Freshdesk Vs. Zendesk | Best Zendesk Alternative for 2022

Criteria
Ticket Workflows		Workflow automation setup is complex and time-consuming.
Agent load balancing		Third-party app needed for round-robin assignment.
Agent productivity		UI is congested and difficult to work with, requiring a steeper learning curve.
Bots and AI		Bot flows need to be built via pricey third-party vendors. Entire bot ecosystem is more complex and expensive.
Business hours for agent groups		Workarounds and more macros are needed to associate business hours with specific groups.
Day passes for occasional agents
Field service management
Proactive outreach
Free plan
Customer support	24/7 mail support available for all plans. Phone and chat support are available for all the paid plans.	24/7 support via phone and chat is reserved only for higher-tier, expensive plans.
Lowest plan on Omnichannel	$29/agent/month	$49/agent/month
Highest plan on Omnichannel	$99/agent/month	$215/agent/month

Criteria

Ticket Workflows

Workflow automation setup is complex and time-consuming.

Agent load balancing

Third-party app needed for round-robin assignment.

Agent productivity

UI is congested and difficult to work with, requiring a steeper learning curve.

Bots and AI

Bot flows need to be built via pricey third-party vendors. Entire bot ecosystem is more complex and expensive.

Business hours for agent groups

Workarounds and more macros are needed to associate business hours with specific groups.

Day passes for occasional agents

Field service management

Proactive outreach

Free plan

Customer support

24/7 mail support available for all plans. Phone and chat support are available for all the paid plans.

24/7 support via phone and chat is reserved only for higher-tier, expensive plans.

Lowest plan on Omnichannel

$29/agent/month

$49/agent/month

Highest plan on Omnichannel

$99/agent/month

$215/agent/month

Interested in evaluating Freshdesk? Check out our 100% transparent pricing plans

Support Desk
OmnichannelSave up to 50%

Support Desk combines best-in-class ticketing, self-service, and reporting.

Free

For getting started

Up to 10 agents

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Email & Social Ticketing Convert all email and social media queries from your customers into tickets and track, prioritize, and reply to them using Freshdesk.
Ticket Dispatch Categorize, prioritize, and route tickets to the right teams by creating your own business rules.
Knowledge Base Enable customers to help themselves by leveraging the power of Freshdesk’s advanced knowledge base.
Ticket Trend Report Analyze the trend of tickets your team receives and resolves in a day and stay on top of your backlog tickets by allocating resources at the right time.
Datacenter Location Choose the location of the data center in which you want your data to be securely hosted.

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Growth

For fast growth

$15

/agent/month, billed annually

$18

/agent/month, billed monthly

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Everything in Free and…

Automation Automate follow-ups, escalations, and other tasks using specific time and event-based triggers to perform any action of your choice.
Collision Detection Know when another agent is viewing/replying to a ticket and avoid duplicating each other’s effort.
Marketplace Apps Get access to hundreds of apps and extend the capabilities of your helpdesk, with the Freshworks Marketplace.
Helpdesk Report Get an overview of your Freshdesk account and all the important metrics associated with your helpdesk’s performance.
SLA & Business hour Set the right expectations with customers and agents on the response and resolution timeframes for every ticket in your helpdesk and set the right business hours.
Custom Email Server
Custom Ticket Views
Ticket Fields & Status
Custom SSL
Customer Fields
Time sheet summary report
Time tracking

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Pro

For high performance

$49

/agent/month, billed annually

$59

/agent/month, billed monthly

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Everything in Growth and…

Round-robin Routing Assign tickets to all the available agents in a group in a circular fashion.
Custom Roles Restrict and provide fine-grained levels of access to agents in your Freshdesk.
Custom Reports and Dashboards Create powerful reports and dashboards unique to your business and draw deeper insights from your Freshdesk data.
Customer Segments Categorize your customers based on their profiles to provide personalized support.
Versions in Knowledge Base Edit, restore, and manage versions of your knowledge base articles with ease.
Multiple Products (up to 5) Manage support for up to 5 products from one Freshdesk account by setting up separate support portals for each of them.
Includes up to 5000 Collaborators Invite external agents and third-parties into Freshdesk to help full-time agents resolve complex customer issues.
Extendable API Limits
CSAT Survey & Reports
Multiple SLA & Business hours
SLA Reminder & Escalation
Multilingual Knowledge Base
Custom Apps
Average handling Time (AHT)

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EnterprisePopular

For Enterprise-grade support

$79

/agent/month, billed annually

$95

/agent/month, billed monthly

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Everything in Pro and…

Skill-based Routing Match tickets to the agent most proficient in handling specific types of issues within the group.
Sandbox Create a secure test environment to try new features and settings in Freshdesk without impacting agents or customers.
Audit Log Monitor helpdesk changes easily and always stay updated on what’s happening in your helpdesk.
Knowledge Base Approval Workflow Track, review, approve, and publish knowledge base articles.
Agent Shifts Manage your global team's schedules and availabilities across different time zones in one place, to ensure that no customer goes unanswered.
IP Range Restriction Increase helpdesk security by allowing certain IP addresses to access your portal.
Email Bot Automatically responds to email tickets with solution articles. The email bot consumes bot sessions. freddy
Includes 5000 bot sessions/month A bot session is any unique interaction between an end-user and a bot. For details on additional sessions and auto-recharge, refer to the FAQ section.
Assist Bot Guide agents through pre-configured steps to help resolve customer queries faster. (The Assist Bot doesn't require bot sessions) Freddy
Auto-triage Automatically predict basic ticket fields like the Type, Priority & Group and other custom ticket fields. freddy
Article Suggester Let Freddy suggest solution articles to your agents to help them respond to email tickets. freddy
Canned Response Suggester Let Freddy suggest canned responses to your agents to help respond faster to tickets Freddy
Multiple products (Unlimited)
Social Signals Use AI to find important tweets and cancel out the noise
Flexible Hierarchy Categorize articles up to 5 folder levels and scale your knowledge base.
Custom Objects Create or bring in business-critical data right inside your Freshdesk.

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Leverage messaging and telephony features with your Support Desk to offer seamless support across channels from one place.

Growth Omnichannel

For fast growth

$29

/agent/month, billed annually

$35

/agent/month, billed monthly

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Everything in Growth of Freshdesk Support Desk, Messaging, and Contact Center

Email, Social, Messaging, Telephony Channels
Includes up to 2000 Bot Sessions/Month A bot session is any unique interaction between an end-user and a bot. For details on additional sessions and auto-recharge, refer to the FAQ section FREDDY
Includes up to 2000 Incoming Minutes/Month Applies to LOCAL incoming calls attended on browser in US, Canada, EU, UK and ANZ. Flat rate of USD 0.013/min apply once the free minutes are exhausted
Chatbot Builder Build your own bots to answer questions and guide your customers for quicker resolution
Chatbot Analytics Get a breakdown of how your visitors interact throughout the chatbot flow
Messaging Topics Conversation threads to help connect users with the right team
Contact Management
Custom Inbox Views
SLA & Business hours
Marketplace Apps Extend your support capabilities by integrating with the top apps on our marketplace
Automations
Data Center Location
Ticket, Conversation, and Call Reports
Omnichannel Dashboard Monitor your team’s performance across channels in real-time
Time sheet summary report
Time tracking
Omnichannel Analytics Get a holistic view of performance across channels and make data-driven decisions
Whatsapp Business Message your customers on apps they use daily
Apple Business Chat Message your customers on apps they use daily
LINE
Instagram DM
SMS

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Pro OmnichannelPopular

For high performance

$59

/agent/month, billed annually

$71

/agent/month, billed monthly

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Everything in Pro of Freshdesk Support Desk, Messaging, Contact Center and more.

Omniroute Manage workload for your teams across multiple support channels, all in one place.
Omnichannel Customer Timeline Get a timeline of a customer’s past interactions with your team across channels to get instant context on a customer’s problem
Omnichannel Knowledge Base All self service content will be centrally curated, operated, and managed within Freshdesk. These articles can be accessed across channels like, chat, webpage, or bot suggestions.
Roles & Permissions Provide or restrict access to your agents at granular levels.
Custom Reports Create powerful ticketing and call reports unique to your business and draw deeper insights from your support data.
Co-browsing Provide customer support on a personalized level with screen sharing and audio chat.
Multilingual Support Support customers globally by creating solution articles in multiple languages, to be shown on your customer portal or chat widget.
Includes 3000 Local Incoming Min/Month Applies to local incoming calls attended on browser in US, Canada, EU, UK, and ANZ. Flat rate of USD 0.013/min apply once the free minutes are exhausted.
Includes up to 3000 Bot Sessions/Month A bot session is any unique interaction between an end-user and a bot. For more details on additional sessions and auto-recharge, check the FAQ section. Freddy
Includes up to 5000 Collaborators Invite external agents and third-parties into Freshdesk to help full-time agents resolve complex customer issues.
Extendable API Limits
Custom Apps Extend your support capabilities by building apps customized for your business
Holiday Routing
Advanced Call Management
Agent Availability Report
CSAT Survey & Report
Average Handling Time (AHT)

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Enterprise Omnichannel

For Enterprise-grade support

$99

/agent/month, billed annually

$119

/agent/month, billed monthly

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Everything in Enterprise of Freshdesk Support Desk, Messaging, Contact Center and more.

IP Range Restriction Increase security by allowing certain IP addresses to access your support across channels.
Email Bot Automatically responds to email tickets with relevant solution articles. The Email Bot consumes bot sessions. freddy
Voicebot Train the bot with Q&A sets, and deploy on the phone channel. This feature is available on-request and consumes bot sessions Freddy
Speech-enabled IVR Enable customers to connect with your agents through voice commands with a speech-enabled IVR system. freddy
Includes up to 5000 Bot Sessions/Month A bot session is any unique interaction between an end-user and a bot. For more details on additional sessions and auto-recharge, check the FAQ section. Freddy
Includes 5000 Local Incoming Min/Month Applies to local incoming calls attended on browser in US, Canada, EU, UK, and ANZ. Flat rate of USD 0.013/min apply once the free minutes are exhausted.
Abandoned Call Metrics Track all abandoned calls and optimize your IVR menu.
Assist Bot Guide agents through pre-configured steps to help resolve customer queries faster. freddy
Auto-triage Automatically predict default ticket fields like the Type, Priority & Group and other custom ticket fields freddy
Canned Response Suggester Let Freddy suggest canned responses to yours agents to help them respond faster to tickets
Article Suggester Let Freddy suggest solution articles to yours agents to help them respond faster to tickets freddy
Social Signals Use AI to automatically find important tweets quickly and cancel out the noise
User Authentication (JWT)
Service Level Monitoring Track how well your phone team is meeting their service level targets
Flexible Hierarchy Categorize articles up to 5 folder levels and scale your knowledge base.

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Comparison of top Zendesk alternatives

Zendesk Alternative	Key Features	Free Plan	Paid Plan	Suitable For
Freshdesk	Simple, easy-to-configure UI Multichannel support for customer requests Team inbox with intelligent ticket management and routing Omnichannel customer timeline Native AI, multilingual chatbots with no-code bot builder Customized help center and customer portal Common reply templates, agent collision detection, in-app notifications Agent-assist bots, time-tracking in tickets, collaborators Customizable CSAT surveys Omnichannel, real-time dashboards and curated custom reports Mobile app with Android and ios versions 700+ Marketplace apps, including integrations with Slack, Shopify, and Google Suite	Yes	Freshdesk Omnichannel paid plans begin at $29/agent/month.	Growing businesses of all sizes — from 5 to 50+ membered team sizes.
Salesforce Service Cloud	Omnichannel routing Case management AI-powered workflows Slack deep integration	No	The Essentials plan is priced at $25 USD per user/month.	Enterprises that can spend on implementation and maintenance.
Hubspot Service Hub	Shared inbox Knowledge base and customer portal Reporting dashboard Unified customer view with Hubspot CRM integration	Yes	Starter pack at $45 USD for 2 paid users/month.	Customer support teams that are using a Hubspot CRM already and need a simple help desk solution.
HappyFox	Omnichannel ticketing Internal communication Automation suite Asset management	No	Begins from $29 USD per agent/month.	Larger teams that want to support both internal and external users with one help desk tool.
Kayako	Live chat support Team collaboration Customer timelines	No	Available at $60 USD per agent/month.	Smaller teams relying primarily on shared inboxes and live chat support.