Zendesk sent your renewal quote this morning, and the total is higher than last year's. You hired two people, so you pay for two more seats. You put Copilot on every seat, and Zendesk added a line for AI resolutions beside them.
You pay for two of those lines per agent. Each agent you add costs a seat plus Copilot, and Zendesk charges for AI resolutions once they pass the plan's allowance.
Price each line before you sign. Then set the bill for 5, 10 or 25 agents against the same team on Helply, and check when Zendesk costs less.
Zendesk Pricing Plans Compared: Monthly and Yearly Price per Agent
Zendesk's plans cost $25 to $149 a month per agent ($19 to $115 billed yearly), and Suite Enterprise + Copilot is quote-only.
| Plan | Per agent a month, billed monthly | Per agent a month, billed yearly | What the plan adds | AI resolutions included per agent a month | Light agents included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support Team | $25 | $19 | Email ticketing, ticket routing, prebuilt analytics dashboards, pre-written responses, automations and triggers | 5 | None |
| Suite Team | $69 | $55 | Knowledge base, Action Builder, omnichannel routing, messaging and live chat, telephony | 5 | None (add-on) |
| Suite Professional | $149 | $115 | Admin Copilot, App Builder, writing tools, quick reports, skills-based routing, IVR phone tree | 10 | Up to 100 |
| Suite Enterprise + Copilot | Sales quote | Sales quote | Intelligent triage, auto assist, generative AI for voice, approval workflows, sandbox environment, custom agent roles | 15 | Up to 1,000 |
Zendesk's list prices are per agent a month in US dollars, and Zendesk also bills in EUR, GBP and BRL. Yearly billing costs 20% to 24% less than monthly. Accounts on resolution tiers get a dollar allowance in place of these included resolutions.
Support Team: $25 per Agent a Month ($19 Billed Yearly)
Support Team covers email ticketing with routing, saved replies, automations, triggers and prebuilt dashboards. The plan includes AI agents and 5 automated resolutions per agent each month.
Support plans include no light agents, so every person who works tickets needs a paid seat. Zendesk doesn't sell Copilot on this plan. Pick Support Team if you answer customers by email and don't need chat, phone or a knowledge base yet.
Suite Team: $69 per Agent a Month ($55 Billed Yearly)
Suite Team adds messaging and live chat, telephony, a knowledge base, omnichannel routing and Action Builder. The plan includes up to 40,000 Action Builder actions a month, or 480,000 a year on yearly billing. Zendesk charges for actions beyond that.
Suite Team carries the same allowance as Support Team: 5 automated resolutions per agent each month. Zendesk sells light agents on Suite Team as an add-on, and Copilot isn't available on this plan. Suite Team fits a queue that needs chat, phone and a knowledge base without Copilot or skills-based routing.
Suite Professional: $149 per Agent a Month ($115 Billed Yearly)
Suite Professional is the first plan where you can add Copilot. The plan adds skills-based routing, an IVR phone tree, App Builder, quick reports and Admin Copilot, plus up to 100 light agents. Each Suite Professional agent comes with 10 included automated resolutions a month.
Without the Copilot add-on, writing tools and ticket summaries share a pool of 5 uses per agent a month. Zendesk caps the pool at 500 uses per account each month. Ten agents share 50 uses.
Move up to Suite Professional when you need skills-based routing, an IVR phone tree or Copilot, or want light agents included.
Suite Enterprise + Copilot: Priced by Sales
Suite Enterprise + Copilot adds intelligent triage, auto assist, generative AI for voice, approval workflows, a sandbox environment and custom agent roles. Zendesk's help center lists up to 1,000 light agents for Suite Enterprise. The plan has no list price, so every buyer gets a quote from Zendesk's sales team.
Ask for a quote if you need approval workflows, a sandbox environment or custom agent roles.
What Does Zendesk Copilot Cost?
Copilot costs $50 per agent a month, billed yearly, and Zendesk sells it on Suite Professional and above. Zendesk shows no monthly-billing price for it.
On Suite Professional, Zendesk marks auto assist, suggested first replies, suggested macros and tone rewriting as Copilot add-on features. Adding Copilot brings each Suite Professional agent to $165 a month, billed yearly. Across 10 agents, Copilot adds $500 a month, billed yearly.
Copilot assists your agents inside tickets. Zendesk's AI agents can resolve requests without a handoff. Zendesk bills each resolution past the allowance on top of the seat and Copilot.
How Does Zendesk Charge for AI Agents?
Every Zendesk Support and Suite plan includes AI agents. Zendesk bills them per automated resolution: a customer request the AI resolves without escalating to a person.
Zendesk's pricing table shows 5 included resolutions per agent a month on Team plans and 10 on Suite Professional. Zendesk's help center gives Suite Enterprise 15. Past that allowance, Zendesk lists $1.50 per extra resolution with a commitment and $2.00 pay-as-you-go.
Take 10 Suite Professional agents with 100 included resolutions. If the AI resolves 600 conversations in a month, the extra 500 cost $750 committed or $1,000 pay-as-you-go. With Copilot billed yearly, that team's bill reaches $2,400 to $2,650 a month at the pricing-table rates.
Automated Resolution Tiers Since 18 May 2026
On 18 May 2026, Zendesk introduced automated resolution tiers: assisted escalation, contained resolution and verified resolution. Assisted escalations and contained resolutions don't count against the allowance. Verified resolutions, which an LLM check confirms, draw on it.
Under tiers, the allowance is in dollars per agent each month. Support Team and Suite Team get $2, Suite Professional $5 and Suite Enterprise $10. Ten Suite Professional agents get $50 a month to draw on.
Unused allowance doesn't carry over, and the allowance tops out at $5,000 a year. Zendesk doesn't publish what each tier costs, so you can't tell how many resolutions that $50 covers. Accounts on the older platform stay on it until they move.
Other Zendesk Add-Ons, Usage Fees and Contract Terms
Beyond seats and Copilot, Zendesk sells add-ons per agent and bills some features by use past each plan's allowance.
- Quality Assurance. Zendesk sells QA as a separate add-on on every plan, listed at $35 per agent a month billed yearly.
- Workforce Engagement Bundle. Zendesk prices the bundle at $50 per agent each month, billed yearly.
- Contact Center. It starts at $83 a month per agent, billed yearly, on top of a Suite plan.
- Usage fees. Zendesk bills App Builder, Action Builder and voice by use once you pass the plan's allowance.
- Employee Service. Internal IT and HR desks use separate plans: Suite Team, Suite Growth and Suite Professional. They cost $39, $79 and $125 per agent a month ($29, $59 and $99 billed yearly).
- Trials and startups. The 14-day trial runs on Suite Professional with Copilot included. Through a startup program, eligible companies new to Zendesk get six free months of that plan and Copilot, for up to 50 agents.
- Contract terms. Subscriptions run month to month, annual or multi-year, and your terms set whether a plan change applies at once or at renewal. Under resolution tiers, Zendesk bills overage monthly, whatever your contract term.
How Much Does Zendesk Cost for 5, 10 and 25 Agents?
Ten agents on Zendesk Suite Professional cost $1,490 a month ($1,150 billed yearly), or $1,650 a month with Copilot, billed yearly. The totals are list prices, before AI resolutions past the allowance, other add-ons and tax.
| Agents | Suite Team a month, billed monthly | Suite Team a month, billed yearly | Suite Professional a month, billed monthly | Suite Professional a month, billed yearly | Suite Professional + Copilot a month, billed yearly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | $345 | $275 | $745 | $575 | $825 |
| 10 | $690 | $550 | $1,490 | $1,150 | $1,650 |
| 25 | $1,725 | $1,375 | $3,725 | $2,875 | $4,125 |
Zendesk shows no monthly price for Copilot, so the Copilot column uses yearly billing only. On Suite Professional with Copilot, billed yearly, 10 agents cost $19,800 a year and 25 cost $49,500.
To price your own team on yearly billing, multiply agents by the plan price, plus $50 each for Copilot on Suite Professional. Then add $1.50 for each committed resolution past the allowance, or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. On Suite Professional with Copilot, each new agent adds $165 a month billed yearly, however many tickets that person answers.
Why Is Zendesk So Expensive?
Zendesk bills on three meters: agent seats, Copilot on each seat and AI resolutions past the allowance. Two of them follow headcount.
- People. Every agent who works tickets needs a paid seat. Suite Professional, at $149 a month ($115 billed yearly), includes up to 100 light agents with limited ticket access.
- AI help for each person. Copilot is $50 a month for each agent who has it, billed yearly, so assist costs climb with headcount.
- AI work. Zendesk bills each resolution past the allowance, at $1.50 with a commitment or $2.00 pay-as-you-go on the pricing table. Zendesk doesn't publish tier rates.
You can hold one meter steady and still see the total rise. Hire two people and switch on AI agents in the same quarter, and all three meters climb.
What Would the Same Team Pay on Helply?
If the AI works 2,000 B2B conversations a month for 10 agents, Helply costs $769 a month ($654 billed yearly). On Zendesk Suite Professional with Copilot, the same 10 cost $1,650 a month billed yearly, before resolutions past the allowance.
On Helply, every plan includes unlimited users, so the one meter you pay for is the AI's work.
Helply is an AI-native customer support platform. Underneath is a complete help desk: a shared inbox with routing and SLAs, messaging, a knowledge base, analytics, customer records and workflows. AI agents work inside every part of it, for software companies as well as consumer, ecommerce and marketplace businesses.
Every plan includes three AI agents that work beside your team:
- Answers and acts on requests. The Support Agent answers customers and takes supported Actions to solve the issue. If it isn't confident it can resolve something, it hands off with the investigation and customer context prepared.
- Drafts replies for your agents. The Assist Agent writes replies from the conversation and customer context, and takes supported Actions when your team directs it.
- Turns signals into action. Background Agents alert teammates, update systems or create work when something needs attention.
On Suite Professional, you need Copilot for suggested first replies and auto assist, at $50 more per agent each month, billed yearly. Helply's Assist Agent comes with every plan at no per-agent fee, and its drafts use credits.
AirGigs, a bootstrapped music marketplace, ran a help desk that billed by seat. Giving the wider team visibility meant buying more licenses. It replaced that help desk with Helply for less than the incumbent cost, and Helply automated its account, order and payment lookups.
You pay 1, 4 or 12 credits for each piece of AI work. A reply drafted from context already in the thread costs 1, and a bounded search using one skill costs 4. Chaining several skills across multiple systems toward a judgment call costs 12.
Helply bills no credits for retries, failed actions, spam or no-touch tickets. Drafts your team turns down before sending, knowledge base indexing and setup work cost nothing either. Every account's monthly spending ceiling defaults to the block price until you change it.
Plan on about 4 or about 7 credits per conversation, depending on the kind of support. Handling 1,000 B2B conversations a month puts a team near 7,000 credits.
Helply Credit Blocks by Conversation Volume: Monthly and Yearly Price
| Conversations the AI works a month | B2B support (about 7 credits each) | B2C support (about 4 credits each) |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | 4,000 credits: $249 a month ($212 billed yearly) | 2,000 credits: $139 a month ($118 billed yearly) |
| 1,000 | 7,000 credits: $399 a month ($339 billed yearly) | 4,000 credits: $249 a month ($212 billed yearly) |
| 2,000 | 15,000 credits: $769 a month ($654 billed yearly) | 11,000 credits: $589 a month ($501 billed yearly) |
| 4,500 | 32,000 credits: $1,549 a month ($1,317 billed yearly) | 22,000 credits: $1,079 a month ($917 billed yearly) |
The 32,000-credit block covers about 4,500 B2B conversations a month, and Helply prices higher volume through sales. You can switch to a bigger block mid-cycle and pay the difference pro rata.
Zendesk vs. Helply: Monthly Bill for the Same 10- and 25-Agent Teams
Both columns use yearly billing, with the same team and monthly volume in each row.
| Team and monthly volume | Zendesk Suite Professional + Copilot, a month billed yearly | Helply, a month billed yearly (AI works every conversation) |
|---|---|---|
| 10 agents, 2,000 B2B conversations | $1,650, plus resolutions past the allowance | $654 (15,000 credits) |
| 10 agents, 4,000 B2C conversations | $1,650, plus resolutions past the allowance | $917 (22,000 credits) |
| 25 agents, 4,500 B2B conversations | $4,125, plus resolutions past the allowance | $1,317 (32,000 credits) |
| 25 agents, 8,000 B2C conversations | $4,125, plus resolutions past the allowance | $1,317 (32,000 credits) |
Helply's figures assume the AI works every conversation, so a lighter AI load needs a smaller block. Without Copilot, Zendesk costs $1,150 a month for 10 agents and $2,875 for 25, billed yearly.
Each agent you add costs $165 more a month on Zendesk Suite Professional with Copilot, billed yearly. Hiring on Helply adds nothing to the monthly bill. If you pay yearly, Helply pools credits across the year, so you can spend a quiet month's unused credits in a busy one.
When Does Zendesk Cost Less Than Helply?
Zendesk costs less when a small team works email only, or when the AI resolves few conversations past the allowance. Check these three cases against your own queue.
- Two people on email, billed yearly. Two Support Team seats cost $50 a month ($38 billed yearly) while their AI stays within 10 included resolutions. If 500 credits cover their AI work, Helply costs $49 a month ($42 billed yearly), so Zendesk costs less only on yearly billing.
- A 10-agent Suite Team with few AI resolutions. Ten Suite Team agents cost $690 a month ($550 billed yearly) while the AI resolves few conversations past the allowance. On Helply, 2,000 B2B conversations take the 15,000-credit block at $769 ($654 billed yearly).
- A small team with a big queue and a low resolution rate. Three Suite Team seats cost $207 a month ($165 billed yearly). If Helply's AI works all 5,000 conversations at about 4 credits each, that takes the 22,000-credit block: $1,079 a month ($917 billed yearly).
For AI agents, Zendesk bills only the resolutions past the allowance, and Helply bills the work its AI does on each conversation.
On yearly billing, the three-seat team stays cheaper on Zendesk until its AI resolves about 500 conversations past the 15 included. Zendesk bills those extras at the $1.50 committed rate, so Helply costs less past that point. Each Suite Team agent you add, at $69 a month ($55 billed yearly), lowers that threshold.
To weigh tools beyond these two, compare Zendesk alternatives by price and AI cost.
Questions to Ask Zendesk Before You Renew
Get these answers in writing before you sign.
- Resolution platform. Ask whether your account is on automated resolution tiers yet, and if not, when it moves.
- Tier rates. Ask what each tier costs and how many resolutions your dollar allowance covers.
- Overage. Ask how Zendesk invoices monthly overage on an annual contract.
- Copilot. Ask whether Copilot must cover every agent, and whether a monthly-billing price exists.
- Light agents. Ask what light agents can and can't do on your plan before you buy seats for occasional users.
- Seat changes. Ask if you can remove seats mid-term, or only at renewal.
- Multi-year terms. Ask what happens to your per-agent price in year two of a multi-year deal.
Renew Zendesk or Move to Helply?
Renew Zendesk if your queue runs on voice through Contact Center and an IVR phone tree. Renew too if your IT and HR teams already buy Employee Service from Zendesk. Zendesk pricing works out cheaper for two email-only agents billed yearly, and for teams whose AI resolves few conversations past the allowance.
Move to Helply if hiring keeps raising your support bill, or if Copilot now sits on every seat. Helply also fits teams whose engineers, success and ops staff need more than light-agent access. At AirGigs, support, operations, and trust and safety all got visibility for less than its old per-seat help desk cost.
Helply bills the AI's workload from $49 a month ($42 billed yearly). You can cap credits per team or mailbox.
Auto top-up buys more credits at the price you already pay, up to a cap you set. Switch it off, and AI work pauses at the cap while the help desk keeps running.
Plan a gradual switch with the Helply and Zendesk comparison. Run Helply on one queue while Zendesk handles the others, then move over once you're happy with the AI's resolutions and your workflows. At cutover, you select the supported customers, conversations and knowledge to import with Helply's Zendesk migration.
Frequently asked questions
A Zendesk agent seat costs $25 to $149 a month, or $19 to $115 a month billed yearly. On Suite Professional and above, Copilot is $50 more per agent each month, billed yearly. Suite Enterprise + Copilot is quote-only, and AI resolutions past the allowance cost extra.
Zendesk is paid. Its lowest-priced plan, Support Team, is $25 per agent a month ($19 billed yearly). The 14-day free trial runs on Suite Professional and includes Copilot.
Yes. Eligible startups new to Zendesk can use Suite Professional with Copilot free for six months, with up to 50 agents. Startups backed by Zendesk's partner VCs and accelerators can get one or two years.
Suite Professional and above, for $50 more per agent each month, billed yearly. Zendesk doesn't sell Copilot on Support Team or Suite Team. Moving a Suite Team agent to Suite Professional with Copilot raises the yearly-billed price from $55 to $165 a month.
Zendesk lists no price for Suite Enterprise + Copilot, so its sales team quotes the plan. Zendesk's help center gives Suite Enterprise up to 1,000 light agents and 15 included resolutions per agent a month.
Past each plan's included resolutions, Zendesk's pricing table lists $1.50 per extra resolution with a commitment, or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. An automated resolution is a customer request the AI agent resolves without escalating to a person. Since 18 May 2026, resolution-tier accounts draw from a $2 to $10 monthly allowance per agent, at rates Zendesk doesn't publish.
Yes, yearly billing costs 20% to 24% less per agent. Suite Professional costs $149 a month ($115 billed yearly), Suite Team $69 ($55) and Support Team $25 ($19). With Copilot, a yearly contract for 10 Suite Professional agents costs $19,800.
Support Team is email ticketing with routing, automations and AI agents, at $25 per agent a month ($19 billed yearly). Suite Team and Suite Professional cost $69 and $149 per agent a month ($55 and $115 billed yearly). They add messaging, live chat, telephony and a knowledge base.
Anyone who works tickets in Zendesk needs a paid agent seat, while light agents get limited ticket access without one. Suite Professional covers up to 100 light agents, and Suite Enterprise covers up to 1,000. Support Team includes none, and on Suite Team you can buy them as an add-on.
Ten Suite Professional agents with Copilot cost $1,650 a month billed yearly, with 100 included AI resolutions a month on Zendesk's pricing table. If the AI resolves 600, the extra 500 add $750 committed or $1,000 pay-as-you-go, for $2,400 to $2,650 a month. Accounts on resolution tiers draw from a $50 monthly allowance for those 10 agents instead, at unpublished rates.
A 10-agent team whose AI works 2,000 B2B conversations a month pays $769 a month on Helply ($654 billed yearly). On yearly billing, Zendesk Suite Professional with Copilot costs the same team $1,650 a month, before extra AI resolutions. The Helply figure stays put when the team hires, since every Helply plan includes unlimited users.
Yes: pilot Helply on one queue beside Zendesk, and move the rest once AI resolution quality and your workflows meet your needs. At cutover, you choose which supported customers, conversations and knowledge move into Helply.
About the author
Bildad Oyugi
Head of Content
Bildad is a digital marketing expert with over 5 years of experience in copywriting, content marketing, and editing. Outside of work, he enjoys videography and spending time with his family.
