Help desk and customer support · Comparison
Intercom vs Zendesk
2 products compared side by side: what you pay for with each one first, then the five access facts, entry prices, recorded plan limits and the bottom line of each review. The evidence note under the table says how each product was checked.
Side by side
| Metric | Intercom | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Saves engineering timeA help desk and an AI agent in one workspace: Fin answers first, your team takes over in the same inbox, and Fin is billed per outcome. | Built-in reachEmail tickets, live chat, a help center, social messaging and voice in one agent seat, with AI agents on every plan and a broad compliance file. |
| Overall score | 6.6Best | 6.1 |
| Free option | 14-day free trial | 14-day free trial |
| Card to start | No card needed | No card needed |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $29/seat/mo | $19/agent/mo |
| Pricing model | Seat + usage | Per seat |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Per seat per month; Fin outcomes, phone, SMS and bulk messages billed by usage | Per agent per month; AI resolutions and voice billed by usage |
| Free option | No free plan; 14-day trial, no card | No free plan; 14-day trial of Suite Professional, no card |
| Reference scenario (5 agents, annual) | $145/mo on Essential ($29 × 5), computed | $275/mo on Suite Team ($55 × 5), computed |
| Month-to-month price | $39 per seat on Essential ($39 / $99 / $139 for the three plans) | $69 per agent on Suite Team ($25 / $69 / $149 for the three listed plans) |
| AI agent pricing | Fin $0.99 per outcome on every plan; qualifications $9.99 | 5 resolutions per agent/mo included; then $1.50 committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go |
| Phone | Built in on every plan; numbers and minutes billed by usage | Built in from Suite Team; numbers and minutes billed by usage |
| SLA policies and CSAT | Conversation ratings on every plan; SLAs on Expert ($132) | Suite Professional ($115); chat conversation rating on Suite Team |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 (Trust Center, on request) | SOC 2 Type II (on request, under NDA); ISO 27001:2022 |
| HIPAA BAA | Expert plan only, requested through support | Suite Professional and up (Advanced Compliance) |
| EU data hosting | New workspaces on a contract (Advanced or Expert), through sales | Suite Professional and up, activated by Zendesk on request |
| SSO | SAML on Expert only | SAML, OIDC or JWT on every plan |
| Data export | All conversations to Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage; REST API | REST API on every plan; file export from Suite Growth, enabled by support |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Intercom is a full help desk with an AI agent built in, priced per seat plus $0.99 per Fin outcome. SSO, SLAs and the HIPAA BAA need Expert, and a few prices differ between its pages. | From its public pages, Zendesk is a broad help desk suite: every main channel on Suite Team, AI agents on every plan and a deep compliance file. SLAs, CSAT and data region start on Suite Professional, and some plan names and AI tiers differ between pages. |
Evidence: Intercom: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Zendesk: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
When to pick each
In the words of each review, with the date its facts were checked.
From our Intercom review
Checked Oct 15, 2026- Pick Intercom when
- You want activity logs on the entry plan and a lower 5-agent cost ($145 a month on Essential, annual, computed).
- Pick Zendesk when
- You want SAML SSO on every plan, and a HIPAA BAA and EU data region on a plan bought online.
From our Zendesk review
Checked Oct 15, 2026- Pick Zendesk when
- You want SAML SSO on every plan and a choice of data region on a plan bought online.
- Pick Intercom when
- You want activity logs on the entry plan and a lower 5-agent cost ($145 a month on Essential, annual, computed).
Entry price
Baseline: each product's cheapest paid plan, per month. Included usage differs, so read the line under each price.
- IntercomEssential$29/seat/moBilled annually; $39 month to month. Some visitors see $19 on the pricing page (a price test)
- Messenger live chat, shared inbox and ticketing, inbound email
- Public Help Center and conversation ratings
- Phone, SMS and WhatsApp, billed by usage
- Fin AI Agent at $0.99 per outcome
- ZendeskSupport Team$19/agent/moBilled annually; $25 month to month
- Email ticketing, routing, macros and automations
- AI agents for email, 5 automated resolutions per agent/mo
- API access and single sign-on
- No help center, live chat or social channels
Prices as listed on each pricing page, in USD per month, excluding tax. Observed: Intercom 2026-10-15, Zendesk 2026-10-15.
Which one fits
- If you need to start today without a sales call
- IntercomSelf-serve sign-up, no card needed; the highest score of the 2 self-serve products here (6.6/10).
- If you want to try it without entering a card
- Intercom14-day free trial, no card needed, and the highest score of the 2 that skip the card (6.6/10).
- Lowest starter price
- Zendesk$19/agent/mo for the Support Team (billed annually) plan.
- Highest overall score
- Intercom6.6/10 (Good). The review shows the score breakdown and the run behind it.
Picked by fixed rules from the table above, not by hand. How we score
Full reviews
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