Help Scout vs. Zendesk

For growing businesses, Help Scout offers an all-in-one platform that’s simple to use, easy to manage, and enables a human touch.

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Why choose Help Scout over Zendesk?

Zendesk is a massive product, and it can do a lot. But it comes with features you don’t need, an enterprise focus, and complicated pricing. Help Scout lets you focus on your customers.

laptop

Get up and running

Start supporting customers with Help Scout in minutes. Reviewers rate Help Scout an 8.9 vs. Zendesk’s 8.2 for ease of setup on G2.

customer-service

Here for you

​​Support you can count on, our customer champions are available 24x6 via chat or email.

pricing

Save money

A more affordable option than Zendesk for companies of all sizes, without hidden fees and surprise add-ons.

GrabCAD got new team members up and running in minutes, saved money, and got better connected to their engineering community by switching from Zendesk to Help Scout.

Watch GrabCAD's story

What others are saying

It’s not just us, buyers on G2 are saying the same thing about their experience. Help Scout scores higher in the following categories that matter most for customers.

Ease of Use
9.2
Zendesk: 8.6
Ease of Setup
9.2
Zendesk: 8
Ease of Doing Business With
9
Zendesk: 8.8
Quality of Support
8.9
Zendesk: 8.6
Ease of Admin
9
Zendesk: 8.2

A great tool for Customer Success Professionals Icon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 stars

Easy interface, a top level Knowledge-base management, Internal Ticket Assigning, Browser and Desktop Notification, Tags are the key feature I like the best in Help Scout. I must say it's great to manage our users tickets and having online chat is incredible.
Nehal P
Nehal PCustomer Success Manager

Ticketing made easy Icon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 stars

We can have multiple groups responding in and out of emails seamlessly. The reporting is fantastic and makes my job as a leader easier.
Catherine V
Catherine VTest Administration Center Manager

Fast, easy, customizable help desk for teams of any size Icon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 stars

The ease of use, great UI, and Saved Replies feature make Help Scout great and, dare I say it, fun to use.
James H
James HWeb Design and Developer

Intuitive help desk tool that helps us help users faster” Icon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 starsIcon: 5 stars

From top-level organization like multiple mailboxes and folders, to tags and labels, to merging conversations and intuitive assigning tools, Help Scout makes it easy to navigate our support queue and get work done efficiently...
Emily I
Emily IContent Marketer

Compare on price

10 Users25 Users50 Users
Help Scout Standard$200/ month$500/ month$1,000/ month
Zendesk Team$490/ month$1,225/ month$2,450/ month
Annual Savings$3,480/ year$8,700/ year$17,400/ year

Transparent Pricing

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Clear, per-user pricing

Don’t pay more for engaging with your customers.
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Know what you’re getting

No hidden fees and upsells.
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No contract required

No getting stuck in red tape, just sign-up and go.

Help Scout is right for you if...

Help Scout’s support tools are built for growing businesses that are dedicated to a better customer experience. Enterprise software companies like Zendesk build for their largest users, which have different priorities and budgets.

Every company likes to claim they have great customer support, but who truly walks the walk? Reviewers rate Help Scout an 8.8 vs. Zendesk’s 8.3 for quality of support on G2. For us, customer support is our craft, a craft we’ve been dedicated to for a better part of a decade. Our software is built to enable you to deliver excellent customer support, and we are here to help you put your customers first. From how we do sales-as-a-service to our approach to customer support—helpfulness is in our name and built into our DNA.

Customer support is about talking with customers. With Help Scout you can start having conversations in minutes, with fewer clicks, and manage the setup yourself. There’s no need for outside consultants or teams of dedicated admins even if you have a complex support setup.

Help Scout can be as simple or powerful as you need it to be. As your needs get more complex, Help Scout is ready to meet the challenge with features like workflows, tags, custom fields, and reporting. They all work together to let you focus on what matters most—talking with your customers.

Don’t worry about surprise price hikes or upsells. Our pricing is clear and transparent, so you’ll know exactly what you’re getting and how much it costs right up front. We don’t do contracts either, you only pay for what you use. Clear pricing is part of our philosophy, so you don’t waste time.

Illustration: Wrench Cat!

Import your Zendesk data today

When you’re ready to evaluate Help Scout, our data migration tool lets you import your data from Zendesk into Help Scout. It can be done in just a few clicks and without any assistance from your IT department.

Learn More

What you can do with Help Scout

Email

Share team inboxes

Whether you have a team of 2 or 200, Mailboxes keep everyone on the same page. Leverage automation to move fast, while always giving customers a human, helpful experience.

More about Shared Inboxes
Mailbox: Screenshot
Mailbox: Avatar

Knowledge base

Deliver instant answers

Keep your customers in the flow by embedding help articles right on your website. With Beacon, they never have to leave the page to find an answer.

More about the Knowledge Base
Illustration: Guest Pass

Live chat

Connect with customers

Solve a problem or close a sale in real-time with chat. If no one is available, customers are seamlessly routed to email without confusion

More about Live Chat

Reports

Manage your team

Measure what matters with Help Scout’s easy-to-use reports. You can filter, export, and drilldown on the data in a couple clicks.

More about Reports
Reports: Screenshot

Integrations

Connect the tools you already use

Explore 50+ integrations that make your day-to-day workflow more efficient and familiar. Our extensive developer tools might also strike your fancy.

See all Integrations
Integrations: Screenshot

Try Help Scout for free

A better experience for your customers, fewer headaches for your team. You’ll be set up in minutes

Free 15-day Trial