12 Best Zendesk Alternatives and Competitors in 2026: Prices and AI Costs

Key Takeaways

• Zendesk bills three ways: seats, $50 a month per agent for Copilot and $1.50 to $2.00 per resolution past the allowance.
• Ten agents on Suite Professional with Copilot cost $1,650 a month on annual billing, before any extra AI resolutions.
• Ten of the other 11 alternatives charge per seat, agent or user, and Gorgias prices by ticket volume. Every Helply plan includes unlimited users, and you buy credits for the AI work. The spend cap defaults to your block price.
• Shortlist by use case: Slack (Helply, Pylon, Plain), shared inbox (Front), email (Help Scout), ticketing (Freshdesk) or budget (Zoho Desk). Pick Intercom for in-app chat and Gorgias for e-commerce. CRM-led teams can choose HubSpot or Salesforce.
• Run Helply on part of your Zendesk queue before your renewal date, with Zendesk live on the rest. If the pilot meets your targets, bring your tickets and conversation history, help center articles and customer records across.
• Zendesk has no free plan. Help Scout, Zoho Desk and HubSpot Service Hub have free plans capped at 5, 3 and 2 users. FreeScout, osTicket and Zammad are open source, and you run them on your own server.

If your Zendesk renewal quote came in higher than last year, start with the AI line items. Copilot costs $50 per agent per month, in addition to each seat. Zendesk charges for every automated resolution past the allowance, and overage is on by default.

Some of those seats belong to occasional users. Each person who replies to customers needs another seat, so you keep engineers and success managers out of the queue. On Suite Team, light agents, who read tickets and add private comments, are an add-on.

Some customers ask for help in shared Slack and Teams channels. Their messages stay outside your Zendesk queue until someone turns them into tickets.

Jacqueline Antworth, who runs customer experience at Proposify, felt the per-seat squeeze before the move to Helply. "Zendesk charged us for every person who just wanted to read a ticket. We needed leverage on routine questions and visibility for the whole team, for less than we were paying."

Zendesk is a mature help desk with a large app marketplace. It prices support by the seat and sells AI on top.

The 12 best Zendesk alternatives in 2026 cover email inboxes, Slack-first support, e-commerce queues and CRM-led teams. Price each one, including AI fees, before your renewal date.

Zendesk Alternatives Compared: Entry Price, Pricing Model and AI Cost

A Zendesk alternative is a help desk or customer support platform that replaces Zendesk. Teams switch to cut seat and AI add-on costs, simplify setup, or answer customer questions in shared Slack channels and Microsoft Teams.

The 12 Zendesk alternatives and competitors fall into six groups. Helply, Pylon and Plain run support in shared Slack channels, and Helply adds AI agents and unlimited users on every plan. Front and Help Scout suit email-led teams that want a shared inbox.

Freshdesk, Zoho Desk and LiveAgent sell Zendesk-style ticketing, priced per agent or user. If your CRM is Salesforce or HubSpot, you can keep support inside it with Service Cloud or Service Hub. Intercom (Fin) fits in-app chat, and Gorgias fits Shopify and e-commerce stores.

Prices are per month in US dollars on annual billing. Helply's $49 credit block is its monthly-billing price, and annual billing costs 15% less.

Why Teams Are Leaving Zendesk in 2026

You face four problems at renewal. You pay AI fees on top of seats, and features such as skills-based routing sit in higher suites. Every teammate who answers customers needs a paid seat, and Zendesk supports shared Slack and Teams channels only in part.

The AI Tax: You Pay Per Seat and Per Resolution

Zendesk's Support Team, Suite Team and Suite Professional plans cost $19, $55 and $115 per agent each month on annual billing. Zendesk Copilot adds $50 per agent a month, and you can buy it on Suite Professional and above.

Every Zendesk plan includes AI agents and a monthly allowance of 5 to 15 automated resolutions per agent, depending on the plan. Past that allowance, each resolution costs $1.50 on committed volume or $2.00 pay as you go. Overage is on by default, and the account owner can turn it off to pause the AI at the limit.

Ten agents on Suite Professional cost $1,150 a month in seats on annual billing. Copilot for all ten adds $500, so you pay $1,650 before extra resolutions, about 1.4 times the seat price.

Since May 18, 2026, Zendesk has been moving accounts from these per-resolution allowances to tiers that draw on a dollar allowance per seat. Suite Professional's allowance is $5 per agent a month, and Zendesk doesn't publish the tier prices. Ask for them in writing before you renew.

Helply bills the AI work itself in credits, and every plan has unlimited users. Credit blocks begin with 500 credits at $49 a month, and a rejected draft never costs a credit.

Suite-Tier Inflation: The Features You Want Are Two Tiers Up

Skills-based routing, the App Builder and custom reporting start at Suite Professional, at $115 per agent a month.

Customizable live dashboards, custom agent roles and audit logs need Suite Enterprise, which has no published price.

On top of each seat, you can add Copilot or the Workforce Engagement Bundle, each at $50 a month on annual billing. Zendesk sells Quality Assurance as a separate add-on with no listed price.

Seat Math: Every Teammate Who Answers Customers Needs a Paid Seat

On Zendesk, each agent who replies to customers takes a paid seat. Suite Professional includes up to 100 light agents, who can read tickets and add private comments. Light agents can't take assignments or send public replies.

An engineer who knows the fix can leave a private note, but a paid agent has to send the answer. On Suite Professional, each extra person who replies to customers adds $115 a month on annual billing, or $165 with Copilot.

The Two Worlds Problem: Shared Slack and Teams Channels

Many software companies support customers in shared Slack Connect channels and Microsoft Teams. Zendesk's Slack Direct Messages channel handles one-to-one requests, and replies in Slack threads don't reach Zendesk.

In a shared Slack Connect channel, someone has to tag @zendesk and fill in a form to open a ticket. Zendesk's Teams app works for people in your own Microsoft 365 organization who sign in to Zendesk. They can create, view and update tickets and get notifications when tickets change.

Helply, Pylon, Plain and Front bring customer Slack channels into the queue. Pylon and Plain cover Microsoft Teams on higher plans. In Helply, Teams conversations share the inbox with email and chat.

Five Factors for Comparing Zendesk Competitors

Compare each tool on five factors that move your monthly bill or change your team's workday.

• Total cost. Seat prices plus AI add-ons and per-resolution fees, on annual billing.
• AI depth. Does the AI answer from help articles only, or can it look up accounts and take actions?
• Channels. Can your team work email, chat, Slack, Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp from one queue?
• Customer context. Can your reps and the AI see account, billing and product data beside the conversation?
• Switching effort. Can you bring tickets, conversation history and help center articles across, and run both tools side by side?

1. Helply: Best for Teams That Want AI Agents and Unlimited Users

Helply is an AI-native customer support platform. Coming from Zendesk, you get the help desk you expect: shared inbox and ticketing, live chat, knowledge base, analytics, customer records and workflows. Helply's agents investigate, resolve and act inside that help desk.

The Support Agent works with customers on every channel and can resolve issues end to end. It hands any case it can't resolve to a person, with the investigation done. The Assist Agent works beside your reps, and Background Agents watch every conversation for churn risk, upgrade intent and knowledge gaps.

Every plan has unlimited users, so engineers, success managers and product leads can work tickets with no per-user fee. You pay for AI work from a monthly block of credits.

Proposify replaced Zendesk with Helply across two products and two knowledge bases. Its account owners, product leads and CS managers gained support visibility for less than the per-seat Zendesk plan cost. CSAT held steady through the migration.

Key Features

• The help desk you run today. A shared inbox, assignment and routing, response and resolution targets, collision detection, internal notes and reporting all come with Helply.
• Support Agent on every channel. It investigates with your knowledge base, customer history and connected tools across email, chat, Slack, Teams, WhatsApp and more. It can resolve issues end to end and escalates with the investigation and customer context ready.
• Assist Agent for your reps. It drafts replies from the conversation and customer history, and takes actions the rep approves, such as updating records or filing issues.
• Background Agents. Churn, Revenue, Knowledge, Feature Request and Insights agents monitor conversations, and you can build your own. Churn and Revenue agents can alert a teammate, update customer records or trigger workflows.
• Customer and account context. Reps and agents see customer details, conversation history and account information together. Connect your CRM, billing and product data from 60+ integrations.
• Slack Connect, Teams and Discord as tickets. Helply turns messages from Slack, Teams and Discord channels into trackable conversations in the same inbox as email. The AI agents can answer in supported Slack conversations when you configure them to, and they can work on Teams conversations.
• Escalation rules you set. Decide which cases the AI handles alone and which go to a person.
• Keep your Zendesk history. Bring tickets and conversation history, help center articles and customer records across, then check them before you switch.

Pricing

Helply bills AI work from a monthly credit block, and every plan has unlimited users. The smallest block holds 500 credits for $49 a month, and the largest holds 32,000 for $1,549. On monthly billing, unused credits carry over for one month; on annual billing, you save 15% and credits pool across the year.

Drafting a reply uses 1 credit, and a bounded lookup in one or two systems uses 4. Checking refund eligibility and preparing the refund uses 12. Retries, failed actions and rejected drafts never use credits.

Five Suite Professional agents on Zendesk cost $575 a month in seats on annual billing, or $825 with Copilot. To size a Helply block, multiply your monthly conversations by about 7 for B2B support or 4 for B2C. The free trial includes 1,000 credits over 14 days, and you don't need a card.

Pros

• Unlimited users on every plan, so a success manager or engineer can join support with no per-user fee.
• All three agents come with every plan, and each AI action costs 1, 4 or 12 credits by complexity.
• Slack Connect and Microsoft Teams conversations land in the same inbox as email and chat.
• You can keep Zendesk live while Helply works a share of your queue.
• At Kameleo, which replaced a Zendesk and GitHub setup, the Support Agent resolved 79% of inbound questions end to end.

Cons

• Your bill moves with AI usage once you raise the spend cap. The cap defaults to your block price, and Helply bills any top-up at the same rate.
• A Zendesk marketplace app your team relies on may have no match in Helply. Helply connects to 60+ tools, so confirm yours is among them before you switch.

2. Pylon: Best for Support Teams Living in Slack and Teams

Pylon fits teams whose customers talk to them in shared Slack and Teams channels. Pylon is a B2B support platform that turns messages from Slack, Discord, email and, on Advanced, Microsoft Teams into tracked issues.

Pricing

Pylon lists Professional at $89 and Advanced at $139 per seat a month on annual contracts. Enterprise is a custom quote, and Pylon offers monthly billing without listing a monthly seat price.

Pylon's AI agents run on credits at a price Pylon doesn't publish. Committed packages start at 5,000 credits a year, and you can buy pay-as-you-go credits when Pylon enables them for your account. Account Intelligence costs $10 per customer account a month, and phone support $35 per seat a month.

Pros

• Pylon supports Slack, email, chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Discord and Telegram on every plan, with Teams from Advanced and phone as an add-on.
• Pylon's help center says teammates who reply only in Slack don't need a paid seat.

Cons

• Pylon publishes no credit price, so the cost of AI work depends on your contract.
• Microsoft Teams support starts on the Advanced plan, at $139 per seat a month on an annual contract.
• Pylon has no free plan. A sales rep sets up the free trial, so you start with a demo. Standard contracts are annual, with a minimum seat count for new customers.

Best For

B2B teams that want a Slack-first help desk and are comfortable with an annual contract plus AI credits.

3. Plain: Best for Small B2B Teams in Slack and Email

Plain fits small B2B teams that support customers in Slack and email from a browser-based tool.

Pricing

Plain's Foundation plan costs $45 per member seat a month on annual billing, or $55 monthly, for up to 5 members. Horizon costs $99 per member seat a month on annual billing, or $139 monthly, for 3 to 10 members. Viewer seats are free, and Customer Agent, Plain's customer-facing AI agent, uses 100 credits per resolution.

Pros

• Unlimited free viewer seats, so engineers can read every thread.
• Foundation includes 1,000 credits a month and Horizon 2,500. Extra credits cost $10 per 1,000.
• A 7-day free trial with no card, and up to 50% off for startups.

Cons

• Plain's unused included credits lapse when the month ends, and only top-up credits roll over.
• Foundation stops at 5 members, and Horizon requires at least 3.
• Microsoft Teams starts on Horizon, and Discord needs the custom-priced Frontier plan.

Best For

Small B2B teams that want free viewer seats for engineers who read support threads.

4. Front: Best for Shared Inbox Collaboration

Front fits teams that handle customer conversations as shared threads more than formal tickets. It pulls email, chat, Slack and social messages into one inbox where teammates assign, comment and draft together.

Pricing

Front's Starter plan costs $25, Professional $65 and Enterprise $105 per seat a month on annual billing. Monthly billing costs $35 for Starter and $85 for Professional, and Enterprise is annual only.

Front's Copilot costs $20 per seat a month as an add-on on Starter and Professional and comes with Enterprise. Autopilot, Front's AI agent, is an add-on on every plan. Front bills each Autopilot conversation once, at the highest outcome it reaches: triage $0.05, handoff $0.39 or resolution $0.89.

Pros

• Teammates comment, assign and share drafts on the same conversation. G2 reviewers rate Front 4.7/5 across 2,500-plus reviews.
• Slack channels, including Slack Connect channels you own, connect as a Front channel.
• A 14-day trial with Professional features and no card.

Cons

• Advanced analytics and Salesforce or HubSpot sync start at Professional. Custom reports and unlimited rules need Enterprise at $105 per seat.
• Below Enterprise, AI costs extra twice: Copilot per seat and Autopilot per conversation.
• Starter caps at 10 seats and 10 rules.

Best For

Collaborative email teams within Professional's caps of 50 seats and 20 automation rules. Larger teams fit Enterprise, at $105 per seat a month.

5. Help Scout: Best for Simple Email Support

Help Scout fits small teams that want a free plan and a short setup. You answer email from a shared inbox with a built-in Docs knowledge base.

Pricing

Help Scout charges $25, $45 and $75 per user a month for Standard, Plus and Pro on annual billing. Monthly prices are $30, $54 and $90. The free plan covers 5 users, 1 inbox and 100 contacts a month.

On paid plans, Help Scout bills its Envoy AI add-on, formerly AI Answers, at $0.75 per resolution. AI Drafts comes with Plus and Pro.

Pros

• A free plan for up to 5 users, with 1 inbox and a Docs site.
• New accounts get three months of unlimited Envoy resolutions free, and you can set a monthly spending cap.
• Standard and Plus come with a 15-day trial.

Cons

• AI Drafts and AI Summarize need Plus or Pro. Help Scout's docs say Scout, its built-in AI agent, answers email, but the Envoy page lists email as coming soon.
• Help Scout's Slack integration sends notifications only, and its docs say Slack is not a support channel.
• Help Scout switched to billing by contacts helped in November 2024, then moved new customers back to per-user plans in November 2025.

Best For

Small teams whose support runs on email and a help center.

6. Freshdesk: Best for Zendesk-Style Ticketing With a $29 Copilot

Freshdesk fits teams that like Zendesk's ticket workflow and want a cheaper AI copilot. Its three per-agent plans run from $19 to $89 a month on annual billing.

Pricing

Freshdesk charges $19, $55 and $89 per agent a month for Growth, Pro and Enterprise on annual billing. Monthly billing costs $23, $66 and $107.

Pro and Enterprise can add Freddy AI Copilot at $29 per agent a month on annual billing, or $35 monthly. Each account gets a one-time allowance of 500 Freddy AI Agent sessions, and every further 100 sessions cost $49.

Pros

• Pro with Freddy AI Copilot costs $84 per agent a month on annual billing. Zendesk's cheapest plan with Copilot costs $165.
• Freshdesk's Free Program gives 2 agents six months free, and you turn it on in the product.
• G2 reviewers rate Freshdesk 4.4/5 across 3,800-plus reviews. The 14-day trial runs on the Enterprise plan.

Cons

• Growth teams can't add Copilot, which Freshdesk sells on Pro and Enterprise only.
• The 500 free AI Agent sessions come once per account. After that, every 100 sessions cost $49.
• Freshdesk's Slack and Microsoft Teams apps work on the agent side, and neither is a customer-facing channel.

Best For

Teams that want Zendesk-style ticketing with a cheaper copilot.

7. Zoho Desk: Best for Teams Already in Zoho

Zoho Desk fits teams that run Zoho CRM and the wider Zoho suite, with paid plans from $7 per user a month.

Pricing

Zoho Desk charges $7, $14, $23 and $40 per user a month for Express, Standard, Professional and Enterprise on annual billing. Monthly billing costs $9, $20, $35 and $50, and a free plan covers 3 users. Express caps at 5 users.

Pros

• A free plan for 3 users and a paid tier from $7 per user.
• Zia Agent Studio comes on every plan, with up to 30 million tokens a month of Zoho's in-house models.
• Standard and higher plans have no user cap.

Cons

• Blueprints, round-robin routing and SLA reporting start at Professional. Skill-based assignment and scheduled reports need Enterprise.
• Generative AI on Express and Standard needs your own OpenAI key.
• Zoho's native prebuilt Desk AI agents need Enterprise and are available only in Zoho's US and India data centers. Agents from the Zia Agent Store come on every plan.

Best For

Teams on Zoho CRM that want a low per-user price.

8. Intercom (Fin): Best for PLG Products Led by In-App Chat

Intercom suits product-led companies whose onboarding and support happen in an in-app messenger. It's a messenger-first help desk, and Intercom bills its AI agent, Fin, per outcome.

The company renamed itself Fin on May 12, 2026, and the help desk keeps the Intercom name. Salesforce completed its acquisition of Fin on September 10, 2026.

Pricing

Intercom charges $29, $85 and $132 per seat a month for Essential, Advanced and Expert on annual billing. Month-to-month seats cost $39, $99 and $139. New customers get Essential at $19 a month on annual billing, or $29 monthly.

Fin costs $0.99 per outcome, at most once per conversation, and Copilot adds $29 per agent a month on annual billing.

Pros

• Advanced includes 20 free Lite seats, and Expert includes 50.
• You can buy Fin without the Intercom help desk, at $0.99 per outcome with a $49 monthly minimum covering 50 outcomes.
• A 14-day free trial.

Cons

• Two AI meters: Fin per outcome for customers and Copilot per agent for your reps.
• An outcome counts when the customer confirms a fix, doesn't ask for more help, or Fin completes a configured procedure, handoffs included.
• Since September 10, 2026, Fin has been part of Salesforce AI Labs, so Intercom and Agentforce share an owner.

Best For

PLG software companies that support customers mainly through in-app chat.

9. Gorgias: Best for Shopify and E-Commerce Stores

Gorgias fits Shopify and other e-commerce brands that want to pay by monthly ticket volume.

Pricing

On annual billing, Gorgias Basic costs $50 a month for 300 tickets, Pro $300 for 2,000 and Advanced $750 for 5,000. Monthly billing costs $60, $360 and $900, and a monthly-only Starter plan costs $10 for 50 tickets.

Gorgias's AI Agent costs $0.90 per automated interaction on annual plans or $1.00 on monthly plans. Gorgias counts each automated interaction as a helpdesk ticket.

Pros

• Pricing follows ticket volume, and Gorgias says it never prices per agent.
• Paid plans above Starter include up to 500 user seats. G2 reviewers rate Gorgias 4.6/5 across 580-plus reviews.
• If a person replies within 72 hours of an AI resolution, Gorgias bills only the helpdesk ticket.

Cons

• Extra tickets cost $36 to $40 per 100 on paid plans.
• Gorgias quotes its AI rate two ways: $0.90 or $1.00 in its FAQ, and $0.85 to $1.00 in its compare table.

Best For

Shopify and other e-commerce stores.

10. Salesforce Service Cloud and Agentforce: Best for Enterprises on Salesforce

If your company runs on Salesforce, you can handle support in Service Cloud, Salesforce's help desk, inside the CRM you own. Agentforce is Salesforce's AI agent layer.

Pricing

Salesforce Service Cloud costs $25 per user a month on Starter Suite and $100 on Pro Suite. Core costs $195, Advanced $395 and Max $550 per user a month, on annual billing.

Core includes 500,000 Flex Credits and Advanced 1 million, but the full Agentforce for Service suite costs extra below Max. Agentforce costs $2 per customer conversation or $500 per 100,000 Flex Credits, and a standard action uses 20 Flex Credits, or $0.10. For employee-facing work, you can buy unmetered Agentforce at $125 per user a month.

Pros

• Deep integration if your company runs on Salesforce.
• Max includes Agentforce for Service and 2.75 million Flex Credits per org a year.
• Three ways to buy AI: pre-purchase, pre-commit or pay as you go.

Cons

• Pro Suite requires an annual contract, and Core, Advanced and Max use annual billing.
• Starter Suite adds transaction fees on top of the $25 seat.
• Enhanced Messaging costs $75 more per user a month on two editions.

Best For

Large enterprises standardized on Salesforce.

11. LiveAgent: Best Multichannel on a Tight Budget

For $15 per agent a month on annual billing, LiveAgent's Starter plan bundles email, live chat, contact forms and a knowledge base. LiveAgent's Team plan, at $29 per agent a month on annual billing, adds the call center and IVR.

Pricing

LiveAgent charges $15, $29 and $49 per agent a month for Starter, Team and Business on annual billing. Monthly billing costs $19, $35 and $59. Enterprise is a flat $3,199 a month for 80 agents on annual billing, or $3,999 monthly.

Starter caps at 5 agents and Team at 15. AI features run on your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini or FlowHunt account, and LiveAgent adds no AI fee.

Pros

• Team and higher plans add social channels and a call center with IVR. G2 reviewers rate LiveAgent 4.5/5 across 1,500-plus reviews.
• Every plan includes AI agents for chatbot, reply drafts, triage and automation: 1 on Starter, 5 on Team and 50 on Business.
• A 30-day free trial with no card.

Cons

• You pay your AI provider for usage, so the seat price doesn't cover the AI work.
• Starter has no social channels, call center or reporting.
• Below Enterprise, each new agent adds $15 to $49 a month on annual billing.

Best For

Budget teams that need phone, email and chat support in one tool.

12. HubSpot Service Hub: Best if Your GTM Runs on HubSpot

Service Hub fits teams whose CRM is HubSpot, since tickets sit beside the contact records sales and marketing use.

Pricing

Service Hub Starter lists at $20 per seat a month, with a limited-time new-customer discount to $7 on annual billing or $10 monthly. Professional costs $90 per seat a month on annual billing, and Enterprise costs $150 per seat a month, annual only. A free plan covers up to 2 users.

Professional and Enterprise carry required one-time onboarding fees of $1,500 and $3,500. Customer Agent, HubSpot's AI agent, needs one of those plans and uses HubSpot Credits worth $0.50 per resolution.

Pros

• Buying one Professional or Enterprise Service seat unlocks 14 days of unlimited Customer Agent.
• Customer Agent costs $0.50 per resolution, and Professional includes 3,000 HubSpot Credits a month.
• A free plan for up to 2 users, plus free view-only seats.

Cons

• Customer Agent and help desk ticket sync in Slack or Teams need Professional, at $90 per seat a month on annual billing. HubSpot charges a required one-time $1,500 onboarding fee on Professional. On any plan, you can create a ticket from a Slack or Teams message.
• Seat types differ by tier: Core Seats on Starter, Service Seats on Professional and Enterprise.
• Native help desk channels cover email, chat, Messenger, forms, WhatsApp and calling. Customer Slack conversations need a marketplace app or the custom channels API.

Best For

Teams that run sales and marketing on HubSpot and want support in the same CRM.

Free and Open-Source Zendesk Alternatives: What's Free and the Limits

Zendesk has no free plan; it offers a 14-day trial and a startup program for funded new customers. Help Scout, Zoho Desk and HubSpot Service Hub have free plans, and Freshdesk runs a six-month Free Program for 2 agents. FreeScout, osTicket and Zammad are open-source Zendesk alternatives you can download free and host on your own server.

Free plans cap your users, inboxes or time, and past the cap Help Scout, Zoho Desk, HubSpot and Freshdesk charge per seat. Neither HubSpot's nor Help Scout's free plan includes its AI agent: Customer Agent needs Professional or Enterprise, and Envoy needs a paid plan.

If you self-host, you swap the subscription for your own server costs, updates and security patches.

Helply has no free plan, but every plan has unlimited users. Its smallest plan costs $49 a month and includes all three AI agents and 500 credits. Before you pay, you can test Helply on your own tickets with 1,000 credits over a 14-day trial, without entering a card.

How to Switch From Zendesk

Switching from Zendesk takes five steps: list what moves, run a pilot, compare results, migrate the data and cut over. Start a few weeks before your Zendesk renewal date, so you can test without committing to another year.

1. List what has to move. Tickets and conversation history, help center articles and customer records are the data to bring across. Then list the macros, triggers, views and marketplace apps your team relies on, and plan how to replace each one.
2. Run both tools on part of your queue. Point the new tool at one inbox or channel while the rest stays on Zendesk, as in an AI support pilot beside Zendesk. On Helply, you can run this pilot inside the 14-day trial.
3. Compare the results. Check AI resolution, escalations, response times and AI cost on that slice against the rest of the Zendesk queue over the same weeks.
4. Migrate and check the data. Use Helply's Zendesk migration to connect Zendesk and choose the supported customers, conversations and knowledge to bring across. Review all of it in your workspace before you switch.
5. Cut over. Move your support address, chat widget and Slack or Teams channels to the new tool. Keep Zendesk until its term ends, in case you need an old record.

Helply vs. Zendesk compares the two on pricing, AI agents, Copilot and voice.

How to Choose the Right Zendesk Alternative for Your Team

Match the tool to how your team works and how you want to pay for AI.

• If you want AI agents without per-user fees, pick Helply, which bills only AI work and has unlimited users.
• If most of your support happens in Slack or Teams, shortlist Helply, Pylon and Plain. Front can connect Slack Connect channels you own.
• If you want simple email support, look at Help Scout and Freshdesk. Help Scout's free plan covers up to 5 users.
• If onboarding and support happen inside your product, Intercom suits you, though it adds $0.99 per Fin outcome to its seat fees.
• If you need a low seat price, Zoho Desk starts at $7 per user and LiveAgent at $15 per agent.
• If you run a Shopify store, Gorgias prices by ticket volume and focuses on e-commerce.
• If your CRM is Salesforce or HubSpot, Service Cloud or Service Hub keeps tickets beside your sales records.

Before you renew, add up 12 months of seats, AI add-ons and per-resolution fees at next year's headcount. Then compare that total with a plan that has unlimited users and bills only the AI work.

Renew Zendesk or Switch to Helply?

Renew Zendesk if your team depends on marketplace apps that only run there. For Zendesk-style ticketing with a cheaper copilot, look at Freshdesk, and for a Shopify store, Gorgias. Switch to Helply if you want every teammate in the inbox and AI agents that investigate and resolve tickets.

If you renew Zendesk on annual billing, you commit to another year of per-agent seats and any Copilot fees. On Helply, every plan has unlimited users, so engineers and success managers can reply with no per-user fee.

The Support, Assist and Background agents come with every plan, so you skip per-agent AI add-ons. A draft your team rejects never costs a credit, and neither does a failed action.

Helply brings messages from shared Slack Connect and Microsoft Teams channels into the same inbox as email. The agents can work supported Slack conversations and Teams conversations when you configure them to.

Kameleo joined Helply's first cohort to make a full move off Zendesk. Founder and CEO Tamas Deak says: "Helply forced us to run support properly. It resolves the deep technical tickets, keeps our docs honest, and remembers every fix, so the whole thing compounds."

At about 7 credits per B2B conversation, a five-agent team handling 1,000 conversations a month needs the 7,000-credit block. That block costs $339 a month on annual billing, whatever your headcount. On Zendesk Suite Professional, the same five agents with Copilot cost $825 a month on annual billing, before extra resolutions.