Zendesk charges $19 to $115 per agent a month billed annually, quotes Suite Enterprise through sales and bills its AI agents per resolution beyond an amount included with each agent. HubSpot Service Hub has free tools for 2 users, Starter listed from $7 per seat, and Professional at $90 and Enterprise at $150 per seat a month with one-time onboarding fees of $1,500 and $3,500. Its Customer Agent uses $0.50 of HubSpot credits per resolution.
Zendesk is a dedicated service suite with telephony and enterprise routing. HubSpot Service Hub is the service part of a CRM that also runs sales and marketing. All prices are USD list prices from the vendors’ own pages, checked October 3, 2026: Zendesk pricing and HubSpot Service Hub pricing.
Zendesk vs HubSpot at a glance
Price per seat or agent per month, billed annually
| Zendesk | HubSpot Service Hub | |
|---|---|---|
| Price basis | Per agent per month | Per seat per month, plus one-time onboarding on Professional and Enterprise |
| Plans, billed annually | Support Team $19, Suite Team $55, Suite Professional $115; Enterprise quoted | Free for 2 users, Starter from $7, Professional $90, Enterprise $150 |
| AI agent | 5 resolutions per agent a month on Team plans, 10 on Professional; then $1.50 committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go | Customer Agent on Professional and Enterprise, 50 credits ($0.50) per resolution |
| Phone | Telephony in Suite plans; IVR on Suite Professional | Calling minutes included: 500, 3,000 and 12,000 by tier |
| Free plan and trial | No free plan; 14-day trial | Free tools for 2 users |
| Best for | Large service teams across channels | B2B teams whose sales and marketing run on HubSpot |
Plans and seat prices
| Plan | Billed annually | What the plan adds |
|---|---|---|
| Zendesk Support Team | $19 per agent ($25 monthly) | Email ticketing, routing, dashboards, macros, automations |
| Zendesk Suite Team | $55 per agent ($69 monthly) | AI agents, knowledge base, Action Builder, messaging and live chat, telephony, omnichannel routing |
| Zendesk Suite Professional | $115 per agent ($149 monthly) | Admin Copilot, App Builder, AI writing tools, skills-based routing, IVR |
| HubSpot Free | $0, up to 2 users | Ticketing and free CRM tools |
| HubSpot Starter | From $7 per seat, shown as a discount from $20 | 500 HubSpot credits a month, 500 calling minutes |
| HubSpot Professional | $90 per seat, plus $1,500 onboarding | Help desk workspace, a knowledge base with up to 2,000 articles, feedback surveys, Customer Agent, 3,000 credits a month |
| HubSpot Enterprise | $150 per seat, plus $3,500 onboarding | Up to 100 knowledge bases, 5,000 credits a month, 12,000 calling minutes |
HubSpot’s pricing page shows Starter at $7 as a reduced price, so confirm what you will pay after any promotion. We could not switch HubSpot’s page to monthly billing, so the monthly prices are left out.
AI agents: Zendesk resolutions versus HubSpot credits
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. Beyond that, committed resolutions cost $1.50 each and pay-as-you-go resolutions $2.00. Zendesk counts an automated resolution as a request the AI agent resolved without escalation to a human agent. Zendesk also completed its acquisition of the AI agent company Forethought on March 26, 2026 (Zendesk).
HubSpot. The Customer Agent is on Professional and Enterprise. It uses 50 credits for each conversation it resolves without a person, and credits cost $0.01 each, so a resolution costs $0.50 (HubSpot credits). Professional includes 3,000 credits a month and Enterprise 5,000. Check which other HubSpot features draw on the same credits before you count on the included amount.
Per resolution, HubSpot’s published rate is a third or a quarter of Zendesk’s. Zendesk includes more resolutions per agent, which matters at low volume.
Channels and service tools
Zendesk puts email, messaging, live chat, social messaging and telephony in one workspace on Suite plans, with omnichannel routing. Suite Professional adds skills-based routing and an IVR phone tree, and Zendesk sells a Workforce Engagement Bundle ($50 per agent) and a Contact Center product ($83 per agent) on top.
HubSpot has ticketing on every tier, including Free. The help desk workspace, the knowledge base and feedback surveys (NPS, CES and CSAT) start on Professional, and every tier includes calling minutes. The difference is the CRM: tickets, deals, marketing emails and the customer record share one database, so support and sales see the same history.
What a 10-seat team pays
These examples use annual list prices from October 3, 2026, before tax, with 1,000 AI resolutions a month. Onboarding fees are one-time and shown separately.
| 10 seats, 1,000 AI resolutions a month | Seats | AI usage | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zendesk Suite Team | 10 × $55 = $550 | 950 beyond the 50 included × $1.50 = $1,425 | $1,975 |
| Zendesk Suite Professional | 10 × $115 = $1,150 | 900 beyond the 100 included × $1.50 = $1,350 | $2,500 |
| HubSpot Professional | 10 × $90 = $900 | 50,000 credits minus 3,000 included = 47,000 × $0.01 = $470 | $1,370, plus $1,500 onboarding once |
| HubSpot Enterprise | 10 × $150 = $1,500 | 50,000 minus 5,000 = 45,000 × $0.01 = $450 | $1,950, plus $3,500 onboarding once |
The Zendesk rows use the committed price; pay-as-you-go at $2.00 adds $475 on Suite Team and $450 on Suite Professional. The HubSpot rows assume nothing else uses the included credits. Zendesk’s Copilot, at $50 per agent a month, is not included in these totals.
Which one to choose
Choose Zendesk if:
- You run a large service team across email, chat, social and phone, with an IVR and skills-based routing.
- You need workforce engagement or contact center tools from the same vendor.
- You depend on apps built for Zendesk; its marketplace lists more than 1,200.
Choose HubSpot Service Hub if:
- Your sales and marketing already run on HubSpot and you want support in the same customer record.
- You want a lower published price per AI resolution.
- You are a smaller team that can start on Free or Starter and move up later.
For more options, see our list of Zendesk alternatives and competitors, our Zendesk review and Intercom vs Zendesk.
A third option for software teams
If you build software, many support conversations end in a bug report or a feature request. Gleap is 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. There is no onboarding fee, and 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, 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. Bug reports from your app arrive with a marked screenshot, logs and a session replay through in-app bug reporting.
The trade-offs are real: Gleap has no phone channel and is not a CRM for sales and marketing. Compare the details on the HubSpot alternative and Zendesk alternative pages.
