Zendesk vs Zoho Compared 2023: Is Zendesk or Zoho Best?

If you have been looking for the perfect customer support and help desk software solution, then it’s likely you’ve heard of the raging debate between Zendesk vs Zoho Desk. Both of these are giants of customer service SaaS. But which is better? This article will compare their main attributes like pricing and ease of use, and then look at some key features side by side.

What is the difference between Zendesk and Zoho?

The main difference between Zoho and Zendesk is that Zendesk was first and foremost a customer service app then later expanded into other business SaaS, while Zoho is a suite of business apps that include a help desk and support product. Both of these are mostly cloud-based platforms without on-premise options.

Your typical Zendesk review is generally positive. Users praise Zendesk’s clean-looking dashboards and interfaces and intuitive tools. When it comes to customer help desk systems, Zendesk is often compared to the likes of Freshdesk. Indeed, Freshdesk competes with Zendesk for market share. What’s more, Zendesk has other products, like Zendesk Sell, which covers more basic sales and CRM business needs.

A Zoho review is also generally on the good side of the scale. Zoho is known for many products across a wide range of business needs, with Zoho Desk being their main customer support tool. Because of this, it is not uncommon for Zoho to be compared to vendors like HubSpot and Salesforce. But unlike Salesforce, Zoho gets a lot of praise for being more user-friendly, and in some cases, more budget-friendly.

And so, Zoho Desk vs Zendesk Service, find out which one is really the best ticketing help desk software that is right for you by reading on.

Zendesk vs Zoho comparison chart

Here’s a basic overview table for Zendesk vs Zoho:

Zendesk vs Zoho: Pricing

Zendesk has six pricing tiers. The cheapest is $19 per month for foundational support only, and then there are two more premium support packages at $49 and $99 per user per month with annual invoicing. The suite pricing tiers are $49, $79 and $99 per user per month billed annually.

Zoho Desk has fewer pricing options. They start at $7 for Zoho Desk Express, and then there are three more premium packages at $14, $23 and $40, all per user per month billed annually.

Winner: Zendesk

To put it simply, Zendesk has more options than Zoho Desk when it comes to pricing packages, and therefore it wins. Although it is possible your business needs can be met by one of Zoho’s packages too.
 

Zoho vs Zendesk: Free versions?

Zoho Desk has a free plan. It is good for 3 customer service agents max. It gets you email ticketing tools, feedback widgets, and advanced web forms, among some other agent productivity features.

Zendesk does not offer a free version of its help desk and customer support platform.

Winner: Zoho Desk 

Zoho Desk is the clear winner here because, unlike Zendesk, there is a free version of their customer service and help desk software, although some might think it is missing some key features.
 

Zendesk vs Zoho: Customer support

Zoho Desk customer support includes free email support on all their plans. Beginning with the Express plan, there is also phone support. Only with the most expensive packages is there also chat support.

Zendesk support, on the other hand, has extensive digital support including digital onboarding support. For things like proactive support, professional services, and custom training, you need to pay extra. There is also a subscription service for hands-on support with Zendesk Assist.

Winner: Zoho Desk

All in all, Zoho Desk’s support system is a bit easier to navigate. Zendesk really tries to push its users toward one of the more automated support systems whereas with Zoho you can get a human support rep more directly.
 

Zoho vs Zendesk: Knowledgebase & learning

Zoho Desk has many key features for knowledge base and learning needs. There is a private knowledge base tool for agents, public knowledge base builders, article versioning, community dashboards, a gallery of themes, widgets and answer bots, to name a few.

Zendesk’s knowledge management key features include a visual drag-and-drop editor, bulk actions, SEO keyword tools, revision histories, article lists and labels, workflow approval, and scheduling verification and publishing features.

Winner: Tie

Knowledge bases are like upgraded versions of FAQs and forums. Both Zoho Desk and Zendesk have nearly all-in-one customizable systems for support teams to use to be able to share information and answers to regular questions. 
 

Zendesk vs Zoho: Ease of use

When it comes to the customer experience, Zendesk has regularly scored good points for being very user-friendly. 

Likewise, as a customer service software, Zoho is also well regarded for its customer satisfaction in terms of ease of use.

Winner: Tie

Both these customer support and help desk SaaS do very well when it comes to creating an easy and intuitive user experience. Therefore it’s a tie between Zoho Desk vs Zendesk here.

Zendesk vs Zoho features & functionality

Now that the basics are out of the way, let us turn to the key tools in our showdown between Zoho Desk and Zendesk Support. 

CRM features

Although this is a comparative article about customer support and help desk software, these platforms are often integrated with CRM systems. This is crucial because it allows service reps to have detailed profiles and histories of their end users which helps them resolve some issues faster. It also allows for multichannel communication that gives customers many options for how to reach out, like chat, email, phone, and social media.

Winner: Zoho

Zoho has many products including a dedicated Zoho CRM platform. Zendesk, on the other hand, has a sales platform that utilizes many of CRM’s key features. Therefore Zoho wins.
 

Help desk tools

The help desk platform is where most of the customer support comes from. This includes a ticketing system and ticket management tools like time tracking and escalation features to keep track of open issues. Posting screenshots to tickets is part of a good toolkit too. A good service desk offers a call center option as well as communication channels like real-time messaging. Service level agreements, or SLAs, are also a big part of this suite of features.

Winner: Zendesk

According to many user reviews, Zendesk has always been at the forefront of help desk tools, being popular with startups, small businesses, and larger enterprises. Zoho Desk is also a pretty good system and popular with end users as well, especially its screenshot options. But it isn’t as widely praised as Zendesk.
 

Self service features

Alongside help desk tools are customer support self-service features. These allow end users to find their own solutions without having to create tickets or undergo complicated issue escalation. Common self-service features include knowledge bases, FAQs, community forums, and more. 

Winner: Zoho 

This is a close category, as both Zoho Desk and Zendesk Service offer a range of customer self-service options. Zoho wins because it has stuff like interactive voice recognition and very thorough community forums, although Zendesk isn’t totally lacking in these areas either.
 

Project management

When it comes to customer service, a project is often thought of as a complicated issue that could require a lot of agent teamwork to resolve. Good project management in support means keeping track of time spent on tasks and having good documentation of the process for future reference. Allowing team members to communicate and receive real-time notifications on ticket progress is also useful.

Winner: Zoho 

Zoho Desk edges past Zendesk when it comes to customer service project management. This is because their help desk system works well with Zoho’s other project management apps, like Projects, Sprints, and BugTracker, with this last app being geared toward IT support issues. Zendesk also has some tools for project management.
 

Workflows and automation

Workflows have become a necessary element of any business SaaS and customer service platforms are no exception. They utilize automation in order to take over simple but repetitive tasks, thereby freeing up more time and energy from the human workers so they can focus on higher-level issues. You need to offer an automation workflow builder that is easy to use, customize and share.

Winner: Zendesk

Zendesk has automation features that include triggers and automated ticket sharing. You can choose between predefined macros and set up custom-based rules as well. More premium packages offer advanced AI triage, content cues, insights, and suggestions for both end users and admins. Zoho offers notification rules and macros, but when it comes to the more advanced workflow tools, they are mostly in the more expensive pricing tiers.
 

Templates

Templates, in the world of support, mostly refer to help desk theme templates. These are layouts or skins you can choose to set up what your help desk will look like, not only in terms of design and colors but more importantly, which buttons and options should be more predominantly featured. Different help desk templates lead to different customer experiences. 

Winner: Zendesk

Zendesk has some theme customization options and these include multiple templates to choose from. However, those templates are reserved for the enterprise package alone. It seems that Zoho Desk offers less in the way of preset help desk templates, although there is still a degree of customization available.
 

Mobile apps

Offering your customer support team a mobile app will be a huge boost in the way they can support end users. Great customer service mobile apps come in iOS and Android, and they should be free downloads that work with your subscription. Mobile apps should allow agents to monitor ticketing, access customer information, and communicate with end users.

Winner: Zoho 

The mobile app for Zoho Desk is pretty top-notch. There is an Android and iPhone version and they are free downloads. You can use it for instant ticket update notifications, set priority viewing options, and access contact data from Zoho CRM. You can also use the app to create new tickets on the fly and respond to customer questions instantly. Of course, Zendesk has an app as well, but Zoho is still the winner.
 

Integrations, API and SDK

Customer service and help desk tools work best when they are integrated with other SaaS. In the case of Zoho and Zendesk, both are part of a suite of apps, but occasionally you still want to connect it to other apps by different vendors, like anything from WordPress to Slack to Salesforce to HubSpot. You could use an integration library to get add-ons, or an API or SDK protocol as well.

Winner: Tie

Zendesk and Zoho tie when it comes to things like integrations, open APIs, and add-on capability. Zendesk offers SDK for iOS, Android, and Unity, as well as an SDK source code access point. Zoho has a mobile SDK as well, and it has an API that adheres to RESTful principles.  

Which is better, Zendesk or Zoho? Our takeaways

Well, now that you have made it to the end, you may or may not agree with this article that Zendesk is only just slightly superior to Zoho. Remember, we are strictly talking about Zendesk Service vs Zoho Desk, although none of these toolkits exist alone and without the interoperability of other business tools, both from these two brands, as well as with external apps like Freshdesk, Salesforce, Slack, or HubSpot.

In the end, Zendesk seems to inch past Zoho because of its wider variety of pricing options and slightly better help desk tools, although Zoho’s self-service help desk features are quite competitive. 

And still, Zoho is the one with a free plan, which is ideal if you are a very small team and you want something to help you get started. But as you scale up to being a proper small business, it is unlikely you’ll stay with the free versions, which is why we cannot put too much emphasis on this one area of competition between the two platforms. Ultimately, it’s good to have options when trying to expand your SaaS subscription stack.

Of course, many people will swear that Zoho Desk is better, and we are not arguing. This article is more of a guide and cheat sheet than a definitive comparison. The truth is, both Zoho and Zendesk make fantastic business applications for customer support and help desk business needs.