5 Zendesk alternatives, recommended by… a Zendesk competitor?!

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: you were just looking for Zendesk alternatives, and now you’re here. On the ThriveDesk blog. And ThriveDesk, you guessed it, is a Zendesk alternative.

Is this the most objective list of Zendesk competitors you’ll ever read? Probably not. ThriveDesk is the support platform we know best, and naturally, it’s the one we can recommend with real confidence.

But here’s the thing: we’ve talked to hundreds of teams who tried Zendesk and others before landing here. What works perfectly for one company can feel clunky, complicated, or overpriced for another. So while we’re clearly a little biased, we think this list of Zendesk alternatives will help you find the tool that actually fits your team — even if it’s not ours.

Your 5 Zendesk alternatives for 2025 

To save you from endless tabs, we pulled all the key data into one spreadsheet that helps you find Zendesk alternatives and competitors on data points like pricing, documentation, and customer support. The data is accurate as of Sep 20, 2025.

We’ll walk you through some of the strongest alternatives in the market, including ourselves, of course. Whether you’re a lean eCommerce shop or a growing SaaS team, there’s an option out there that won’t drain your budget or sanity.

1. ThriveDesk (hi 👋)

So we started ThriveDesk. Our goal was to create support software that small businesses can trust. A tool that combines helpdesk, chat en directo, chatbot, and centro de ayuda in one place. It is modern, lightning fast, and backed by support that treats you like a person, not a ticket number.

We know choosing support software is tough, but ThriveDesk was designed to be the kind of tool you don’t have to wrestle with. It’s simple where it should be, powerful where it matters, and always transparent about what you’re paying for.

👍 Pros

• Lightning-fast and modern UI: ThriveDesk is built with speed in mind. The interface loads quickly, looks clean, and stays clutter-free, so your team can focus on helping customers instead of wrestling with menus and settings. New teammates can jump in and feel at home within minutes.

• All-in-one toolkit: No need to juggle multiple tools. ThriveDesk brings helpdesk, live chat, chatbot, and knowledge base into one seamless platform. Everything connects, so you can handle tickets, chat in real time, publish self-serve articles, and automate responses without switching tabs.
• Smooth Notion-like editor + AI: Writing documentation doesn’t have to be painful. Our knowledge base editor feels smooth and intuitive, just like Notion. AI helps with suggestions, summaries, and edits, so your team can publish articles that are clear, polished, and helpful in less time.
• Transparent pricing, stellar support: What you see is what you pay. There are no hidden fees, add-on charges, or extra costs for features you actually need. Plus, our own support team is here for you at no extra charge — responsive, human, and ready to help.
• No pushy upsells: We only recommend extras if you truly need them.
• Smart apps without coding: With our Smart Apps, you can pull data from any system — CRM, payment processor, or shipping tool — directly into your tickets. No developers required, no custom coding, just a few clicks to connect the dots.
• Purpose-built for SMBs and eCommerce: Tailored features for lean, fast-moving teams.
• Neo, our AI support agent: Neo is more than a chatbot. It’s an AI agent built to actually solve customer problems, not just deflect them. It can answer complex queries, guide customers through solutions, and even capture leads for your business while your team is offline.

👎 Cons

• Growing ecosystem: Our integrations are expanding quickly, but we don’t have every app on the market (yet).
• No iOS app (yet): Our Android app is live, but iOS is still in development.

Precios de ThriveDesk

ThriveDesk uses straightforward pricing based solely on the number of inboxes per month. Here’s a pricing snapshot:

• Básico: $29/mes
• Estándar: $69/month
• Unlimited: $129/month

💛 Friendly tip: Many tools look affordable at first but get expensive once you add extra fees for agents, overages, or “premium” support. ThriveDesk is the only provider on this list that gives you unlimited agents on Unlimited plan and never charges extra for support. 

One final thing…

We think you’ll like knowing there are real humans behind this product. We’re a nimble team, part remote and part in-office, working side by side to build mighty things. We love doing team activities and regular outings, because building great software is easier when you actually enjoy the people you work with.

2. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is one of the most recognizable names in customer support software. Founded in 2010 by Freshworks, it’s built to cover everything from ticketing to automation, and it’s especially popular with startups and mid-sized businesses looking for a Zendesk-style platform at a friendlier price point

👍 Pros

• Generous free plan: Unlike most competitors, Freshdesk offers a genuinely useful free plan for up to 2 agents that includes ticketing, knowledge base, and basic reports.
• Traditional ticketing approach: If Zendesk’s conversation-first approach feels too casual, Freshdesk’s ticket-based system provides the structure many support teams prefer.
• Extensive customization options: From custom objects to advanced routing, Freshdesk lets you tailor the platform to match your specific workflow needs.
• Multi-product ecosystem: Being part of Freshworks means easy integration with their CRM, marketing automation, and IT service management tools.

👎 Cons

• Complexity creeps in: The platform can feel overwhelming as you scale, with layers of settings buried in menus.
• Limited modern communication channels: Works great for email and basic chat, but lacks seamless integration with modern messaging platforms compared to Zendesk.
• Multi-tiered pricing system: What starts as simple per-agent pricing quickly stacks when you add Freshchat, Freshcaller, or Omnichannel—each sold separately.
• AI costs extra: Freddy AI adds $29/agent/month to your bill.

Precios de Freshdesk

Here’s where things get… interesting. Freshdesk uses per-agent pricing, but it’s not as straightforward as it appears on the surface.

• Free: $0 for up to 2 agents
• Growth: $15/agent/month
• Pro: $49/agent/month
• Empresa: $79/agent/month

Want live chat? That’s Freshchat (separate pricing). Need phone support? Hello Freshcaller (another bill). Omnichannel features? Fresh Omnichannel (yet another subscription).

What starts as $15/month per agent can quickly become $15 (Freshdesk) + $15 (Freshchat) + $29 (Freshcaller) = $59/agent just for basic multi-channel support. 

Add AI features at $29/agent/month, and you’re looking at enterprise-level costs without the unified experience.

🎬 Fun Fact: The “Broken TV” Spark

Freshdesk exists because founder Girish Mathrubootham got terrible customer service for a broken TV. He vented about it in a Hacker News comment, which sparked conversations about building better support software. 

A few months later, he quit his job at Zoho and started Freshdesk from his house in Chennai. Sometimes the best products come from genuinely frustrated customers!

3. GrooveHQ

GrooveHQ brands itself as the “anti-Zendesk” — a simplicity-first helpdesk for small businesses that want collaborative inboxes without the enterprise bloat. The tradeoff? It’s great for small teams but doesn’t scale well into complex setups.

But simplicity has its tradeoffs. Groove doesn’t scale as gracefully into more complex support setups, and many advanced features you’d expect from modern helpdesks are either limited or missing altogether.

👍 Pros

• Clean and simple UI: Groove’s interface is straightforward, reducing the learning curve for small teams.
• Shared inbox focus: Designed around making email-based support collaborative and transparent.
• Transparent founder story: Alex Turnbull famously blogged his “Journey to $100K” publicly, building trust through radical transparency.
• No surprise add-ons: Pricing is transparent compared to competitors with hidden extras.

👎 Cons

• Not ideal for scaling: Works fine for a small team, but larger organizations quickly hit ceilings.
• Fewer integrations: The ecosystem is smaller compared to major players, limiting workflow flexibility.
• Reporting is basic: Analytics don’t go deep, making it harder to optimize or track performance over time.

Groove Pricing

Three tiers with per-agent pricing:

• Standard: $29/user/month
• Plus: $45/user/month
• Pro: $70/user/month

While predictable, the Pro tier costs as much as Help Scout but without the same feature depth.

📝 Fun Fact: Blog to Success

Groove was famously bootstrapped for years by founder Alex Turnbull, who blogged transparently about every stage of growth. His posts about “startup honesty” (sharing revenue numbers, struggles, and mistakes) built Groove a cult following in the SaaS world — arguably making their blog more famous than the product itself.

4. HelpDesk

The confusingly named “HelpDesk” from Polish company Text (formerly LiveChat Software S.A.) is a legacy ticketing system that’s been around since the early 2000s. Despite the generic name, it’s actually just one piece of a multi-product puzzle that Text has been building for over two decades. 

The platform focuses narrowly on email ticketing, which would be fine—except that in 2025, businesses expect live chat, chatbots, and knowledge bases to come standard. Spoiler alert: they don’t, and acquiring them means buying separate products from the same company at separate price points.

👍 Pros

• Simple ticketing system: Does email ticketing competently without unnecessary complexity.
• Security focused: GDPR compliant with strong encryption and audit logs for enterprise customers.
• AI features included: Basic AI assist for ticket summarization and sentiment analysis comes with all plans.

👎 Cons

• Live chat sold separately: Despite being made by the “LiveChat” company, chat support requires their separate LiveChat product ($41+/agent/month).
• No built-in knowledge base: Self-service is only possible through their KnowledgeBase product ($59/month).
• Automation locked away: ChatBot is another add-on starting at $52/month.
• Fragmented experience: Feels like buying a car where the stereo, AC, and seats are all extra.

HelpDesk Pricing

Base HelpDesk pricing:

• Team: $34/agent/month
• Business: $59/agent/month
• Enterprise: Custom

Add-ons:

• LiveChat: $41+/agent/month
• KnowledgeBase: $59/month flat
• ChatBot: $52+/month

That “$34” plan quickly turns into $100+/agent/month for a complete setup — with separate logins and bills to manage.

🗄️ Fun Fact: Built on LiveChat’s Legacy

HelpDesk was created as part of the LiveChat ecosystem. It started as a lightweight ticketing product for handling email. The product is reliable, but its roots show because it was built first for email tickets. Other support channels were added later as separate products. 

This strategy worked for Text, the parent company, and they even went public on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. For customers, though, it can add extra complexity and cost when all they want is simple and unified customer support software.

5. Help Scout

Help Scout has always focused on simplicity and human connections over feature bloat. They take pride in being simple, approachable, and built to feel like regular email. If Zendesk is the Costco, Help Scout is the perfectly crafted chef’s knife—it doesn’t try to do everything, but what it does, it nails.

However, their recent shift to contact-based pricing has caught some customers off guard, and the platform can feel limiting if you need advanced automation or built-in phone support.

👍 Pros

• Email-first approach: Feels like Gmail but designed for customer support—no learning curve for email-savvy teams.
• Detección de colisiones: Shows when teammates are already helping a customer—prevents duplicate responses.
• Customer-centric features: Every interaction shows customer history and context, making support more personal.
• Docs knowledge base: Built-in KB with clean design that customers actually enjoy using.

👎 Cons

• Limited automation: Advanced workflows and AI tools are missing.
• Not built for scale: Works best for small to mid-sized teams; enterprises may struggle.
• Reporting gaps: Functional, but less detailed than platforms like Zendesk.

Ayuda para la búsqueda de precios

Help Scout charges by contacts, not seats:

• Estándar: $50/month (up to 100 contacts)
• Más: $150/month (up to 500 contacts)
• Pro: $400/month (up to 2,000 contacts)

This works well for seasonal businesses but gets pricey if you serve thousands of unique customers.

☕ Fun Fact: The Boston Tea Party Connection

Help Scout was founded in Boston by a guy who got frustrated with clunky help desk software while running his web design business. The “tea party” connection? They’ve always rebelled against overcomplicated customer support tools, choosing simplicity over feature creep.

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We made it to the end, friends!
Here is the comparison spreadsheet once again: if you need to see it, just click on it ↓

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