Freshdesk and Zendesk are two of the best customer service and sales telemarketing software for small businesses. Freshdesk has user-friendly features, an easy setup process, and an intuitive user interface, boosting agent productivity. Zendesk, on the other hand, has excellent sales and customer relationship management features. Choose which of these two offers the best customer service, lead, and sales management tools. In general, we recommend:
Freshdesk: Best free customer service software with a user-friendly dashboard
Zendesk: Best in email ticketing for customer service management
- Zendesk vs Freshdesk Compared
- Best Alternatives to Zendesk & Freshdesk
- Most Affordable: Freshdesk
- Best for Multichannel Support: Freshdesk
- Best Reporting & Analytics Tools: It’s a Tie
- Best for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools: Freshdesk
- Best Mobile App: Freshdesk
- Best Integrations: It’s a Tie
- Most User-friendly: Freshdesk
- Best Customer Support: Freshdesk
- What Users Say About Zendesk & Freshdesk
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Bottom Line
Zendesk vs Freshdesk Compared
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| Our Customer Service Software Rating Out of 5 | 4.04 | 4.61 |
| Free Trial or Plan | Free trial for 30 days | Free-forever plan for up to 2 agents |
| Starting Monthly Price* | $19 per agent, per month, billed annually | $15 per agent, per month, billed annually |
| Workflow Automation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reporting & Analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-channel Support | Ticketing system, phone support, chat channel, answer bot, community forums, help desk | Email, phone, chat, Facebook, website, and ecommerce |
| Mobile Application | ✓ | ✓ |
| Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools | Enterprise-grade artificial intelligence (AI), advanced bots, intent suggestionsIntelligent insights, suggestions, triage, and admin macro suggestions | Freddy AI for customer service: social signals, article suggester, bot reporting500 free Freshbots sessions |
| Integrations | 1,000+ prebuilt apps and integrations from the Zendesk Marketplace | 1,000+ third-party and native software options from the Freshworks Marketplace |
| Ease of Use |
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| Customer Support |
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| Visit Zendesk | Visit Freshdesk |
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown. Pricing reflects pricing info available at the time of publishing. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current Zendesk pricing and Freshdesk pricing to stay up to date.
Best Alternatives to Zendesk & Freshdesk
Customer service software can help you assess the best solution for your small business. Freshdesk and Zendesk are two of the most sought-after help desk software with customer service (CX) management tools. But, if you are unsure what to pick between the two, you might want to consider checking other customer service-dedicated software alternatives.
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| Best For | Great for teams needing CX software with project management tools | Best for teams needing an AI-powered assistant (Zia) for smart suggestions and recommendations for cross-selling | Recommended for teams needing customer feedback tools for intent detection | Great for teams looking for solid ticketing features and self-service resources |
| Starting PriceBased on annual billing on a monthly basis. Monthly billing is available for a higher price. | Free to $49/month for 5 users | Free to $14 per user/month | Free to $18/month for 2 users | $9 per user/ month |
| Learn More | Read our Bitrix24 reviewor | Read our Zoho Desk reviewor | Read our HubSpot Service Hub reviewor | No Review Yet |
| Visit Bitrix24 | Visit Zoho Desk | Visit HubSpot Service Hub | Visit LiveAgent |
Still searching for the best CX software for your needs? Check out best customer service software for small business, which include Zendesk.
Most Affordable: Freshdesk
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| Our Pricing RatingOut of 5 | 5 | 3.75 |
| Freemium Trial or Plan | ✓Free forever | ✓Free trial for 30 days 30-day free trial |
| Paid Monthly Plan Starting PricePricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown. | $15 per agent, per month | $19 per agent, per month |
| Billing Options | Monthly and annual | Monthly and annual |
Freshdesk pricing is easier on the pocket than Zendesk since it provides forever-free foundational tools, like ticket dispatch, ticket trend report, and integrated ticketing across email, that startups can use to provide basic customer support. The Growth plan price is $15 per agent, per month. Freshdesk offers higher-tiered plans, such as the Pro plan with advanced automation at $49 per agent, monthly. The Enterprise plan costs $79 per agent, per month.
On the other hand, Zendesk offers a 30-day free trial that can give you unrestricted access to all ticketing features like issue tracking and macros across all plans. Macros are prepared responses or actions that agents can manually apply when creating or updating tickets.
Zendesk’s Support Team plan costs $19 per agent, monthly. On the other hand, the Support Professional plan costs $55 per agent, per month and the Support Enterprise plan is $115 per agent, monthly. All Zendesk plans are good for up to five agents.
Winner: Freshdesk stands out when it comes to Freshdesk vs Zendesk pricing for its free foundational tools, helping small businesses deliver stellar customer experience. This customer service solution offers a free-forever plan for up to 10 agents and all premium plans are cheaper than Zendesk.
Best for Multichannel Support: Freshdesk
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| Ticket Management System | Ticket management capabilities like outbound emails, email tickets, and priority setting | Omnichannel ticket management and agent auto-assignment for high-priority tickets |
| Help Center | Freshdesk Support Portal | Access to Zendesk Help Center and Community |
| Live Chat/AI Bot | 24/5 chat support and Freddy AI for customer service only on high paid plans | Hands-on help with Zendesk Assist and advanced AI as add-ons |
| 24/7 email support | Email support during business hours | |
| Phone Support | 24/5 phone support | Priority and 24/7 support for higher paid plans |
| Website | Embeddable contact form and solution articles | Digital support and guided learning paths |
Freshdesk’s multi-channel support includes phone, chat, email, website, ecommerce, and Facebook. Ticket management capabilities include outbound emails, email ticketing, and priority setting. Unlike Zendesk requiring a higher plan, Freshdesk provides 24/5 phone support available in its basic plan. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates with Freshchat for modern messaging and Freshcaller for establishing a cloud-dedicated call center, allowing you to convert calls into tickets and more.
Like Freshdesk, Zendesk includes omnichannel ticket management, a help center, live chat, AI bot, email ticketing, social media messaging, and phone support. Customer support agents can access tickets and chat, messaging, support, and talk conversations without switching dashboards for prompt, personalized service. Omnichannel routing automatically directs agent workload across multiple channels to quickly resolve high-priority tickets.
Zendesk dashboard showing ticket status (Source: Zendesk) 
Freshdesk dashboard showing ticket status (Source: Freshdesk)
Winner: Zendesk and Freshdesk have robust multi-channel agent support and omnichannel ticket and customer management tools, boosting agent productivity. Unlike Zendesk, which requires a higher plan, Freshdesk provides 24/5 phone support available in its starting plan, making this provider a winner in this category. The Freshdesk and Freshcaller integration enables a cloud-dedicated call center setup, converting calls to tickets for prompt tracking and resolution.
Best Reporting & Analytics Tools: It’s a Tie
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| Reporting Capabilities | Advanced and custom customer service performance reports with sequence reporting | Ticket management capabilities like outbound emails, email tickets, and priority setting |
| Customization | Custom reports and dashboards with dashboard and link sharing | Custom reports with report filters |
| Predictions & Forecasting | Customer service forecasting, such as expanding support to new regions or incorporating new operational hours | Ongoing development of AI-powered ticket forecasting through automatic ticket triaging and analyzing existing ticket data to provide intelligent suggestions |
| Scheduled Reporting | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI Insights | Zendesk AI and Zendesk Advanced AI as an add-on | Advanced analytics with interactive options |
Both Zendesk and Freshdesk have advanced reporting and analytics in their high-priced plans. Zendesk gives you access to advanced and custom reports for real-time data interaction, enhancing customer service management through greater data visibility for smarter analysis and decision-making. Furthermore, schedule and automated delivery reporting features promote quick assessment of customer service performance and sales metrics.
On the other hand, Freshdesk has ticket volume trends, in-depth reports, and timesheet summary reports for efficient analysis and reporting. Get granular insights with more advanced features in higher-priced plans, including top customer analysis, ticket lifecycle reports, and agent statuses. With agent statuses—Freshdesk’s latest feature—tickets are automatically routed to available agents, boosting your team’s productivity even more.
Zendesk’s customizable support dashboard (Source: Zendesk) 
Freshdesk’s latest feature, agent statuses (Source: Freshdesk)
Winner: Both Zendesk and Freshdesk are winners in this category. Zendesk has advanced and custom reports and automated delivery reporting, which are highly beneficial for performance tracking and decision-making of customer service managers. On the other hand, Freshdesk has advanced features like ticket lifecycle reports and agent statuses, which also allow sales reps to deliver excellent customer support services.
Best for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools: Freshdesk
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| Task Command Functions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Chatbot | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free AI Tools | ✓ | ✓ |
| Performance Recommendations | ✓ | ✓ |
| Content Generation | Automate ticket summaries, auto-create email responses, and generate solution articles | Generative AI-powered bots to expand, summarize, and change the messaging tone of emails and articles |
| Intelligent Insights | Customer service (CX) automation performance tracking and summary feature to track ticket progress | Advanced triage tools enrich tickets with language and intent predictions without the help of admins or agents |
Freshdesk’s Freddy is activated starting in the Pro plan. CX and sales teams can use this feature to automate ticket summaries, generate solution articles, and create email responses. Unlike Zendesk, Freshdesk users can use the summary feature, like context cues, to track ticket progress in the starter plan, while auto-triage suggestions and auto-resolve customer tickets with Freshdesk’s Email Bot are available in Pro and Enterprise plans.
Zendesk AI capabilities are add-ons, including context cues and suggested macros for quick customer complaint resolution. The advanced AI version offers intelligent triage, admin macro suggestions, and auto-replies, minimizing manual email sorting. Like Freshdesk, Zendesk also has an AI bot called Answer Bot, which utilizes machine learning to match a customer’s question, connecting with customers across popular messaging apps.
Freshdesk AI-powered ticket forecasting enhances customer service operations (Source: Freshdesk) 
Zendesk AI suggested macros for agent use (Source: Zendesk)
Winner: Both Zendesk and Freshdesk have helpful AI features, such as Freshdesk’s AI-powered ticket forecasting for operational excellence and Zendesk’s context cues, bot, and suggested macros to resolve customer concerns quickly. Unlike Zendesk which has content cues as an add-on or extra charge, Freshdesk has a similar feature called built-in summary available in its starter plan, making this help desk a winner in this category.
Best Mobile App: Freshdesk
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| Mobile Data Management | Access tasks, deals, data records, and dashboards | Ticket management, like sorting, creating, and searching tickets |
| Mobile Communication & Collaboration Tools | Mobile help desk, email, push notifications, ticket notes | Ticket notifications, customer and agent-to-agent chats, push notifications |
| Mobile Interface Design | Easy-to-navigate user interface | Simple and friendly navigational interface |
Freshdesk’s mobile app makes ticket management effortless. Agents can create tickets, add notes, and skim through filtered ticket views. Unlike Zendesk, agents using Freshdesk can attach solution articles and canned responses to replies to avoid typing long responses.
The Zendesk Support mobile app allows agents and managers to quickly view and respond to Zendesk tickets from mobile devices. Users can streamline ticket management by using the app to filter, search, create, view, comment on, and update tickets. With Zendesk mobile, customer service managers can track team performance, and agents can receive real-time critical update notifications on the go.
Freshdesk mobile app canned responses (Source: Freshdesk) 
Zendesk’s ticket screen displaying ticket status (Source: Zendesk)
Winner: Freshdesk and Zendesk allow agents to view, sort, create, and monitor tickets, saving them time and effort to focus more on supporting customers. But Freshdesk is the winner because users can attach solution articles and canned responses to replies, boosting your agents’ productivity even more.
Best Integrations: It’s a Tie
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| Third-party Integrations | 1,000+ third-party and native software options | 1,000+ third-party and native software options |
| Native Software Tools | Productivity and time tracking, customer relationship management (CRM), telephony, surveys and feedback, and social media | Cloud telephony, customer relationship management (CRM), time tracking, survey, and feedback |
Zendesk is equipped with native software apps to manage tickets, clean up the agent queue, and receive updates. Users have full access to reporting and analytics dashboards to monitor agent performance, including the number and nature of open tickets. You can integrate Zendesk with more than 1,000 third-party apps available in its marketplace for customer support tasks.
In the same way, Freshdesk paid plan subscribers can enjoy more customer support capabilities with third-party app integrations for cloud telephony, customer relationship management (CRM), time tracking, surveys, and feedback monitoring. The Freshworks Marketplace can give you access to more than 1,000 third-party and native apps.
Freshdesk top integrations built by Freshworks (Source: Freshdesk) 
Zendesk Marketplace with popular apps for integration (Source: Zendesk)
Winner: Zendesk and Freshdesk are a tie in this category. Both providers have a broad network of third-party and native apps for integration, empowering customer support agents with more advanced capabilities to serve customers better.
Most User-friendly: Freshdesk
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| Interface Navigation | Intuitive, sleek, and easy-to-navigate user interface | Easy-to-navigate user interface |
Freshdesk has an intuitive, sleek, and easy-to-navigate user interface and a clean layout for ticket submission—perfect for streamlining agent work management. Hence, Freshdesk stands out in this category more than Zendesk. However, the platform lacks synchronization in data and reports, which can be an issue when evaluating an agent or a team’s performance.
While Zendesk’s user interface is easy to navigate, Zendesk is an omnichannel solution with a lot of things going on in its dashboard. Because of its robust capabilities, the integrations, search, and advanced features need in-depth technical knowledge, which can be challenging for first-time users.
Freshdesk team dashboard setup and functionality (Source: Freshdesk) 
Zendesk agent dashboard overview (Source: Zendesk)
Winner: Both Freshdesk and Zendesk compete closely in system setup and interface navigation. However, Freshdesk has the edge when it comes to the user-friendliness of its features.
Best Customer Support: Freshdesk
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| Online/Self-help Resources | Knowledge base, blog, community forum, customer support portal | Knowledge base, blog, community forum |
| Phone Support | 24/5 phone support across all paid plans | 24/7 phone support requires high-priced plans |
| Live Chat Support | 24/5 chat support | 24/7 AI bot only |
| Email Support | 24/7 email support | 24/7 web form email response only |
Freshdesk offers omnichannel customer support channels, including knowledge base resources and community forums. Unlike Zendesk’s costlier customer support, you can reach Freshdesk through 24/7 email support and 24/5 phone support across all paid plans. Live 24/5 chat support is also available in higher-paid plans.
Zendesk starter plan includes email and phone support during business hours for general account information and troubleshooting. Help center assistance, AI chat support, digital onboarding, adoption resources, and guided learning paths are also available. Zendesk also has onboarding and software adoption programs, downloadable tools, and role-based video courses. However, priority and 24/7 customer support are only available in higher-priced plans.
Freshdesk support with knowledge base resources (Source: Freshdesk) 
Zendesk’s “My conversations” with bot chat support (Source: Zendesk)
Winner: In this Freshdesk-Zendesk comparison, both customer service solutions provide excellent customer support. But Freshdesk is the winner for its omnichannel customer support services, allowing teams to focus more on assisting customers than resolving system issues.
What Users Say About Zendesk & Freshdesk
Both Zendesk and Freshdesk are two of the best customer support solutions for small businesses, as most users express satisfaction with their investments in terms of user-friendliness, functionality, and overall value. There are specific use cases and industries that prefer one over the other. Below, we present a comparison of Freshdesk and Zendesk based on review scores from well-known software evaluation websites:
- G2: 4.3 out of 5 based on 5,782 reviews
- Google Play: 3.7 out of 5 based on 7,510 reviews
- App Store: 4.5 out of 5 based on 3,800 reviews
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 based on 3,069 reviews
- Google Play: 4.4 out of 5 based on 7,970 reviews
- App Store: 4.5 out of 5 based on 2,300 reviews
Zendesk users love this customer service software’s reporting and analytics features because of its excellent direct sales activities and lead management features. However, users expressed that the advanced features are difficult to set up and use. Additionally, many users find Zendesk’s customer support lacking in addressing their ongoing issues right away.
On the other hand, Freshdesk users love its well-organized dashboard and well-laid-out menu options. But they also stated their desire for a more customizable interface without relying on third-party apps, such as when adding multiple quick links on tickets. Nevertheless, Freshdesk is highly praised for its expert service, making customer support scalable and smooth for small businesses.
How We Evaluated Zendesk vs Freshdesk
We comprehensively ran a Zendesk comparison with Zendesk by evaluating key product attributes that are of utmost importance to small businesses when choosing customer service software. In this head-to-head comparison, we carefully studied the pricing, features, ease of use, customer support, our expert rating, and feedback from actual users. Below, you’ll find tabs that provide an in-depth look at how we conducted our Freshdesk vs Zendesk evaluation:
When assessing pricing, we took into account the availability of a free plan and the range of flexible pricing options that users could comfortably afford. Additionally, we examined whether subscribers had the choice to either make monthly payments or opt for annual billing to potentially save on costs.
We assessed fundamental features that we believe are essential in any customer service software product, including reporting and analytics, workflow management, and mobile application. Additionally, we examined typical modular features present in both Freshdesk and Zendesk systems, which encompass pipeline and deal management.
In this category, we focused on examining tools and modules that are frequently sought after by users and teams who lean toward Zendesk and Freshdesk. Both providers excel in knowledge base resources, AI capabilities, support ticket management, multi-channel support, and dashboard customization, providing more advanced capabilities compared to alternative customer service solutions.
Comprehensive support and customer service are critical in preventing potential user issues. This aspect ensures positive outcomes when using customer service systems. We considered customer service hours and the accessibility of support channels like phone, live chat, and email. Furthermore, we determined the availability of online resources for users, such as tutorials, forums, or training modules, to aid in their customer support experience.
Besides our direct experience with these customer service systems, we also evaluated user feedback. These criteria take into account user reviews to measure each platform’s popularity, standout features, ease of use, and overall value offered at their respective price points. This holistic approach enables us to gain valuable insights into customer sentiments.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
No. Freshdesk is better than Zendesk in terms of ease of use and pricing, with closely similar advanced capabilities. Nevertheless, Zendesk and Freshdesk both have good advanced reporting and analytics, integrations, and AI features. Both customer service systems also have robust customer support features, like ticket submission and automated ticket escalation management features.
Zendesk’s starting price is $19 per agent, per month, whereas Freshdesk costs $15 per agent, per month. Both providers offer high-tiered plans, like Zendesk’s Support Professional at $55 per agent, per month and the Support Enterprise plan is $115 per agent, monthly. All Zendesk plans are good for up to five agents.
Freshdesk is one of the best customer service solutions for ticketing support. If you’re on a tight budget, this software offers free foundational tools and a more affordable plan than Zendesk. However, if you need more comprehensive software with extended capabilities, Freshsales is the best way to go. Freshsales is the CRM product of Freshworks.
Bottom Line
Zendesk and Freshdesk are excellent providers of customer support. Zendesk is equipped with great email ticketing capabilities, impressive custom reports, and other advanced features that are beneficial in direct sales and lead management. However, Freshdesk stands out because it offers more user-friendly features, omnichannel customer support, and more affordable plans than Zendesk.
