25 Zendesk Alternatives That Are Easier, Smarter, and More Affordable in 2025

Zendesk has set the standard for help desk software for years – it’s packed with capabilities and built to handle scale. But when every customer conversation feels like it’s happening across too many tabs or every tweak requires admin help, teams start looking for something lighter and more intuitive.

Fortunately, there are plenty of platforms today that offer similar capabilities without the complexity.

I’ve handpicked 25 Zendesk alternatives that combine power with simplicity: tools that are easier to set up, more intuitive to use, kinder on the budget, and backed by support teams that actually show up when you need them.

Table of Contents

• Why trust us? 
• Why look for alternatives to Zendesk?
  • 1. High Costs and Confusing Pricing Tiers
  • 2. Zendesk Is Complicated to Set Up and Use
  • 3. Getting Help from Zendesk Can Be a Challenge
• 15 best alternatives to Zendesk available in 2025
  • 1. Hiver
  • 2. Freshdesk
  • 3. Zoho Desk
  • 4. Spiceworks
  • 5. Tidio
  • 6. Help Scout
  • 7. Intercom
  • 8. HappyFox
  • 9. GrooveHQ
  • 10. LiveAgent
  • 11. Front
  • 12. Helpjuice
  • 13. Gorgias
  • 14. HubSpot Service Hub
    • 15. Jira Service Management
• Other Alternatives to Zendesk Worth Considering
• How to evaluate the right Zendesk alternative for your business
• Elevate your support quality with the right Zendesk alternative

Why trust us? 

At Hiver, we’ve spent years studying how real customer service teams work – what slows them down, what features they actually use, and what they value most in a help desk. As a customer service platform ourselves, we evaluate tools with a practitioner’s eye, looking closely at setup time, usability, scalability, and overall value for money.

Our own customer service platform is used by 10,000+ teams including the likes of Flexport, Ping Identity, Travelist, and many more. 

We don’t want to talk ourselves up too much. Hear from some of our customers instead: 

Why look for alternatives to Zendesk?

After speaking with users and reviewing industry feedback, a few themes appear again and again. These patterns highlight why many teams eventually look beyond Zendesk.

1. High Costs and Confusing Pricing Tiers

One of the major concerns teams have with Zendesk is how expensive and confusing its pricing is. 

Zendesk’s Suite pricing plans (starting at $55 per user per month) are too expensive for most businesses. But when you add in training costs, add-on fees, and other hidden expenses, the total quickly balloons. 

Further, the way the plans are structured can be very confusing. With so many tiers and optional add-ons, it’s often hard to know exactly what’s included and what you’ll end up paying. As a result, many teams end up on a plan with features they don’t really need, paying far more than they initially budgeted. 

Zendesk also has beginner Support plans (starting at $19 per user per month) but they’re stripped down to the bare essentials. Key features like Zendesk Guide (for help articles and knowledge management) aren’t included; you’ll need to upgrade to a higher plan or purchase it as an add-on.

2. Zendesk Is Complicated to Set Up and Use

Another major issue with Zendesk is the complex set-up process and the steep learning curve that comes with it. 

Depending on your team size and the level of customization you need, the onboarding process can stretch into weeks or even months. 

You can work through the setup guides Zendesk provides and rely on your own admin/engineering team to handle the configuration. Or you can purchase Zendesk Professional Services – a paid consulting offering where Zendesk experts help you with setup and launch. 

This support, however, comes at an additional cost on top of your regular Zendesk subscription. Third-party sources suggest that Zendesk Professional Services pricing starts at around $8,000 per channel, with the price climbing higher depending on the number of instances being launched. 

3. Getting Help from Zendesk Can Be a Challenge

Zendesk users often struggle to get timely, helpful support – a major frustration when the platform itself is already so complex.

Here’s what Zendesk users have to say about the kind of user support they receive –

Zendesk’s regular plans don’t include 24×7 support. To get help after hours, you’ll need the Premier Support add-on, which isn’t cheap. It’s charged as 20–35% of your annual license cost, with a minimum spend that often makes smaller teams pay disproportionately more.

15 best alternatives to Zendesk available in 2025

Here’s a list of 15 Zendesk alternatives which could better fit your team’s requirements and help you deliver exceptional customer support. 

Tool	Key Features	Starting Price (Monthly)	G2 Rating
Hiver	Omnichannel inbox, internal collaboration, live chat, knowledge base, AI features across all stages – triage, resolution, and insights, 100+ integrations	$25/user/mo (free plan available)	4.6⭐
Freshdesk	Omnichannel support, Freddy AI, parent-child ticketing	$15/user/mo (free plan available)	4.4⭐
Zoho Desk	CRM integration, Zia AI, SLA automation	$7/user/mo (free plan available)	4.4⭐
Spiceworks	Ticket automation, knowledge base, reporting	Forever free (ad-free at $5/user/mo)	4.3⭐
Tidio	Live chat, Lyro AI chatbot, multichannel inbox	$24.17/mo (free plan available)	4.7⭐
Help Scout	Email, chat, knowledge base, AI chatbot	$25/mo (free plan available)	4.4⭐
Intercom	Fin AI chatbot, Copilot AI, proactive messaging	$29/user/mo (Fin billed separately)	4.5⭐
HappyFox	Multichannel support, ITSM, automations	$24/user/mo	4.5⭐
GrooveHQ	Shared inbox, live chat, knowledge base, AI assistance	$24/user/mo	4.6⭐
LiveAgent	Live chat, call center support, ticketing, social integrations	$9/user/mo	4.5⭐
Front	Shared inbox, collaboration tools, AI add-ons	$25/user/mo	4.7⭐
Helpjuice	AI search, article analytics, branding options	$249/mo	4.7⭐
Gorgias	Ecommerce integration, macros (templates), AI Agent	$50/mo	4.6⭐
HubSpot Service Hub	Customer portal, conversation AI, CRM integration	$15/user/mo (free plan available)	4.4⭐
Jira Service Management	ITSM tools, Confluence integration, SLAs	$19.04/agent/mo (free plan available)	4.3⭐

1. Hiver

Ideal for: Fast-moving, modern businesses that want a simple and powerful help desk tool with strong AI capabilities. 

Hiver is a modern AI customer service platform that empowers teams to deliver stellar service across channels like email, chat, voice, and more – all from one intuitive interface. Unlike legacy tools like Zendesk, it’s easy to get started with and powerful enough for complex workflows.

You can access all the support channels from a left-side panel. In fact, you can even manage both personal and team emails from a single interface, making it easier to stay organized and never miss a customer message.

What makes Hiver a better alternative to Zendesk:

The biggest advantage that Hiver has over Zendesk is the value for money it offers. You get a complete set of customer support capabilities at a far more transparent and affordable price point. 

Zendesk’s most popular plan – the Suite Growth plan, is priced at $89 per user per month. Compare that to Hiver’s Pro plan which costs $45 per user per month and it’s clear there’s a significant difference. 

Here’s a rough comparison chart of what you can expect to pay for Zendesk vs Hiver, while excluding the hidden costs for training, implementation, add-ons and such that come with Zendesk.

Software	Small+Medium Teams(10 users)	Large Teams(50 users)
Zendesk	$10,680 per year	$54,400 per year
Hiver	$5400 per year	$27,000 per year
Annual Savings	≈ 49%

As you can see, Hiver costs close to half of what you’d be paying for Zendesk. 

Here’s a detailed breakdown of Hiver’s key features:

• Omnichannel ticketing system: Manage customer conversations across email, chat, WhatsApp, voice, SMS, and social channels from one clean interface. Assign, track, and resolve queries without juggling multiple tools.
  
  
• AI capabilities: Hiver AI is built into every stage of support. AI Copilot summarizes conversations, suggests polished replies, and surfaces answers from connected tools. AI Agents handle triage, routing, thank-you closures, and multi-step resolutions like refunds. And AI Insights analyzes sentiment, flags churn risks, tracks automation performance, and spots emerging trends.

• Team collaboration: Work with teammates in real time using internal notes, shared drafts, and collision alerts – no need to juggle Slack threads or clumsy email forwards to stay aligned.

• Knowledge base: Deliver 24/7 support by setting up a searchable help center. Customers can quickly find answers on their own, while freeing up your agents’ time for more complex issues. You can set up an internal KB for your team as well. 

• Analytics and reporting: Get a bird’s-eye view of key metrics such as team workload, response times, SLA compliance, and CSAT trends. Build custom reports by filtering individual agents, tags, or time periods.
  
• Integration: Connect with 100+ tools like Aircall, Salesforce, Asana, and WhatsApp to keep context centralized and reduce tab fatigue.

• Rule-based automations: Free your team from repetitive tasks with rule-based workflows. Auto-tag, prioritize, assign, or close tickets based on conditions that you set. You can also evenly distribute tickets using round-robin assignments.
  
  
• Customer portal: Set up a personalized customer portal where customers can raise and track issues in real time, reducing follow-ups and repetitive queries. Collect all required details upfront so agents have full context and can resolve issues faster.

Pricing:

Hiver has a forever free plan with basic features for unlimited users. Its paid plans are – the Growth plan priced at $25/user/month, the Pro plan priced at $45/user/month, and the Elite plan priced at $75/user/month. 

You can try Hiver free for 7 days with a full-feature trial.

2. Freshdesk

Ideal for: Growing companies that need full-full-fledged support capabilities at a lower cost. 

Freshdesk is often one of the first names that come up in any discussion about Zendesk alternatives. You can think of Freshdesk as a less complex and more affordable version of Zendesk. 

It works well for both – small teams looking for a simple, intuitive tool as well as larger organizations that need advanced workflows and scalability.

Freshdesk’s key features include:

• Parent-child ticketing: Break complex issues into smaller, linked tickets so multiple teams can work on them in parallel while maintaining shared ownership and visibility.
  
• Unified workspace: View every customer interaction, past tickets, and contact details in one place without switching tabs or hunting for data.
  
• Freddy AI assistant: Boost agent productivity with AI that detects intent, suggests replies or help articles, and stops “thank you” emails from reopening tickets.

Pros: 

• More affordable than Zendesk, with the Pro plan at $49/user/month and a free forever plan that’s ideal for smaller or growing teams.
  
• Customizable agent inbox that lets agents adjust views, prioritize tickets, and use keyboard shortcuts to work through queues faster.
  
• Strong proactive communication features like bulk updates via email, WhatsApp, or SMS to prevent ticket spikes during outages or delays, without needing costly add-ons.

Cons: 

• Configuration can feel heavy as you add advanced workflows, which means teams may spend more time tweaking settings than actually using the tool.
  
• Omnichannel setup can feel fragmented since chat and voice rely on separate products like Freshchat and Freshcaller, creating extra steps in managing conversations.

Pricing:

Freshdesk has a forever free plan. Its paid plans start from $15/user/month. 

3. Zoho Desk

Ideal for: Budget-conscious teams that want deep CRM integration and solid automation features, especially suited to those already on Zoho suite. 

Zoho Desk is a good choice for small and mid-sized businesses looking for an all-in-one help desk that won’t strain the budget. And if you’re already using Zoho’s suite of sales, marketing, or productivity tools, the built-in integrations make it even more valuable.

Let’s look at the key features of Zoho Desk: 

• Workflow automation: Set rules to auto-assign tickets, trigger alerts, and manage SLAs so you can streamline processes and improve efficiency.
  
• CRM integration: Connect directly with Zoho CRM to give agents a complete view of customer profiles, purchase history, and past interactions in one window.
  
• Zia AI assistant: Analyze tickets for tone and intent, suggest responses, auto-tag issues, and even summarize conversations to reduce manual work.

Pros

• Very affordable, with the Professional plan priced at $23 per user per month, making it accessible for small and growing teams.
  
• Strong value for money, offering a broad feature set at a fraction of Zendesk’s cost.
  
• Includes advanced capabilities like sentiment analysis and auto-tagging in the Enterprise plan, without the add-on fees Zendesk typically requires.

Cons

• Learning curve can feel steep, and the UI can appear busy or cluttered until teams get used to it.
  
• Some advanced automation and reporting features sit behind higher-tier plans, which may limit flexibility for smaller teams.

Pricing: 

Zoho Desk has a forever free plan. Its paid plans start from $7 per user per month. 

4. Spiceworks

Ideal for: Smaller teams that want a free, lightweight help desk with core ticketing and reporting abilities.

Spiceworks is one of the few help desk tools that’s completely free to use, with its costs covered through ads. It’s a no-frills, get-the-job-done option for teams that want the structure of a support system without adding overhead costs.

Let’s look at the key features offered by the platform:

• Rule-based automation: Eliminate repetitive tasks by setting rules to auto-assign tickets or trigger responses.
  
• Knowledge base: Create and share how-to guides for customers or keep them private for internal teams.
  
• Custom reporting: Track open or pending tickets, apply filters to spot trends, and connect with Power BI for advanced analysis.

Pros:

• Completely free to use since it’s ad-supported, making it ideal for small teams with tight budgets.
  
• Includes core essentials like ticket management, reporting, and asset tracking with no limits on agents or ticket volume.
  
• Quick to set up, with a minimal interface that keeps things simple for everyday use.
  
• Designed for small IT or support teams that want structure and visibility without needing a dedicated admin.

Cons:

• On-prem and ad-supported model comes with a dated UX, offering less flexibility compared to modern cloud help desks.
  
• Limited AI and automation capabilities, which can slow teams down as their support needs grow.

Pricing:

Spiceworks has a free forever plan. Its paid plan (ad-free) is priced at $5/user/month. 

5. Tidio

Ideal for: Startups that want strong chat support without the complexity or cost of larger help desks.

Tidio offers live chat, chatbots, and multichannel support in one easy-to-use tool. Setup is quick, and its free plan makes it a good fit for startups. Its AI chatbot, Lyro, can automate routine questions and reduce the load on small teams.

Let’s look at some of its key features:

• Flows: Use Tidio’s no‑code Flows builder to design automated conversational paths. Trigger messages based on visitor behavior or channel type, guide users through FAQs, route requests to the right team, and handle simple tasks without agent intervention.
  
  Example: A visitor clicks “Request quote” → the Flow collects shipment details → visitor is either connected to an agent or receives an automatic quote and a follow‑up message when a human steps in.
  
  
• Custom analytics: Get visibility into essential support metrics and customer behavior. On higher plans, you can request custom dashboards built around your business goals, giving you deeper insights into performance and trends.
  
  
• Live chat: Add Tidio’s live chat widget to your website to connect with visitors instantly. Set personalized greetings, trigger proactive messages based on behavior, and handle queries as they come in – or automate responses when your team is offline.

Pros:

• More affordable than Zendesk, with a free forever plan and paid tiers starting at $24.17 per month for up to 100 conversations.
  
• Flexible AI chatbot pricing, with Lyro billed on a usage basis, which helps smaller businesses control costs without large upfront commitments.

Cons:

• Conversation caps, trigger limits, and stronger analytics are locked behind higher plans, which can restrict growing teams.
  
• Doesn’t offer voice, SMS, or HIPAA support, so it may not suit businesses that need broader channels or strict compliance.
  

Pricing: 

Tidio has a forever free plan. Paid plans start from $24.17 per month for up to 100 conversations. The Lyro AI 

chatbot is billed separately and is usage based. 

6. Help Scout

Ideal for: Teams that want an inbox-like interface and prefer ease of use over extensive features. 

Help Scout feels less like a ticketing system and more like a personal email inbox that you can share with your team. 

Let’s look at the key features Help Scout offers:

• Omnichannel support: Serve customers across email, live chat, self-service, and social media from one platform. All these channels are included on every plan, including the free one, and you can add phone, SMS, and community support through integrations.
  
  
• Beacon: Get suggestions for relevant help articles, enable live chat, and let customers view their past conversations through an embedded widget for faster, more seamless support.

• AI capabilities: Use AI Answers to automatically respond to common customer questions from your knowledge base, and AI Summarize to condense long conversations into quick, scannable updates for agents.

Pros:

• Extremely easy to get started with an intuitive interface that requires minimal training.
  
• Teams can ramp up quickly and become power users within days, unlike Zendesk’s steeper learning curve.
  
• All plans include built-in email and chat support, available 24 hours a day, six days a week, ensuring help is always accessible.

Cons:

• Reporting and customization are more basic compared to enterprise-focused tools, which may limit advanced teams.
  
• Feature depth can feel limiting as operations get more complex, causing some teams to outgrow it.

Pricing:

Help Scout has a forever free plan. The Standard plan starts at $25 per month for 100 contacts.

Note that in Help Scout, pricing is based on contacts i.e. the number of customers helped (not the number of users of the software). Multiple conversations with the same person during a billing period only count as one contact. 

7. Intercom

Ideal for: Fast-growing SaaS and tech companies that rely heavily on real-time conversations with customers.

Intercom likes to call itself a ‘human-powered and AI-enhanced’ help desk. They’re one of Zendesk’s biggest competitors and boldly claim that – “Customer service has evolved. Zendesk hasn’t.” It’s a fully integrated, omnichannel help desk known for its in-app chat and proactive communication capabilities.

Intercom’s key features include:

• Fin AI chatbot: Resolve a large portion of customer queries instantly using your knowledge base and past interactions. Fin also hands off seamlessly to human agents when needed.
  
• Custom reporting: Build dashboards your way, apply advanced filters, and control visibility to track team performance and uncover improvement areas.
  
• AI Copilot: Support agents directly in the inbox by drafting replies, summarizing conversations, surfacing resources, and rephrasing messages for clarity.

Pros:

• Much more intuitive and quicker to set up than Zendesk, with a lighter interface and minimal technical effort required. Easier for agents to adopt since there’s no steep learning curve.
  
• Strong automation and AI features, with Fin resolving up to 50 percent of customer queries with clear, accurate responses.
  
• Powerful proactive support tools that let teams send targeted messages, guide new users, share updates, and prevent issues before they escalate.

Cons:

• Costs can escalate quickly since pricing combines seat charges with AI usage and resolution-based fees.
  
• Less flexible for traditional ticketing and reporting compared to dedicated help desks, which can limit structured workflows.

• Fin AI sometimes struggles with nuanced or complex queries, producing generic answers that need manual follow-up.

Pricing

Intercom’s help desk pricing starts at $29/user/month. Fin is billed separately and is priced at $0.99 per resolution i.e. you only pay when it resolves an issue. 

8. HappyFox

Ideal for: Teams that want a simple, easy-to-use help desk with lightweight ITSM features such as asset tracking and change management.

HappyFox was founded in 2011. Despite the fact  it’s been around for a decade and a half now, the team has done a good job of preserving the simplicity of the tool. Alongside your typical help desk features, HappyFox has a blend of ITSM features (like asset tracking and change management). 

Its key features include:

• Workflow automation: Reduce manual work by auto-assigning tickets, setting SLA rules, and triggering escalations or reassignments.
  
• Task management: Break down complex tickets into smaller tasks with due dates, clear ownership, and reusable templates to save time.
  
• Knowledge base: Create internal resources for agents, external FAQs for customers, and multilingual articles to support global teams.

Pros:

• Very quick to set up, often taking less than an hour, with minimal learning curve compared to Zendesk’s heavier onboarding.
  
• Includes a free in-app training module to help teams get familiar with the platform.
  
• Offers dedicated engineering support during setup and onboarding, which reduces friction for new teams.

Cons:

• No free plan, and total costs can add up as you scale or add more agents.
  
• Teams with complex or highly customized workflows may find its capabilities too limited for advanced operational needs.

Pricing:

HappyFox’s paid plans start from $24/user/month.  

9. GrooveHQ

Ideal for: Small teams who want the structure of a helpdesk without losing the feel of email.

GrooveHQ simplifies the overhead of traditional support tools by mirroring the feel of an email client – conversations flow like messages, tags and folders feel familiar, and agents can get productive without any learning curve. Its AI features like sentiment tracking and auto-drafted replies quietly streamline the workflow, keeping support fast, personal, and effortless.

GrooveHQ’s key features include:

• Automations: Use smart folders and automation rules to auto-tag, sort, and prioritize conversations based on criteria you define – keeping your inbox organized and your team focused. You can also set time-based triggers to send follow-ups or close inactive tickets, ensuring every customer gets a timely response.
  
• Team collaboration: Assign conversations, leave internal notes, and @mention teammates directly inside a thread to stay aligned without extra CCs or Slack back-and-forth.
  
• AI assistance: Use built-in AI to summarize long threads, suggest replies, and refine tone so agents can respond faster and more clearly.

Pros:

• Extremely simple and easy to use, with a clean interface and quick setup that requires minimal training.
  
• Features are organized clearly, so teams aren’t overwhelmed with unnecessary options. Offers the core essentials – shared inbox, ticketing, and reporting – in one straightforward package.
  
• A great fit for startups and small businesses that want a complete help desk solution that’s easy to adopt and manage from day one.

Cons:

• Reporting and filtering options are fairly basic, which can limit deeper analysis for growing teams.
  
• Limited scalability – great for small teams, but operations with higher ticket volumes may outgrow it.
  
• Fewer integrations compared to bigger tools, which can make it harder to plug into a larger tech stack.

Pricing:

GrooveHQ’s pricing plans start at $24/user/month. 

10. LiveAgent

Ideal for: Budget-conscious teams that want every channel in one place.

LiveAgent is a customer service platform that began as a live chat tool but has since evolved into a full omnichannel help desk. Its universal inbox brings together tickets, chats, calls, and social messages in one dashboard, so agents don’t have to switch between tools. 

What makes LiveAgent a good alternative to Zendesk: 

LiveAgent gives agents a single view showing ticket history, contact data and multi-channel interactions – all in one screen – whereas with Zendesk you often toggle between tabs and modules. 

At a flat rate of about $39/agent/month for full omnichannel support (email, chat, voice, social), it delivers a breadth of channels without the add-ons or tier-hikes Zendesk typically enforces.

Its key features include:

• Social media: Manage customer messages from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Viber, and WhatsApp right inside one unified ticketing dashboard. Unlike Zendesk, where social channels often require separate integrations or paid add-ons, LiveAgent keeps everything connected.
  
• Advanced live chat: Trigger proactive chats, preview what customers are typing, and escalate chats as needed.
  
• Automation & ticket routing: Set rules for auto-assigning tickets, merging duplicates, distributing workloads, and applying tags to streamline workflows.

Pros:

• Offers a unified agent view that consolidates ticket history, contact details, and multi-channel interactions into one screen, reducing the need to switch between tabs like in Zendesk.
  
• Provides full omnichannel support – email, chat, voice, and social – at a flat rate of about $39 per agent per month, avoiding Zendesk’s add-ons and tier-based pricing.

Cons:

• Dated and somewhat cluttered UI, which adds to the learning curve and makes setup feel more complex than modern tools.
  
• Mobile app performance and analytics customization lag behind competitors, limiting flexibility for on-the-go or data-driven teams.

Pricing:

LiveAgent’s plans start from $9/user/month. 

11. Front

Ideal for: Cross-functional teams that want email-like collaboration with shared drafts, comments, and assignments.

Front takes the inbox your team already knows and turns it into a shared space for customer support. It feels just like using email, but with help desk capabilities layered in. What sets Front apart is how naturally it brings collaboration into the inbox, so teams can stay aligned and resolve issues faster without bouncing between tools.

Its key features include:

• Help center: Set up a knowledge base with FAQs and articles so customers can self-serve. You can also connect it directly to Front Chat for seamless support.
  
• AI add-ons: Use Copilot to draft replies and Smart QA to review conversations for quality insights. These are available as $20/user/month add-ons on all plans, or included in the Enterprise plan.
  
• Collaborative inbox: Work together in real time with shared drafts, comments, and task assignments – ensuring every customer query gets the right response.

Pros:

• Provides significantly better product support than Zendesk, with faster responses and real human help across plans.
  
• Offers a smooth onboarding experience, with users frequently praising how easy implementation is and how supportive the team is throughout setup.

Cons:

• Recent UI updates have led to slowdowns and occasional glitches, causing frustration for some users.
  
• Certain features and paywalls push teams into higher tiers, which can increase costs faster than expected.

Pricing:

Front’s plans start at $25 per user per month. 

12. Helpjuice

Ideal for: Companies prioritizing self-service with a dedicated, customizable knowledge base.

Helpjuice is primarily a knowledge base platform for teams that want to centralize and share knowledge – whether with customers or internally. If your primary goal is to provide customers with a strong self-service option, Helpjuice is far better equipped for the job than Zendesk.

Its key features include:

• AI-assisted article planning: Use the built-in planner to generate detailed outlines, helping teams stay consistent and publish knowledge base content faster.
  
• Smart search: Deliver instant answers with AI-powered search that understands context, so customers find the right articles without exact keyword matches.
  
• Brand customization: Design your knowledge base to look and feel like an extension of your product by customizing colors, layouts, and design elements.

Pros:

• Strong vendor support, with users consistently praising how responsive and hands-on the team is when resolving issues.
  
• Excellent assistance during customization or feature requests, making setup and ongoing improvements easier.
  
• Provides deeper knowledge base analytics than Zendesk, including insights into article usage, drop-off points, and unanswered questions to improve self-service content.

Cons:

• Can feel expensive for smaller teams since pricing is designed around higher user counts.
  
• Focuses primarily on knowledge base management, so it lacks broader help desk or omnichannel capabilities that some teams may need.

Pricing:

Helpjuice’s plans start at $249 per month for up to 30 users. 

13. Gorgias

Ideal for: ecommerce brands that need deep storefront integrations and revenue-focused support automation.

Gorgias is a help desk built specifically for ecommerce businesses that want their customer service to tie directly into orders, refunds, and shipping. 

It integrates seamlessly with major platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Adobe Commerce, so support teams can view and manage customer interactions alongside store data without switching tools.

Its key features include:

• Custom dashboards: Track the KPIs that matter most by building tailored dashboards. Evaluate agent performance, drill down into tickets for coaching, and use CSAT surveys to uncover trends and measure customer satisfaction.
  
• Macros and templates: Save time and stay consistent with pre-written responses for common questions, allowing agents to handle repetitive inquiries more efficiently.
  
• Ecommerce integrations: Connect directly with platforms like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce so agents can access order history, customer data, and other details without leaving the help desk.

Pros:

• Purpose-built for ecommerce, with a support team that understands retail workflows far better than broad enterprise tools like Zendesk.
  
• Highly responsive vendor support, with quick answers and an active community that helps users troubleshoot and share best practices.
  
• Strong revenue-focused features, including an AI Agent for Sales that recommends products, applies discounts, and reduces checkout friction – something Zendesk doesn’t offer. 

Cons:

• Ticket-based pricing can climb quickly for high-volume ecommerce stores, making costs unpredictable as traffic grows.
  
• Not as strong outside ecommerce use cases, so teams in non-retail industries may find the feature set too limited.

Pricing:

Gorgias’s pricing plan starts at $50 per month and includes up to 300 tickets. It supports up to 3 users.

14. HubSpot Service Hub

Ideal for: Companies already on HubSpot that want support, success, and CRM data in one place.

HubSpot Service Hub is a great choice for those already using HubSpot for sales, marketing, operations etc. By keeping support in the same system, your team gets a single, unified view of customer data – making it easier to deliver more personalized and consistent experiences.

HubSpot Service Hub’s key features include:

• Customer portal: Give customers complete visibility into their tickets. They can log in to track progress, reply to updates, and access your knowledge base for instant answers.
  
• Conversation intelligence: Automatically capture and analyze customer calls inside HubSpot CRM. Instead of manually reviewing recordings, get insights into team performance, common objections, and customer sentiment.
  
• Customer Success Workspace: Monitor product usage, satisfaction, and health scores in one view. This helps your team identify at-risk accounts early and step in before churn becomes a problem.

Pros:

• Strong, reliable vendor support, with users consistently praising how fast and helpful the team is across live chat, email, and extensive self-service resources.
  
• Deep native integration with HubSpot’s CRM, sales, and marketing tools, giving teams a unified customer record and eliminating data silos.
  
• Enables powerful cross-department automations and unified reporting, offering leadership a complete view of the end-to-end customer journey.

Cons:

• Can get expensive as you scale, especially since advanced features often require higher tiers or bundled HubSpot seats.
  
• Works best when you’re fully invested in the HubSpot ecosystem, which can feel limiting for teams using a diverse stack.
  
• The platform can be overwhelming for smaller teams since Service Hub comes packaged with broader CRM and marketing capabilities they may not need.

Pricing:

HubSpot Service Hub offers a forever free plan. Paid plans start at $15/user/month. 

15. Jira Service Management

Ideal for: IT and DevOps teams that need incident, change, and request management alongside customer support.

The first thing people think of when they hear Jira is project management. But it also offers a full-fledged customer support solution in Jira Service Management. It’s well-suited for IT, DevOps, and support teams that want to manage incidents, requests, changes, and customer tickets all in one place, especially if they’re already using Atlassian products like Jira Software or Confluence.

Its key features include:

• Knowledge base integration: Build a self-service portal by connecting with Confluence, so customers and employees can search for answers on their own.
  
• Context-rich sidebar: View a customer’s previous requests and related assets or configuration items – helpful for IT teams troubleshooting specific servers, devices, or systems.
  
• Deep Jira integrations: Connect with Jira Software and Confluence to align IT, DevOps, and support. Developers see customer-reported bugs directly, while agents can link tickets to projects without switching tools.

Pros:

• Strong vendor support tailored to IT and technical teams, with extensive documentation, a large community, and responsive technical assistance.
  
• Purpose-built for IT service desks and DevOps workflows, making it easier to collaborate with engineering teams when issues require fixes.
  
• Connects support, development, and operations in one ecosystem, offering tighter alignment than Zendesk’s customer-focused model.

Cons:

• The interface and setup can feel complex for non-technical teams, so adoption is slower outside IT or engineering environments.
  
• Advanced workflows and configurations often require admin expertise, which can add overhead for smaller support teams.

Pricing:

Jira Service Management has a free forever plan. Paid plans start from $19.04 per agent per month.

Other Alternatives to Zendesk Worth Considering

Here are 10 additional tools worth exploring as alternatives to Zendesk, apart from the ones we have reviewed in detail above. 

16. BoldDesk: Modern help desk tool with clean UI, strong automation, and knowledge base features. A good Zendesk competitor for teams that want a straightforward ticketing system without steep setup or pricing complexity. 

17. DevRev: AI-first product CRM that connects customer tickets directly to product and engineering work. Ideal for SaaS teams that want support, feedback, and roadmap decisions to live in one place instead of siloed tools. 

18. Trengo: Omnichannel customer engagement platform that brings email, WhatsApp, social media, and live chat into one AI-powered inbox. Works well for companies that rely heavily on messaging channels and want multichannel support in a single workspace.

19. Helpwise: Shared inbox and customer service platform that centralizes team email accounts and other channels in one place. Best suited for small and mid-sized teams that want an easy way to manage group inboxes like support@ and sales@ without moving to a heavy enterprise help desk. 

20. Gladly: Customer service platform that positions itself as a people first alternative to ticket-based tools like Zendesk. Designed for brands that want a single, ongoing conversation with each customer across channels instead of fragmented tickets. 

21. Salesforce Service Cloud: Enterprise-grade support platform that connects cases, customer data, and AI-powered chat in one system. A strong fit for larger organizations that already use Salesforce and want native multichannel support tied directly to their CRM. 

22. Crisp: All-in-one, AI-powered multichannel messaging platform with a shared inbox. Brings together live chat, email, social DMs, and WhatsApp, making it a good Zendesk competitor for teams that want a lightweight, chat-first, multichannel experience. 

23. LiveChat: Live chat focused customer service platform that also supports multiple channels and sales-driven conversations. Works especially well for ecommerce and B2B companies that want to prioritize real-time chat while still having room to expand into broader support. 

24. ProProfs Help Desk: Cloud-based help desk that combines ticketing, live chat, knowledge base, and surveys in one suite. Suited for teams that want an affordable, all-in-one system with automation and multichannel support without heavy admin overhead. 

25. Deskpro: Flexible help desk platform available in both cloud and on-premise deployments. Good option for IT, government, or regulated industries that need more control over data hosting, along with modern ticketing, knowledge base, and AI-assisted workflows.

How to evaluate the right Zendesk alternative for your business

After going through so many options, it’s natural to wonder: which of these Zendesk alternatives is the best fit for your team? The answer depends on your business goals, budget, and the kind of support experience you want to deliver. Here are the key criteria you should evaluate.

• Pricing: Start by figuring out how much you’re comfortable spending. Then compare plan costs across tools and see where you’ll get the most bang for your buck. Watch out for hidden fees like add-ons, training and onboarding charges and so on. 
• Reviews and ratings: Look at what real users say on platforms like G2, Capterra, or TrustRadius to see if the tool delivers on its promises and what sort of experience users have had. 
• Scalability: Make sure the platform can handle more users, tickets, and features as your business grows, without forcing you to switch tools later.
• Support and onboarding: Check what kind of training, migration help, and customer support the vendor provides. Fast, accessible support will save you a lot of headache and it’ll ensure your admin team is not overwhelmed. 
• Internal team needs: Think about how your team works. Do they need advanced ITSM features, tight integrations with CRM, or a tool that’s really simple to use? The tool should fit into your workflow, never the other way around. 

Elevate your support quality with the right Zendesk alternative

Zendesk has been around for a long time and was one of the earliest help desk platforms to gain traction. But in trying to keep pace with growing  customer needs and new technology, the product has become bloated. Over the years, Zendesk has stitched together acquisitions and add-ons, creating a patchwork of features that feel clunky and fragmented.

Today, as you can see from the list above, there are modern, purpose-built tools that are sleeker, more intuitive, and better suited for the way teams work. 

If Zendesk feels too heavy for your team, Hiver offers a simpler alternative without compromising capability. It brings core help desk features into an easy-to-use interface and there’s almost zero learning curve. Teams can assign, track, and resolve customer queries faster – all while keeping costs predictable and far lower than most traditional platforms.

If you want to check out Hiver:

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