Zendesk vs. Freshdesk

If you’re a business that wants to grow, you need a solution that you can count on—both now and in the future. Learn more about Zendesk and how Freshdesk compares.

Why Zendesk is the best alternative to Freshdesk

Last updated November 17, 2023

Zendesk vs. Freshdesk

Delivering an exceptional customer experience and providing top-tier support are growing priorities for 81 percent of business leaders, according to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report. Is the Freshworks product providing the level of CX experience your customers demand?

Here are three reasons why businesses choose Zendesk over Freshdesk:

  • CX-perts

    As a trusted advisor in the market, we empower our customers with the tools, expertise, and best practices they need to improve their CX. Zendesk treats each customer as a partner, offering dedicated account management, success management, and support resources to help achieve your business goals and create positive, memorable experiences with each interaction.

  • Built to be reliable

    Zendesk offers a CX solution you can count on—with the stability you need to provide a differentiated customer experience at scale. When time is money, our reliable platform keeps you up and running without worrying about system outages and downtime.

  • Best ROI

    Zendesk can handle whatever challenges your business faces and will ultimately deliver more efficiencies, lowering the cost of support. With capabilities beyond basic ticketing—like a unified, omnichannel agent experience, self-service options, and custom reports—you can start seeing your ROI fast.

More in this guide:

At-a-glance comparison: Zendesk vs. Freshdesk

What you need to deliver the best customer experienceCritical capabilitiesZendeskFreshdesk

Vendor performance

Analyst rating

Leader

Visionary

Focus

Best of breed - Customer service

Broad focus - CS, sales, marketing, success, IT, HR, operational tools

High customer satisfaction at scale

Time to value and cost of ownership

Easy setup

Easy adoption

Low implementation cost

Low short-term TCO

Long-term value

Low long-term TCO

Unified omnichannel experience

Unified omnichannel status + workflows

Unified omnichannel customer experience

Unified omnichannel agent interface

Unified omnichannel analytics

Frictionless agent experience

Real-time agent workspace

Customizable agent workspace

Single browser tab agent experience

Powerful workflow / automation tools

Sophisticated automation + workflows (SLAs, OLAs)

Flexible assignment options (round robin vs. pull)

Intelligent triage

Intelligent self-service content gap identification

Sophisticated self-service content management + workflows

Actionable insights

Custom metrics

Custom reports

Custom dashboards

Custom attribution

Custom correlation

Robust integrations

Highly rated integrations

Reliability

Customer proof points

Broad set of API endpoints

Only server side CTI app necessary

Success + support

Leading customer community + events

Support

Designated success

Local account resources

Reliable + secure platform

Reliability + scalability

HIPAA enabled

Data locality

3-tiered GDPR protection


Zendesk vs. Freshdesk: Features comparison

Comparing two help desk software heavyweights takes more than serving up a blind taste test. Let’s dive into the features of Freshdesk vs. Zendesk and see who raises the trophy at the end.

To gather and harness valuable customer data, you need more than one-size-fits-all reporting tools.

Zendesk features advanced reporting and analytics tools that provide in-depth metrics and visualization options that help you identify critical trends, analyze your customer experience, and evaluate your team’s performance. Create actionable insights and optimize your business decisions with powerful features like:

  • Point-and-click configurable reports and dashboards: Customize your view in minutes with our first reply time heatmap, even with sophisticated layered datasets.

  • Unified reporting: Consolidate data from across all channels.

  • Custom metrics: Choose the metrics you want to see and filter out what you don’t.

  • Data discovery: You’ll no longer need to export data to Excel spreadsheets.

Reporting with Freshdesk is limited, with around 80 out-of-the-box reports (compared to 250+ from Zendesk). You aren’t able to build custom metrics, so teams must manually add data when exporting reports. Also, Freshdesk’s reporting software updates every 30 minutes rather than providing real-time updates.

Freshdesk vs. Zendesk: Reporting

AnalyticsZendeskFreshdesk

Omnichannel

Unified

Report on all channels across the platform in one consolidated analytics tool.

Separated

Every Freshdesk channel has a unique reporting tool, so you often need to export and combine data manually.

Custom metrics, reports, dashboards

Yes

Define custom metrics unique to your business.

Yes

You can create custom metrics with Freshdesk.

Custom attribution + correlation

Yes

Layer multiple datasets and visualize them in any way you want to identify actionable insights quickly.

No

Limited ways to layer datasets force users to waste time exporting to Excel or BI tools to analyze further.

Pricing plans: Freshdesk vs. Zendesk

Zendesk vs. Freshdesk: Paid plans

ZendeskFreshdesk
  • Support Team: $19 per agent/month

  • Support Professional: $55 per agent/month

  • Support Enterprise: $115 per agent/month

  • Growth: $15 per agent/month

  • Pro: $49 per agent/month

  • Enterprise: $79 per agent/month


Zendesk pricing is higher, but don’t let that fool you. A lower sticker price isn’t always a better value, and you should consider several costs.

Costs to consider when picking a customer support solution
  • Total cost of ownership

    Zendesk offers a lower total cost of ownership in the short and long term. Our platform sets up fast and is easy to use, reducing implementation and training costs and boosting your time to value.

    Although Freshdesk has a free plan and cheaper monthly subscriptions, the total cost of ownership over the course of multiple years favors Zendesk. Zendesk provides hands-on onboarding and training for a seamless implementation process, protecting against the costs of a cobbled deployment. Freshdesk emphasizes fast-paced setup—but without a dedicated onboarding team like Zendesk provides, the risk runs higher for issues during the implementation process.

  • Scalability

    Zendesk can support businesses of all sizes and industries, from startups to enterprises, and has the flexibility and agility to grow with your company. Zendesk features tools that create a great employee experience—like AI and automation features that help deflect customer tickets and offer 24/7 support—allowing you to serve more customers at scale.

    Our highly rated, mature software features scaled support and operations, leading to customers who stick around. Freshdesk scales best with teams of up to 15 agents but has limited scalability beyond that. The company’s customers must re-evaluate every 12 months, resulting in additional implementations or switching to alternative software—creating additional costs.

  • Efficiency

    Zendesk delivers efficiencies that will save you money down the line. Customizable workflows and an intuitive user interface help boost agent productivity and efficiency. Investing in Zendesk provides a better lifetime value for businesses and customers, with the impact felt through higher customer satisfaction (CSAT) and loyalty.

    Freshdesk offers a collaboration app for ticket management, but agents must switch to the Freshconnect interface to collaborate on a ticket. The single ticket forms clutter the agent workspace, limiting productivity and efficiency.

Customer stories: What are customers saying about using Zendesk vs. Freshdesk?

Don’t just take our word for it: Hear from brands that made the switch.

Other top Freshdesk alternatives

Freshdesk alternativeStarting priceFree trialKey features

Zendesk

$19 per agent/month

14 days

  • Ticketing system

  • Completely native omnichannel solution

  • Customizable analytics

  • Extensive SLAs + OLAs

  • Collaboration and side conversations

  • Fast time to value + low TCO

  • Enterprise scalable

  • No-code chatbot builder

  • Knowledge base with smart Content Cues

  • 1,000+ apps and integrations

HubSpot Service Hub

$450 per month (up to 5 users)

14 days

  • Ticketing system

  • Fast time to value + low TCO

  • No-code chatbot builder

  • Knowledge base

  • 1,000+ apps and integrations

Zoho Desk

$14 per user/month

15 days

  • Ticketing system

  • Fast time to value + low TCO

  • No-code chatbot builder

  • Knowledge base

Salesforce Service Cloud

$25 per user/month

30 days

  • Ticketing system

  • Customizable analytics

  • Enterprise scalable

  • Knowledge base

Jira Service Management

$7.75 per user/month

7 days

  • Ticketing system

  • Customizable analytics

  • Enterprise scalable

  • Knowledge base

Help Scout

$20 per user/month

15 days

  • Ticketing system

  • Fast time to value + low TCO

  • Knowledge base


Frequently asked questions

Ready to try Zendesk?

We like making everything easy for our customers—including making the switch. Our team members are ready to help guide you through the process so you can start creating the personalized experiences your customers deserve.

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