| AI answers over KB | IncludedAll plans. Generative search surfaces answers above the article list, drawing on connected knowledge sources. | IncludedStandard and above. |
Self-service
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot flows | 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. | 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 | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation QA scoring | Paid add-onRequires the Quality Assurance add-on on all three publicly priced plans, and the add-on carries no published price. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Automated QA coverage | Paid add-onSame QA add-on, described by the vendor as "automatic human and AI agent scoring". Unpriced. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Calibration | Not publishedNot published. The QA add-on is described without naming calibration sessions, and carries no price to compare against dedicated QA vendors. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Agent scorecards | 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. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Forecasting | Paid add-onWorkforce Engagement Bundle at $50 per agent per month, one of only four add-ons Zendesk prices publicly. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Scheduling | Paid add-onSame Workforce Engagement Bundle: "Forecast, staff, and manage agent schedules with AI-powered precision". | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Adherence tracking | Not publishedNot published. The workforce bundle is described as forecasting, staffing and scheduling; adherence tracking is not named and has no matrix row. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
Reporting
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | IncludedAll plans, with the refresh rate as the real gate: 24 hours on Support Team and Suite Team, 1 hour on Suite Professional. | Not published |
| Custom reports | 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. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Raw data export | 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. | 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. |
| Data warehouse sync | 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. | Not published |
| CSAT / NPS | 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. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Real-time reporting | 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. | Not published |
Collaboration
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Internal notes | 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. | Not published |
| @mentions | Not publishedNot published as a matrix row. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Assignment | IncludedAll plans, through groups, views and conversation routing on agent status and capacity. | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Collision detection | Not publishedNot published. Whisper mode covers silent collaboration during a live conversation, which is not the same as warning two agents that they are both in one ticket. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Approvals | 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. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
Enterprise
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | IncludedShown on Support Team, Suite Team and Suite Professional | 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 | 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. | Not published |
| Custom roles | IncludedSuite Enterprise + Copilot. Unavailable on all three publicly priced plans. | 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 | IncludedSuite Enterprise. The row reads as unavailable on all three publicly priced plans. | IncludedEnterprise only. Unavailable on all four cheaper editions. |
| Sandbox environment | Paid add-onSuite Professional add-on, unpriced. Replicates configuration and metadata into a non-production space; additional sandboxes are a further purchase. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Multi-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. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| HIPAA / BAA | 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. | Not publishedHIPAA appears as a datacenter certification for the US and Canada, and Desk gates ePHI field labeling to Professional and field encryption to Enterprise. Whether Zoho executes a BAA is not stated on either page. |
| SOC 2 | IncludedNot plan-gated. Type II, available on request under NDA. | 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 | IncludedNot plan-gated. ISO 27001:2022, plus 27017, 27018, 27701 and 42001. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Listed for every datacenter region. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated. DPA plus Binding Corporate Rules approved by EU DPAs. | IncludedNot plan-gated. Desk publishes anonymisation of agent and customer records as outlined in the GDPR. |
| Data residency | Paid add-onData Center Location add-on. US, EEA, UK and APAC. Unavailable on Support Team and Suite Team. | 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 | IncludedSuite Enterprise only. Advanced data retention policies are unavailable on Support Team, Suite Team and Suite Professional alike. | Not published |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | 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. | Not published |
Developer
| Capability | Zendesk | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| REST 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". | IncludedAll editions, budgeted in daily credits rather than a call rate. Free 5,000 credits per 24 hours. |
| Webhooks | 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. | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| SDKs | IncludedAll plans. iOS, Android and Unity SDKs for embedding support natively in an app, plus the web widget. | Not published |
| App framework | 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. | Not published |
| Published rate limits | 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. | 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 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
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