Zendesk vs Salesforce: Pricing, Features & What’s Best in 2019

Zendesk and Salesforce both offer feature-rich CRMs to help growing companies manage relationships and sales activities. Zendesk’s CRM, Zendesk Sell, starts at $19 per user, per month, offering calling features great for mobile salespeople. Salesforce’s entry-level tier, Salesforce Essentials, starts at $25 per user, per month, featuring customer-facing support tools perfect for new businesses.

When to Use Zendesk Sell

Zendesk Sell is great for growing teams that rely on field or telesales. In addition to having a great mobile app, you can call directly from your customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Additionally, it offers advanced reporting like sales forecasting. There’s also no user cap, which makes it more affordable for mid-sized teams, although customer support tools cost extra.

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When to Use Salesforce

Salesforce’s small-to-medium sized business (SMB) tier, Salesforce Essentials, is perfect for businesses starting out with 10 or fewer users needing core customer relationship management (CRM) functionality and customer support, and those who want to build custom applications. For teams of more than 10 users, there’s Salesforce Professional, which increases to $75 per user, per month with an annual contract.

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Zendesk vs Salesforce at a Glance

How We Evaluated Zendesk vs Salesforce

Zendesk and Salesforce are both considered among the best CRM for small businesses. Therefore, in order to compare the two, we needed to evaluate a variety of categories including features, available integrations, extended platform, and user support. We compared the pricing structure of each and their affordability. We also looked at how easy each product was to use and the support available when questions arise.

Here are more details around how we evaluated Zendesk and Salesforce:

• Price: We looked at overall pricing, what features the prices included, and any limitations on pricing such as a capped number of users in lower-priced tiers.
• Ease of use: The ease of use of each product and its platform were also evaluated to compare how easy using it would be for most small business owners.
• CRM features: Because both platforms have a variety of features in different categories like CRM and support tools, we looked at core CRM features of each.
• Support features: We also looked at the type of support tools available for small business owners, including tools like a knowledge base and ticket management.
• User reviews: User reviews were also part of our evaluation to provide insight on what others think of both platforms.
• User support and training: Support and training for users are also important since they contribute to ease of use and setup.
• Platform ecosystem: We also looked at each platform and evaluated tools and resources within each that could help their users build relationships and support their customers.

Zendesk Sell vs Salesforce: Pricing & Features

Zendesk Sell pricing for small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) is tiered with plans starting at $19 per user, per month, with annual and monthly billing options. Salesforce’s Essentials plan costs $25 per user, per month with an annual contract. However, you can also upgrade to full-featured Salesforce for $75 per user, per month.

Zendesk Sell Pricing

Zendesk Sell offers two SMB plans at $19 per user, per month and $49 per user, per month. To add customer support tools to your CRM, you can purchase Zendesk Duet, which costs $59 per user, per month and includes the CRM and Support together. If you purchase Duet, you’ll need an annual agreement.

Zendesk Sell Tiered Features

Team

This plan includes core CRM features as well as custom sales pipelines and the ability to pull basic reports for $19 per user, per month. While both Zendesk Sell and Salesforce Essentials allow businesses to make and record calls from within the CRM, its great mobile app and lower-cost entry point make this plan more suited for field-based teams.

In addition to its calling features, the Team plan integrates with Outlook and Gmail. These features allow small businesses to do phone and email outreach in the CRM while tracking activity from which reports can be created. Also, because it has no limitations on the number of users, it can be a more affordable solution for mid-sized teams than Salesforce.

Professional

The Professional Plan, priced at $49 per user, per month, builds on the Team plan with additional features like bulk email tools and email templates that allow you to efficiently scale email communications. It also offers more advanced reporting that includes the ability to create forecasts and includes call analytics. Integrations with MailChimp and Zapier are also available on this plan, allowing you to further expand its capabilities.

This plan is great for growing businesses with larger customer bases. Expanded email capabilities allow for scale that goes beyond the Team plan’s Gmail and Outlook integrations. The advanced reporting is also useful for companies interested in future planning and taking their organizations to the next level. This plan is much less expensive and more flexible than Salesforce Professional, which requires an annual contract and is $75 per user, per month.

Salesforce Pricing

Salesforce offers two SMB tiers with prices ranging from $25 per user, per month to $75 per user, per month. Unlike Zendesk Sell, there’s no need to add customer support products at additional costs. Also, there’s a 10-user cap on the starting plan, whereas Zendesk Sell has no user caps or limitations.

Salesforce Tiered Features

Salesforce Essentials

Salesforce Essentials offers features like lead management tools that allow you to track where leads are in the sales process. It has lead assignment and routing to help you assign and route leads to sales reps. It comes with customer support tools for creating a knowledge base and support tickets. Salesforce Essentials also comes with the Lightning Apps Builder so that you can build custom CRM apps. This tier is priced at $25 per user, per month.

The Essentials plan is right for growing businesses just starting out needing an affordable plan with a monthly payment option. It’s great for SMBs with fewer than 10 users, as there’s a user maximum with this plan. Companies needing to build custom apps for their CRM would also find this plan beneficial because Lightning Apps comes with it. It’s also beneficial if you want customer-facing support tools included, unlike with Zendesk Sell, which requires an upgrade.

Salesforce Professional

Salesforce Professional offers advanced features like collaborative forecasting where you can work on sales forecasting with others. It also has rules-based lead scoring, which allows you to help your sales team prioritize the best leads, and lead registration, which is great for channel sales. You can also manage orders and contracts as well as create and send quotes. Pricing starts at $75 per user, per month and requires annual billing.

The Professional plan is great for companies that have outgrown features in the Essentials plan and need more advanced features like lead scoring, order and contract management, lead registration, and collaborative sales forecasting. It’s great for SMBs wanting to be more strategic about their businesses. Unlike Zendesk Sell’s Professional tier, it offers lead registration, which can help SMBs effectively compete for large deals in channel sales.

Zendesk vs Salesforce: Ease of Use

Users of Zendesk Sell and Salesforce Essentials find both products easy to use. The user interface on both platforms is simple and easy to navigate. Both have drag-and-drop and clickable features, making it easy to use the tools. Zendesk Sell and Salesforce offer tools and resources to help you get started using your CRM right away. Some users of the more advanced Salesforce tiers have mentioned that the learning curve can be steep.

Here are more details about how easy it is to use each product:

Zendesk Sell Ease of Use

Zendesk Sell has a clean and simple user interface that makes it easy to find the tools you’ll use regularly, like lead management and communication features. You can easily complete lead profiles with one-click profile enrichment tools and you can easily make and record calls with its native calling feature. They also have videos and other learning resources to help you get up and running quickly.

Salesforce Ease of Use

Salesforce Essentials is easy to use overall. Some of the features that help are its sales assistant and in-platform onboarding tools that guide you through setting it up in a way that’s right for your business. As you’re setting up your CRM, these tools give you prompts or ask you questions so your system is set up properly from the beginning.

Zendesk vs Salesforce: Customer Reviews

Users of both Zendesk Sell and Salesforce have overall positive reviews. Customers like that both products offer robust features and are easy to use overall. Both products have had some negative feedback around some aspect of the price. Salesforce has had some negative feedback on the ease of use with its advanced features and tiers. See our article with reviews on the best CRM software providers.

Here are more details about customer reviews:

Zendesk Sell Customer Reviews

Users like Zendesk Sell overall. They like that it’s easy to use and offers robust tools to build both prospect and customer relationships. Users report that they like the click-to-call feature with call recordings they can refer back to. There are a few dislikes around price and small things like wishing integrations performed better and clearer communication around product updates. Zendesk Sell is a great CRM and Salesforce alternative.

Salesforce Customer Reviews

Overall, users like Salesforce. They like the level of customization you have with the software but dislike the learning curve involved in utilizing these features. They also don’t like the price associated with the more advanced Salesforce tiers. Users like the ability to build custom apps as well.

Zendesk vs Salesforce: User Support

Both Zendesk Sell and Salesforce Essentials offer ticket-based customer service. They both provide educational and self-service options including a knowledge base, videos, and webinars. In addition to these options, Salesforce offers support upgrade options if this type of customer support is not right for your organization.

Below are more details around customer support for each product:

Zendesk Sell User Support

Zendesk Sell offers ticket-based support, where you can create a ticket and a support person will answer as soon as possible. There are no specific support response times listed on their site. In addition to being able to create tickets on their website, they also offer a knowledge base where you can search for your own answers. They’ve also created videos and webinars covering commonly asked product questions.

Salesforce User Support

Salesforce Essentials’ customer support also offers ticket-based support, where the listed response time is within two days. Users can also get the support they need through the customer community, videos, webinars, and guided journeys. Unlike Zendesk, Salesforce provides the option of upgrading support levels for an additional fee, with features like one-hour critical response, and can connect with the support team online or by phone.

Zendesk Sell vs Salesforce: Support Ticketing

Zendesk Sell alone doesn’t offer support ticketing features. However, they can be added for an extra $10 per user, per month over the cost of the Professional plan when purchased with the Support product in a bundle known as Zendesk Duet. That said, Salesforce Essentials comes with case or ticket management at no additional cost.

Below are additional details on both Zendesk Sell’s and Salesforce Essentials offerings:

Zendesk Sell Ticketing Management Tools

Zendesk Sell doesn’t come with support tools out of the box. However, if you want to add this feature, you can purchase a bundle called Zendesk Duet, which combines Zendesk Sell and Zendesk Support for $59 per user, per month. Features that Zendesk Support offers are more advanced, featuring skills-based routing, the ability to support up to 300 different brands, multilingual interfaces, and more.

Salesforce Ticketing Management Tools

Salesforce Essentials comes with case or ticket management features that allow you to create cases for your customers when they run into issues or have questions with your products and services. You’re able to receive cases from a variety of sources like emails, websites, calls, and online communities. You can also filter, review, and resolve pending cases.

Zendesk Platform

In addition to its CRM Zendesk Sell, the Zendesk platform is made up of a variety of products including Support, its help desk, a ticketing product, and Chat, its live chat and messaging tool to interact with customers on websites. There’s also Talk, which is the call center software, and Guide, which is the knowledge base. Explore is the analytics and reporting tool. Connect is the campaign product. These products are sold separately and are also bundled together.

Well-known users of tools on the Zendesk platform include:

• Stanley Black & Decker
• Xero
• L’Oreal
• Wharton School
• Peleton
• Airbnb
• Slack

Salesforce Platform

The Salesforce platform is made up of product tiers rather than standalone products. Salesforce Essentials is the best-suited for the needs of SMBs. However, tiers beyond Salesforce Essentials include Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited, which offer advanced, enterprise-ready functionality and lots of third-party integrations. These pricing tiers range from $75 per user, per month to $300 per user, per month, all requiring an annual contract.

Well-known users of Salesforce include:

• American Express
• Farmers Insurance
• Northern Trust
• Extreme Lashes
• Asana
• Surfair

Bottom Line

Zendesk Sell and Salesforce Essentials make it easy to set up a CRM to build relationships and offer customer support. Zendesk Sell is best overall because of its calling and email features, which give you more options for carrying out sales and support functions. It’s also best because its pricing structure allows you to gradually increase capabilities without a huge jump in price, and it doesn’t cap its entry-level tier.

Between Salesforce and Zendesk, Zendesk Sell is the best CRM for SMBs looking for a combination of affordability, robust functionality, and ease of use. Its advanced features, like native calling and sales forecasting, provide sales managers and entrepreneurs with everything they need for their business. Sign up for a 14-day free trial today.

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