11 Zendesk alternatives for 2026, priced, including the AI line
Eleven Zendesk alternatives with every price read from the vendor's own page, including the number Zendesk leaves off its: what one automated resolution costs.
Zendesk alternatives in 2026: the short version
Zendesk is the category default and mostly deserves to be. It is a complete support operation with twenty years of process behind it, and [its seats are published plainly](https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/): [19 euros an agent a month for basic ticketing](https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/), 55 for the Suite tier that includes AI agents, 115 for Professional, and Talk to Sales for Enterprise. People leave it for three reasons, and only one of them is the seat price. They leave because the suite is more product than they run, because the ecommerce or messaging fit is wrong, or because they cannot find out what the AI will cost until they are in a sales conversation.
That last reason is the one worth reading carefully, because it is invisible in every other comparison post. Zendesk [bills AI agent work per automated resolution](https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/), and it publishes neither the price of one nor how many your plan includes. So a seat-price comparison against Zendesk is a comparison against half a number. Six of the eleven alternatives below print their AI meter on the page. Five bundle it into the tier price, which is its own kind of answer. None of them make you book a call to learn the unit.
What follows is eleven Zendesk alternatives as the pricing pages actually read on the days we read them, sorted by that question rather than by seat price, with the cases where staying on Zendesk is the right call stated at the end rather than buried.
Why the seat price is the wrong thing to compare
Support pricing has two meters now, and they moved apart. The seat meter is mature, competitive and boring: almost everyone lands between 19 and 115 a seat, and the differences are features you can list. The AI meter is new, it is where the money is going, and it is priced eight different ways across eleven vendors. Per resolution, per session, per automated interaction, per conversation, per message credit, per token, bundled, or not published at all.
The practical test is arithmetic you can do in a minute. Take your monthly conversation volume, take the share you expect the agent to handle, multiply by the vendor's unit price, and compare that to the seat line. For most teams above a few hundred conversations a month, the AI line is the larger of the two, which is why a vendor that will not print its unit price has not really given you a price at all.
Freshdesk charges [$49 per 100 AI Agent sessions](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/) and gives you the first 500 free. Help Scout charges $0.75 per resolution and lets you set a monthly ceiling. Freshchat charges [45 euros per 100 sessions](https://www.freshworks.com/live-chat-software/pricing/). Gorgias charges $1.50 per automated interaction past your plan limit. Intercom Fin charges $0.99 per outcome with no ceiling. Zoho Desk hands you the model bill directly: bring your own key, with up to 30M free tokens a month included. Six numbers, six pages, no calls. Zendesk's is the gap in that list.
The 11 best Zendesk alternatives, priced
Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on the date given in the verification section, and linked in the prose at the phrase that makes the claim. Zendesk and Zoho Desk localise and served euros; Freshchat did too. One disclosure before the last row: Algomo is our product. Hold that row to the same standard as the others.
|  | Seat or plan price | What the AI costs | Free plan or trial | Fits when |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Zendesk | EUR 19 to EUR 115 an agent a month; Enterprise on request | Not published. Billed per automated resolution | 14-day trial | You want the whole suite and will negotiate the AI line |
| 1. Freshdesk | $19, $55 and $89 an agent a month, billed annually | $49 per 100 AI Agent sessions; first 500 free, once per account | 14-day trial on Enterprise | You want Zendesk's shape with the AI number printed |
| 2. Zoho Desk | EUR 7, 14, 23 and 40 a user a month, billed annually | Bring your own key, up to 30M free tokens a month | Free trial | You already run Zoho, or you want the model bill at cost |
| 3. Help Scout | Free for 5 users; $25, $45 and $75 a user a month | AI Answers $0.75 a resolution, with a monthly cap you set | Free plan; 15-day trial | A small team that wants a ceiling on the AI, not just a rate |
| 4. Freshchat | Free for 10 agents, no AI; then EUR 19, 49 and 79 an agent a month | Freddy AI Agent, EUR 45 per 100 sessions | Free plan; 14-day trial | Chat and messaging first, ticketing second |
| 5. Gorgias | From $40 a month, 50 tickets included; Basic $77 billed annually | $1.50 per automated interaction past the plan limit | Free trial | A Shopify store: orders, refunds, where is my package |
| 6. Intercom Fin | Seats $29, $85 and $132 a month; or no seats on your own helpdesk | $0.99 per outcome, no ceiling | 14-day trial; free first year for startups | The best resolution engine, if your volume earns the meter |
| 7. Tidio | Free tier; Starter $24.17 a month billed annually | Lyro from $32.50 a month for 50 AI conversations | Free tier; 7-day trial | Customers who write on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger |
| 8. Chatbase | Free, then $40, $150 and $500 a month | Message credits, bundled; extra credits $40 per 1,000 | Free plan; 7-day trial on paid tiers | You want to build the agent yourself; voice unlocks at $150 |
| 9. Botpress | Free, then $150 and $750 a month, billed annually. Never per seat | Conversations bundled, in packs of 100 added automatically | Free plan, no card | A developer who wants the connectors and no seat meter |
| 10. tawk.to | Core $0 forever, any number of seats | AI Assist $29 a month; it drafts, a human approves every send | Free forever, no card | Your people answer the chat and the budget is zero |
| 11. Algomo | Free plan, then a monthly amount you set from $50 to $500 | That amount is the cap. It is the most you can be charged | The free plan | One agent for support and inbound sales, at an amount you cap |
Zendesk's row is the comparison, not an entry. Its seat prices are as published as anyone's; it is the middle column where it is alone.
The six that publish what the AI costs
Freshdesk is the closest like-for-like swap, and the most interesting row in the table, because it is Zendesk's shape with the missing number filled in. [Its pricing page runs Growth at $19 an agent a month](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/) billed annually, Pro at $55 and Enterprise at $89, and every one of the three includes the Freddy AI Agent with the first 500 sessions free, once per account. Past that it charges [$49 per 100 AI Agent sessions](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/), printed on the page, and it defines the unit: [a session is a unique interaction](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/) between an end-user and an AI Agent, and for email a 72-hour window from the customer's first message, with every reply inside that window counting once. The AI copilot for your human agents is a separate $29 an agent a month on Pro and Enterprise. That is the same two-meter model Zendesk sells, at a comparable seat price, with the second meter written down. If your objection to Zendesk is [the unknowable AI line](/resources/zendesk-pricing) rather than the product, this is the row to read first.
Help Scout is the one that gives you a ceiling rather than just a rate. [Free for five users, then $25, $45 and $75](https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/) a user a month, with [AI Answers as an add-on at $0.75 a resolution](https://www.helpscout.com/pricing/) and a monthly cap you set on it. Nobody else in this table except us lets you bound the AI spend in advance, and for a small team that is often worth more than a lower unit price. Fifteen-day trial on the paid plans.
Freshchat is Freshworks' chat-first product rather than its ticketing one, and it prices the same way its sibling does: free for up to ten agents with no AI, then 19, 49 and 79 euros an agent a month billed annually, with the Freddy AI Agent at [45 euros per 100 sessions](https://www.freshworks.com/live-chat-software/pricing/) on top. Take it over Freshdesk if your support arrives as live chat and messaging rather than as email tickets. [Our Freshchat comparison page](/resources/vs-freshchat) has the three-meter arithmetic worked through.
Gorgias is the ecommerce answer and it prices the opposite way from Zendesk on purpose: [never priced per agent](https://www.gorgias.com/pricing), its page says, but per ticket volume. Starter is $40 a month with 50 tickets and 30 automated interactions included, Basic is $77 a month billed annually with 300 tickets, and past your limit the automation costs [$1.50 per interaction](https://www.gorgias.com/pricing), which is the most expensive unit in this table by some distance. If your tickets are Shopify orders, refunds and where-is-my-package, the integrations earn it. If they are not, they do not.
Intercom Fin is the premium option and, on the visible evidence, the strongest pure resolution engine here: [$0.99 per outcome, with seats at $29, $85 and $132](https://www.intercom.com/pricing) a month, or no seats at all if you run it on a helpdesk you already own. The catch is that the meter has no ceiling and the definition is broad, [counting a resolution when the customer confirms one](https://www.intercom.com/pricing), when they simply go quiet after Fin answers, or when Fin completes a workflow including a handoff. At 2,000 conversations a month it is roughly $18,000 a year in outcome fees before a seat is paid, arithmetic we show in full on [the Intercom alternatives post](/resources/intercom-alternatives). Fin is now owned by Salesforce, which [agreed to acquire it in June 2026](https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2026/06/15/salesforce-signs-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-fin/).
Zoho Desk prices the AI in a way nobody else here does: it does not resell you the model. [Its plans run 7, 14, 23 and 40 euros a user a month](https://www.zoho.com/desk/zoho-desk-pricing.html) billed annually, the cheapest ladder in this comparison, and its AI Agents feature says [bring your own key or use Zoho's LLM](https://www.zoho.com/desk/zoho-desk-pricing.html), with up to 30M free tokens a month included and generative AI enabled by connecting your own OpenAI or DeepSeek key. So the AI line is your model bill at cost rather than a vendor margin on top of it. That is genuinely the cheapest structure in the table for a team with the appetite to manage a key, and the worst fit for one that wants a single invoice.
The five that fold the AI into the price
Tidio, Chatbase, Botpress, tawk.to and Algomo all answer the AI-cost question by making it part of the plan rather than a second meter. That is not automatically cheaper, and at high volume it usually is not, but it is knowable in advance, which for a small team is the point.
Tidio is the ecommerce messaging option: a free tier, [Starter at $24.17 a month](https://www.tidio.com/pricing/) billed annually, and the Lyro AI agent sold alongside from [$32.50 a month for 50 AI conversations](https://www.tidio.com/pricing/). Take it if your customers write on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger and you want the chat, the inbox and the agent in one app. Chatbase and Botpress are agent builders rather than helpdesks: you build the agent and point it at whatever inbox you already run. [Chatbase goes free, then $40, $150 and $500 a month](https://www.chatbase.co/pricing), metered in message credits with extra credits at $40 per 1,000, and unlocks voice and telephony at $150. [Botpress goes free for 100 conversations a month](https://botpress.com/pricing), then $150 and $750 billed annually, never per seat, with conversation packs of 100 added automatically when you run low and, in its own words, no way to switch that off.
tawk.to is the free row and the honest one. Live chat, inbox, ticketing and knowledge base cost nothing for any number of seats, forever, and [the add-ons page lists](https://www.tawk.to/add-ons/) what it does charge for: AI Assist at $29 a month, whitelabel at $29 a month per property. The important detail is that AI Assist drafts and a human approves every send, so it is a copilot for your team rather than an agent that answers on its own. If your people are at the desk and the budget is zero, it is very hard to argue with.
Which Zendesk alternative fits which team
You want Zendesk without the mystery AI bill. Freshdesk, at $19, $55 and $89 an agent a month, with 500 AI sessions included and $49 per 100 after. Same shape, same ballpark seat price, published meter. It is the swap most people asking this question are actually looking for.
You are a small team watching the budget. Zoho Desk at 7 euros a user is the cheapest real helpdesk here, and its bring-your-own-key AI means you pay the model at cost. Help Scout is free for five users and lets you cap the AI spend. tawk.to is free forever if your own people will answer.
You run an ecommerce store. Gorgias if you live in Shopify and your tickets are orders and refunds, Tidio if your customers arrive through WhatsApp and Instagram. Both meter the AI separately, so read the unit price before the tier price.
You are enterprise and the resolution rate is what matters. Stay on Zendesk and negotiate the AI line, or move to Intercom Fin and accept a meter with no ceiling. Those are genuinely the two serious options at that size, and the rest of this table is not competing for that job.
Your support is phone-heavy. This is where most of the cheap rows fall away. Zendesk sells voice inside the Suite, Fin answers on voice, Chatbase unlocks telephony at $150 a month. Algomo does not do voice at all: it is web chat on your site, so if most of your support arrives by phone, buy one of those three.
When to stay on Zendesk
Three cases, stated plainly, because a comparison post that finds against the incumbent every time is an advertisement. Stay if you need the whole support operation rather than an agent: routing, SLAs, shift management, telephony, governance, an app ecosystem and reporting that a compliance team will accept. Nothing younger in this table matches that, and rebuilding it elsewhere costs more than the licence you saved. Stay if procurement is going to ask who else runs this, because the answer is most of the industry. And stay if you are already deep in it, with years of macros, triggers, views and integrations, because migration cost is real and rarely appears in a pricing comparison.
What the missing AI price is genuinely worth is leverage, not an exit. Ask for the per-resolution rate, the included allowance and the overage rate in writing, ask what counts as resolved, and put a competitor's published number next to it. The gap in Zendesk's pricing page is not evidence that it is expensive. It is only evidence that you cannot check, and the fix for that is a quote, not a migration.
How we verified these Zendesk alternative prices
Every load-bearing number is linked at the phrase that makes the claim, and every link points at the vendor's own pricing page rather than at coverage of it. Zendesk, Freshdesk and Zoho Desk were read by us on 4 September 2026. Intercom Fin, Gorgias and Tidio on 31 August 2026. Help Scout, Freshchat, Chatbase, Botpress and tawk.to on 3 September 2026, the same day we read them for the one-on-one comparison pages. Quoted phrases are verbatim from the captured text.
Four limits worth stating. Zendesk's price per automated resolution is not on its pricing page, so we report the meter and not the rate, and no figure in this post claims to be it. Zendesk, Zoho Desk and Freshchat all localise their pricing pages and served euros when we read them, so those rows print euros and we do not convert them, because a converted number is a number nobody can check against the page. Zoho Desk's free-token allowance is a vendor claim about its own included usage and we have not measured what 30M tokens covers in practice. And every resolution rate any vendor quotes about itself, ours included, is unaudited marketing until you have measured it on your own tickets.
Zendesk alternatives: questions, answered
What is the best Zendesk alternative?
It depends which Zendesk you were buying. For the same product with the AI price actually published, [Freshdesk at $19, $55 and $89 an agent a month](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/), with $49 per 100 AI sessions. For the cheapest real helpdesk, Zoho Desk from 7 euros a user with bring-your-own-key AI. For a small team that wants a ceiling on the AI spend, Help Scout, free for five users then $25, with AI Answers at $0.75 a resolution and a cap you set. For ecommerce, Gorgias. For the strongest resolution engine regardless of price, Intercom Fin.
Is Freshdesk cheaper than Zendesk?
On seats they are close: Freshdesk is $19, $55 and $89 an agent a month billed annually, Zendesk is 19, 55 and 115 euros for its comparable tiers. The real difference is that Freshdesk publishes its AI price, [$49 per 100 AI Agent sessions](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/) with the first 500 free, and Zendesk does not publish a price per automated resolution at all. Whether the total is cheaper depends on your automation volume, which is exactly the calculation Zendesk's pricing page does not let you do.
What is a free Zendesk alternative?
tawk.to is free forever for any number of seats: live chat, inbox, ticketing and knowledge base at no cost, with AI Assist at $29 a month as the paid add-on. Help Scout is free for five users, Freshchat is free for ten agents without the AI, and Tidio, Chatbase, Botpress and Algomo, our product, all publish free tiers with usage limits. Zendesk itself has a 14-day trial and no free plan.
Who are Zendesk's main competitors?
Freshdesk and Zoho Desk on the classic helpdesk side, Intercom Fin at the premium end, Help Scout and Freshchat for smaller teams, Gorgias in ecommerce, and tawk.to at zero. On the AI-agent side rather than the helpdesk side, Chatbase, Botpress, Tidio and Algomo self-serve, while Sierra, Decagon and Ada sell through a sales call and publish no prices at all. [Our comparisons page](/resources/comparisons) holds eighteen of them, and us, to the same sourcing standard.
Why is Zendesk's AI pricing not published?
We do not know, and we will not guess at a motive. What we can document is the fact: Zendesk's pricing page defines automated resolutions as the unit it bills AI agent usage in, tells you to [factor in resolutions exceeding your plan allowance](https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/), and states neither the price of a resolution nor the size of the allowance. We searched the page for both on 4 September 2026. [The Zendesk pricing post](/resources/zendesk-pricing) has the full reading and the quotes.
Is it worth switching from Zendesk?
Often not. If you need the full support operation, if procurement values the market-standard answer, or if you have years of macros, triggers and integrations built up, the migration cost usually exceeds the licence saving. The stronger use of this comparison is leverage: take a published per-unit AI price from Freshdesk or Help Scout into your renewal and ask Zendesk for its own in writing.
Which Zendesk alternatives include an AI agent in the base price?
[Freshdesk includes the Freddy AI Agent](https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/) on all three plans with the first 500 sessions free. [Zoho Desk includes AI Agents from its 7 euro Express tier](https://www.zoho.com/desk/zoho-desk-pricing.html) with up to 30M free tokens a month. Chatbase, Botpress, Tidio and Algomo, our product, bundle AI usage into the plan rather than metering it separately. [Zendesk includes AI agents from the 55 euro Suite Team tier](https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/), but meters the usage at a price it does not publish.
Algomo as a Zendesk alternative, stated plainly
Algomo is our product, so weigh this section accordingly, and the honest headline is that we are not a Zendesk replacement for most of the people searching this phrase. Zendesk is a helpdesk. Algomo is not: no email queue, no voice, no ticket creation, no shift management. If what you need is the helpdesk, buy the helpdesk, and Freshdesk is the row above that most resembles it.
What Algomo is, is the agent on your website, [doing the support job and the inbound sales job](/solutions/ai-agents-for-customer-service) as one conversation, because for a company between five and five hundred people that is the same inbox. It [connects itself to the systems already running your site](/product) rather than waiting on an integration project, it answers from live data and real stock rather than a static FAQ, and it [publishes what it costs](/pricing): a free plan, then a monthly amount you choose between $50 and $500 that is also the most you can be charged. That last part is the whole argument of this post turned into a product decision. We think you should be able to read the number before you talk to anybody.
So the fair version: if you want the suite, take Zendesk. If you want the suite with the AI meter printed, take Freshdesk. If you want the cheapest ladder, take Zoho Desk. If your people will answer the chat themselves, take tawk.to. And if you want to see what an agent does on your own site rather than in a demo, point Algomo at it on the free plan this afternoon and ask it whatever your last real visitor asked you.