Help Scout charges $25, $45 or $75 per user a month billed annually, has a free plan for 5 users and bills AI Answers at $0.75 per resolution. Zendesk charges $19 to $115 per agent a month billed annually, has no free plan, includes 5 to 10 AI resolutions per agent a month and bills extra ones at $1.50 committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go.
Help Scout is a shared inbox that stays close to email, with a help center and a chat widget. Zendesk is a full service suite with telephony and enterprise routing. All prices are USD list prices from the vendors’ own pages, checked October 3, 2026: Help Scout pricing and Zendesk pricing.
Help Scout vs Zendesk at a glance
Price per user or agent per month, billed annually
| Help Scout | Zendesk | |
|---|---|---|
| Price basis | Per user per month | Per agent per month |
| Plans, billed annually | Standard $25, Plus $45, Pro $75 per user | Support Team $19, Suite Team $55, Suite Professional $115 per agent; Enterprise quoted |
| Billed monthly | $30, $54, $90 | $25, $69, $149 |
| Free plan and trial | Free for 5 users; 15-day trial, no card | No free plan; 14-day trial |
| AI agent | AI Answers, $0.75 per resolution | 5 to 10 resolutions per agent a month included, then $1.50 or $2.00 each |
| Phone | Aircall integration, preferred pricing on Pro | Telephony in Suite plans, IVR on Suite Professional |
| Best for | Small and mid-sized email-first teams | Large service teams across channels |
Plans and what they include
Help Scout. The free plan covers 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts a month. Standard ($25 per user billed annually, up to 25 users) includes 2 inboxes and 2 Docs sites. Plus ($45, up to 50 users) adds 5 inboxes, 3 Docs sites, a secure customer portal, unlimited AI drafts, Salesforce, Jira and HubSpot integrations and 5 light users. Pro ($75, at least 10 users) adds 10 inboxes, 5 Docs sites, 15 light users and preferred Aircall pricing. Paid plans include unlimited contacts.
Zendesk. Support Team ($19 per agent) covers email ticketing with routing, dashboards, macros and automations. Suite Team ($55) adds AI agents, a knowledge base, Action Builder, messaging and live chat, telephony and omnichannel routing. Suite Professional ($115) adds Admin Copilot, App Builder, AI writing tools, skills-based routing and an IVR. Copilot for agents costs $50 per agent a month extra.
The comparison that matters for most teams is Help Scout Standard against Zendesk Suite Team, since both include chat and a help center: $25 against $55 per seat.
AI: AI Answers versus Zendesk AI agents
Help Scout. AI Answers costs $0.75 per resolution on every paid plan. A conversation is charged at most once, and if the customer says they still need help, there is no charge. You can set a monthly spending cap, and new accounts get three months of unlimited AI Answers free.
Zendesk. Each plan includes automated resolutions: 5 per agent a month on Support Team and Suite Team and 10 on Suite Professional, up to 10,000 a year. Extra resolutions cost $1.50 each with a commitment or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. Zendesk completed its acquisition of the AI agent company Forethought on March 26, 2026 (Zendesk).
Help Scout’s unit price is half of Zendesk’s committed price. Zendesk’s included resolutions offset that at low volume: 10 agents on Suite Professional include 100 a month.
Channels and setup
Help Scout’s inbox is built around email, with Beacon for chat on your website and Docs for the help center. For phone, Help Scout points to its Aircall integration. There is less to configure than in a full service suite.
Zendesk puts email, messaging, live chat, social messaging and telephony in one workspace with omnichannel routing, and Suite Professional adds skills-based routing and an IVR phone tree. That depth needs someone to own triggers, routing and apps. Zendesk is also retiring API tokens: from October 27, 2026, existing accounts cannot create new ones, and on April 30, 2027 all tokens stop working (Zendesk).
What a 10-seat team pays
These examples use annual list prices from October 3, 2026, before tax, with 500 AI resolutions a month. The Zendesk rows use the committed price of $1.50 per extra resolution.
| 10 seats, 500 AI resolutions a month | Seats | AI usage | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Help Scout Standard | 10 × $25 = $250 | 500 × $0.75 = $375 | $625 |
| Help Scout Plus | 10 × $45 = $450 | $375 | $825 |
| Zendesk Suite Team | 10 × $55 = $550 | 450 beyond the 50 included × $1.50 = $675 | $1,225 |
| Zendesk Suite Professional | 10 × $115 = $1,150 | 400 beyond the 100 included × $1.50 = $600 | $1,750 |
At pay-as-you-go prices, the Zendesk AI lines rise to $900 and $800.
Which one to choose
Choose Help Scout if:
- Most of your support is email, with chat and a help center next to it.
- You want a free start for up to 5 users and a published AI price with a spending cap.
- You do not have an administrator for a configurable suite.
Choose Zendesk if:
- You run phone support and want telephony and an IVR in the help desk.
- You need omnichannel and skills-based routing across a large team.
- You depend on apps built for Zendesk or plan to add workforce tools.
For a deeper look at each, see Help Scout pricing, our Zendesk review and the list of Zendesk alternatives and competitors.
A third option for software teams
Help Scout and Zendesk are general help desks. If you build software and many conversations end in a bug report or a feature request, Gleap is a third option: AI-native customer support for software teams, priced per workspace. As of October 2026, Gleap Free costs $0 with one seat and 50 tickets a month, Team costs $149 a month billed annually ($179 monthly) and Pro $299 ($359 monthly), both with unlimited seats, and Enterprise starts at $999. New workspaces get a 7-day free trial, no credit card required.
Team and Pro include all of Gleap’s agents. Kai Support answers customers for $0.29 per resolution, and Kai Specialist investigates hard tickets with screen recordings, console and network logs, account data and your code, billed by the work it does (about $0.49 per investigation on average), and Kai Code opens pull requests your team reviews. In-app bug reporting attaches a marked screenshot, console and network logs and a session replay to each report.
Gleap has no phone channel, and Help Scout’s free plan covers more users. Compare the details on the Help Scout alternative and Zendesk alternative pages.
