In the event you’re searching for customer support software program and evaluating Assist Scout vs. Zendesk, this complete comparability of options, pricing, use circumstances, help, and scalability will make it straightforward to find out which device is the most effective match for your corporation.
Fast look: Who’s Assist Scout finest for vs. who’s Zendesk finest for?
Assist Scout is a straightforward and intuitive assist desk answer. It is an reasonably priced possibility for small- to medium-sized SaaS and ecommerce companies, and its simplicity additionally makes it compelling for bigger healthcare, logistics, training, and monetary providers companies.
Zendesk affords a extra complete and sturdy suite of instruments, making it supreme for giant and enterprise companies that want deep customization. It is constructed for dealing with advanced help workflows, managing excessive ticket volumes, and organizing very giant help groups.
Assist Scout vs. Zendesk function comparability
Each Assist Scout and Zendesk allow you to ship help on the key channels: e-mail, reside chat, self-service, and social. Assist Scout contains these channels in all of its plans, together with its free plan. Zendesk plans that embrace all of those channels begin at $55/agent monthly.
Zendesk additionally affords cellphone, SMS, and neighborhood help natively, whereas Assist Scout helps these channels through integrations with different instruments. Telephone and SMS help can be found on Zendesk’s Suite Group plan at $55/agent monthly (with further utilization charges for cellphone numbers, calls, texts, and extra). Neighborhood boards can be found on the Suite Skilled plan at $115/agent monthly.
If true omnichannel help is a must have for your corporation, Zendesk would be the higher possibility. In the event you need not supply cellphone, SMS, or neighborhood help, Assist Scout is extra reasonably priced and simpler to arrange.
Channel pricing comparability
| Channel | Assist Scout’s beginning value | Zendesk’s beginning value |
|---|---|---|
Electronic mail | One shared inbox included within the free plan | Included within the Assist Group plan at $19/agent monthly |
Reside chat | One reside chat widget included within the free plan | Included within the Suite Group plan at $55/agent monthly |
Information base | One assist middle included within the free plan | Included within the Suite Group plan at $55/agent monthly |
Social media | Instagram and Fb Messenger included within the free plan | Fb and X included within the Assist Group plan at $19/agent monthly Instagram, WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, and extra out there within the Suite Group plan at $55/agent monthly |
Telephone | Out there through integration on the Commonplace plan (begins at $25/month and contains limitless customers) | Included within the Suite Group plan at $55/agent monthly plus further utilization charges |
SMS | Out there through integration on the Commonplace plan (begins at $25/month and contains limitless customers) | Included within the Suite Group plan at $55/agent monthly plus further utilization charges |
Neighborhood boards | Not out there | Included within the Suite Skilled plan at $115/agent monthly |
Ticket administration options
Each Assist Scout’s shared inbox and Zendesk’s ticketing system centralize all help requests from all channels, giving your workforce a single place to see and handle all buyer inquiries.
Each instruments supply options that make it simpler to route, handle, and reply to requests:
Workflows that robotically route and type requests.
Tags that allow you to label and filter requests.
Views that group collectively conversations that meet particular standards (tags, assignees, and many others.).
Buyer profiles that present key details about the particular person requesting help.
Auto-replies that allow clients know their requests have been acquired.
Ticket assignments that allow you to assign particular tickets to particular brokers.
Saved replies that allow you to create canned responses to steadily requested questions.
Zendesk additionally affords different enterprise-focused ticket administration options that you just will not discover in Assist Scout, similar to SLAs and skill-based routing within the Suite Skilled plan and automated ticket routing primarily based on agent standing and precedence within the Assist Group plan.
Information base and self-service options
Each Assist Scout and Zendesk allow you to create buyer information bases. No less than one assist middle is included in all of Assist Scout’s plans, whereas Zendesk plans that embrace a information base begin at $55/agent monthly.
Each merchandise allow you to create articles and type them into collections. Each supply built-in search options, provide you with entry to revision histories, allow you to customise the design of your assist middle, and are set as much as be optimized for serps.
Zendesk does have a few self-service options you will not discover in Assist Scout, similar to approval/publishing workflows (out there on the Suite Enterprise plan) and neighborhood boards (out there on the Suite Skilled plan).
Collaboration options
Each Assist Scout and Zendesk supply numerous options that make it straightforward in your groups to collaborate on requests:
Collision detection to see when one other agent is already engaged on a request.
Inner notes to supply further context when assigning a request to another person.
Mentions to tag teammates on requests and notify them that their assist is required.
Groups to create teams of brokers who work on particular forms of requests.
Zendesk additionally affords mild brokers — a method to carry non-support workforce members into the queue with out having to pay per-user prices for them. As much as 50 mild brokers are included within the Suite Progress plan, and 100 mild brokers are included within the Suite Skilled plan. You may also add mild customers to Zendesk’s lower-cost plans by buying the sunshine consumer add-on.
Assist Scout does not supply mild customers as a result of all of its plans embrace limitless customers. You possibly can add each single particular person at your organization as a consumer at no further price.
Reporting and analytics options
Each Assist Scout and Zendesk supply pre-built and customized studies — in addition to report exporting — so you’ll be able to simply monitor your KPIs and monitor quantity traits total and by channel. Each additionally supply workplace hours, which is a method to outline the occasions while you supply help so your studies aren’t negatively impacted by days/occasions when nobody is working.
Zendesk does supply a few options you will not discover in Assist Scout, similar to benchmarks (a method to examine your efficiency to different corporations like yours, out there on all plans) and customized knowledge explorations, out there on the Suite Skilled plan.
AI options
Assist Scout has 4 AI options, all of that are included in all plans — even the free one — with no further utilization charges:
AI Solutions: A generative AI-powered chatbot that robotically replies to buyer questions over chat through the use of data out of your information base.
AI Drafts: Lets your brokers use AI to create a draft response to a question through the use of data out of your information base, earlier help interactions, and web sites.
AI Help: Makes use of AI to refine what you have already written in a help reply or information base article, making it shorter/longer, translating it into one other language, or adjusting the tone/voice.
AI Summarize: Makes use of AI to create a abstract of a protracted back-and-forth help dialog, both in your historic data or to assist brokers engaged on the request rise up to hurry shortly.
Zendesk affords AI Brokers, which provides you a similar options as Assist Scout’s AI Solutions. You get 5 to fifteen automated resolutions/agent monthly included in your plan, with further resolutions beginning at $1.50 monthly.
Zendesk affords options which are corresponding to Assist Scout’s AI Drafts, AI Help, and AI Summarize with its Copilot add-on, which prices $50/agent monthly and requires you to be on the Suite Skilled plan or increased.
Zendesk additionally affords a few AI options you will not discover in Assist Scout. Its Workforce Administration add-on ($25/agent monthly) permits you to use AI to forecast help demand and robotically schedule brokers, and its High quality Assurance add-on ($35/agent monthly) permits you to use AI to research help interactions and determine information gaps/coaching alternatives.
Assist Scout vs. Zendesk pricing comparability
Assist Scout and Zendesk have totally different pricing fashions — Assist Scout’s pricing is predicated on contacts (the variety of clients helped) whereas Zendesk’s is predicated on customers (the variety of people offering help).
Assist Scout has 4 pricing packages:
Free: $0/month for as much as 100 contacts* monthly.
Commonplace: Beginning at $25/month for as much as 100 contacts* monthly.
Plus: Beginning at $75/month for as much as 200 contacts* monthly.
Professional: Contact for pricing.
* A contact is somebody who acquired a reply out of your workforce or had their query resolved by AI in a given month. A number of conversations with the identical particular person throughout a billing interval solely depend as one contact.
All of Assist Scout’s plans allow you to ship help throughout e-mail, reside chat, self-service, and social media (Instagram and Fb Messenger).
Zendesk has 5 pricing packages, divided into two pricing pages for Buyer Service Suite plans and Worker Service Suite plans:
Assist Group: Beginning at $19/agent monthly.
Suite Group: Beginning at $55/agent monthly.
Suite Progress: Beginning at $89/agent monthly
Suite Skilled: Beginning at $115/agent monthly.
Suite Enterprise: Contact for pricing.
To ship help over reside chat or create a information base, you may should be on certainly one of Zendesk’s Suite plans. The essential Assist Group plan solely permits you to ship help through e-mail, X, and Fb.
With that in thoughts, since Assist Scout’s Commonplace plan and Zendesk’s Suite Group plan are essentially the most comparable when it comes to options, we’ll use these two plans to check the worth you’d pay for a number of totally different numbers of customers and contacts:
| # of Brokers and Contacts | Assist Scout Value | Zendesk Value |
|---|---|---|
5 customers and 50 contacts | Out there on the Free plan; $25/month on the Commonplace plan | $275/month |
5 customers and 100 contacts | Out there on the Free plan; $25/month on the Commonplace plan | $275/month |
5 customers and 500 contacts | $185/month | $275/month |
10 customers and 200 contacts | $65/month | $550/month |
10 customers and 500 contacts | $185/month | $550/month |
10 customers and a couple of,000 contacts | $785/month | $550/month |
25 customers and 500 contacts | $185/month | $1,375/month |
25 customers and a couple of,000 contacts | $785/month | $1,375/month |
25 customers and 5,000 contacts | $2,000/month | $1,375/month |
50 customers and a couple of,500 contacts | $985/month | $2,750/month |
50 customers and 5,000 contacts | $2,000/month | $2,750/month |
50 customers and 10,000 contacts | $2,400/month | $2,750/month |
Except you will have a small variety of brokers who’re in a position to help a really giant variety of clients every month, Assist Scout is way more reasonably priced than Zendesk.
It is also price noting that having an sudden or seasonal inflow of requests will not ship your Assist Scout value skyrocketing. To maintain your month-to-month invoice predictable, Assist Scout determines your contact tier primarily based in your trailing three-month common.
Pricing for AI options
In the event you’re planning to make use of the AI options out there in both Assist Scout or Zendesk, you may additionally wish to issue AI utilization into your pricing comparability.
In Assist Scout, all AI options are included in your normal month-to-month prices; there are not any further AI utilization charges. You get limitless entry to AI Solutions, AI Drafts, AI Summarize, and AI Help on each single plan — even the free plan.
Zendesk provides you a handful of AI resolutions for every agent every month. On the Suite Group plan, you get 5 automated resolutions per agent monthly. Further automated resolutions begin at $1.50/decision. Different Zendesk AI options are solely out there as add-ons with further prices:
Copilot prices an extra $50/agent monthly.
Workforce Administration prices an extra $25/agent monthly.
High quality Assurance prices an extra $35/agent monthly.
What clients say about Assist Scout’s and Zendesk’s pricing
Assist Scout has the next ranking on Capterra for “worth for cash” with a 4.4 out of 5 stars versus Zendesk’s 4.2 out of 5 stars. As one Assist Scout buyer writes:
“I really like that you just get a lot included within the value, but in addition that the merchandise supplied are of top of the range and an asset to the enterprise: information base, reside chat with Beacon, the e-mail administration system, plus all of the methods you’ll be able to set up and type your incoming messages.”
Ease of use and setup
When evaluating Assist Scout vs. Zendesk when it comes to ease of use and setup, Assist Scout is the clear winner. You possibly can learn to use Assist Scout in a day and grow to be an influence consumer in per week, and it is so intuitive that little or no coaching is required for brokers.
One Assist Scout buyer writes: “What I like most about Assist Scout is the convenience of use. Assist Scout is simple to arrange and, usually, you’ll be able to keep away from working together with your IT workforce. Assist Scout additionally has a really intuitive interface, which makes coaching your workforce straightforward! The Assist Scout workforce bought it proper!”
Zendesk’s wide selection of options makes setting it up, utilizing it, and coaching new brokers on it way more cumbersome. In reality, certainly one of its companions estimates that implementing Zendesk takes a minimal of 4 weeks, plus an extra week for each 10 brokers in your workforce.
Zendesk clients additionally report that IT help can also be steadily wanted to arrange a number of the platform’s extra advanced options.
Integrations
In terms of integrations, whereas Assist Scout has the next buyer ranking (8.6/10) on G2 than Zendesk (8.1/10), Zendesk affords much more integrations total.
Assist Scout has round 100 integrations with the first instruments groups wish to connect with their help programs: Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, Aircall, Shopify, Jira, Linear, and many others. Zendesk’s Market, alternatively, has practically 2,000 totally different integrations with each the big-name instruments and smaller, extra area of interest programs.
Scalability
Zendesk is constructed to scale irrespective of how giant your group grows. Nevertheless, it is best if price is not a priority as you scale: Gaining access to lots of its extra advanced options would require you to improve to higher-cost plans or buy add-on merchandise.
Assist Scout can also be extremely scalable and a robust selection for groups of any measurement that prioritize simplicity. It’s going to enable you to scale as a lot as it is advisable to with out breaking your price range or degrading the help expertise.
Buyer help
In terms of high quality of buyer help, Assist Scout is the clear winner. It is rated a lot increased for high quality of help on each G2 and Capterra, with clients writing glowing critiques like this one: “The shopper help is over-the-top, wonderful, above-and-beyond useful. These should not clichés, they need to be taken actually.”
Each consumer at your organization can contact Assist Scout’s help workforce 24/6 through e-mail or reside chat, there are reside coaching courses supplied each week, and if you wish to self-serve, you’ll be able to entry the platform’s complete information base.
Zendesk’s help is not all the time rated extremely, and it might probably take a very long time to get a reply to a query. Given its steeper studying curve, this typically means groups need to buy Zendesk’s skilled providers add-on to get the assistance they want or pay for consulting from certainly one of Zendesk’s companions.
If the entire data above did not make it clear which platform is the most effective in your workforce, here is a last abstract that will help you select the suitable possibility:
In the event you worth simplicity or anticipate your corporation to remain small or medium-sized, select Assist Scout. In the event you’re anticipating large development or want enterprise-grade options, select Zendesk.
In the event you plan to do most of your help over e-mail, reside chat, and self-service, select Assist Scout. If it is advisable to ship cellphone, SMS, or neighborhood help, select Zendesk.
In the event you’re in search of a extra reasonably priced system with clear, predictable pricing, select Assist Scout. If price range is much less of a priority for you than system customizability, select Zendesk.
In the event you want a system that is fast to arrange and straightforward in your workforce to make use of, select Assist Scout. When you have devoted IT assets or do not thoughts paying for outdoor assist to arrange and customise the system, select Zendesk.
If you’d like entry to fast, useful help while you want it, select Assist Scout. In the event you’re extra of a figure-it-out your self group, select Zendesk.
Each Assist Scout and Zendesk are leaders within the buyer help house, and you actually cannot go improper with both selection. Contemplate the variations between the 2 platforms, choose the platform that seems like it can finest help your corporation’s distinctive wants, after which begin a trial to make it possible for it really works for you each in idea and in follow.
