You’ve probably heard of Zendesk and Freshdesk. For a long time, they’ve been the big names in customer support platforms, and honestly, they’ve earned that spot. They’re packed with features and tons of businesses use them. But as companies grow and customers expect more, especially with AI becoming a big deal, lots of teams start looking around for something different. Maybe the cost feels a bit unpredictable, setting things up gets complicated, or perhaps the AI that’s built-in just isn’t quite right for what they need.
Finding the platform that fits is a pretty important step for keeping customers happy and your team working smoothly. You need tools that can handle the day-to-day tickets but also use the latest tech to automate stuff and provide smarter help. And that’s why checking out AI alternatives to Zendesk and Freshdesk makes a lot of sense. We’re going to dive into seven top options that give you good reasons to consider a switch. We’ll also touch on how powerful AI, like eesel AI, can really boost your support game no matter which platform you land on.
What to look for in an alternative
When you’re thinking about moving away from a platform like Zendesk or Freshdesk, it’s not just about finding a cheaper option. You need a tool that genuinely works for your business and helps you down the road. Based on what we see businesses focusing on, here are a few key things to keep an eye out for:
- Basic helpdesk functionality: Does it handle tickets well? Can you manage conversations across all the ways your customers reach out – email, chat, social media, phone? Having a solid base here is non-negotiable.
- AI features: How smart is the automation? Can it actually solve problems, or does it just point people to articles? How easy is it to teach the AI about your specific products or services, and how well does it fit into how your team already works? Lots of built-in AI solutions can be limited or come with surprise costs, which is something many users mention about platforms like Zendesk.
- Ease of use and setup: Will your team pick it up quickly? Will getting it running take months and cost a fortune in consultants?
- Clear pricing: Pricing that makes sense as you grow is also key; nobody likes hidden fees or costs that jump up unexpectedly.
- Integrations: Think about how well it plays with your other tools. Do they connect easily?
Top 7 alternatives to Zendesk and Freshdesk
Okay, let’s dive into some of the top platforms businesses are checking out when they need something different from Zendesk or Freshdesk. These options have different strengths, from being super user-friendly to having specialized features or cool ways of doing AI. They can definitely help teams make their customer support more efficient.
1. eesel AI: Smarter automation without switching platforms
eesel AI is often seen as a simple but powerful way to upgrade your existing helpdesk with advanced automation. It connects directly to the tools you already use, like Zendesk, Intercom, or Gorgias, and adds AI that can respond, take action, and learn from your full knowledge base. It is ideal for teams that want smarter support without going through a full migration.
It comes with features like smart auto-replies, custom actions that bots can perform, AI workflows, and the ability to learn from over one hundred content sources. This includes help center articles, past tickets, internal documents, Confluence pages, and more. While some AI tools are limited to answering questions, eesel AI can actually do things like check order statuses or process refunds, depending on your setup. It also gives you clear pricing and deep customization options.
- Good stuff:
- Works on top of your current helpdesk or CRM
- Can train on past tickets, help docs, PDFs, and internal files
- Bots can perform actions, not just give answers
- Offers fixed pricing based on usage instead of per agent or resolution
- Things to note:
- You will still need a helpdesk platform underneath
- Best for teams that want advanced AI without switching systems
- Pricing starts at $239 per month for up to 3 bots and 1,000 interactions.
2. Intercom and Fin AI: Conversational AI focus
Intercom is built around fast, conversational support. It blends chat, automation, and customer messaging into one platform that handles everything from live chat and ticketing to outbound campaigns and proactive messages.
Intercom’s Fin AI Agent is priced separately at $0.99 per resolution. It works inside Intercom or can be used with other helpdesks like Zendesk or Salesforce. The agent can respond in live chat, email, and more, and even perform actions like updating systems or handing off to a human. Intercom also offers Copilot, a personal AI assistant for agents, available as an add-on.
- Good stuff:
- Fin AI Agent works across multiple channels and platforms
- Plans include shared inbox, help center, ticketing, and live chat
- Copilot assistant boosts agent speed with AI suggestions
- Things to note:
- Fin is priced per resolution and requires a minimum of $50 per month
- Copilot costs $35 per seat for unlimited usage
- Platform plans start at $39 per seat per month for Essential, $99 for Advanced, and $139 for Expert
- AI costs are separate from seat pricing
- By the way, if you’re using Intercom, eesel AI integrates directly to give your AI capabilities a boost.
3. HubSpot Service Hub& Breeze Intelligence: CRM-integrated support
If you’re already using HubSpot for sales or marketing, the Service Hub fits right into your workflow. It gives agents a shared inbox, live chat, ticketing tools, and knowledge base features, all tied to your CRM. This makes it easier to give personalized support based on a full view of customer history across teams.
AI tools like Conversation Intelligence are built into the platform, and you can unlock Breeze Intelligence, a paid add-on that enriches records and tracks buyer intent using reverse IP and real-time data. Breeze Intelligence uses a monthly credit system and is priced separately based on usage and seats.
- Good stuff:
- Connects tightly with HubSpot CRM, Sales, and Marketing Hubs
- Offers shared inbox, ticket pipelines, surveys, SLAs, and automation
- Optional Breeze Intelligence add-on for AI-powered data enrichment and buyer intent
- Things to note:
- Breeze Intelligence requires additional credits and a seat-based unlock
- Professional plan starts at $100 per seat with a $1,500 onboarding fee
- Breeze Intelligence plans start at $45 per month for 5,000 credits plus $9 per seat
- Enterprise Service Hub requires a $3,500 onboarding fee and annual commitment. Their pricing is available here.
4. Zoho Desk with Zia AI: Affordable, integrated helpdesk
Zoho Desk is part of the big Zoho family of business apps. It offers a helpdesk solution with lots of features at a really good price. It’s especially appealing if you’re already using other Zoho products because they connect seamlessly.
Features include handling tickets from all channels, a knowledge base, community forums, automating workflows, and detailed reports. Zoho Desk includes Zia AI, which gives smart suggestions, analyzes how customers are feeling (sentiment analysis), and can power chatbots for simple questions. While Zia offers helpful AI assistance, the level of automation or how much you can customize might not be as deep as platforms that focus only on advanced AI.
- Good stuff:
- It’s really affordable.
- Gives you a wide range of features for the cost.
- Connects well within the Zoho world.
- Things to note:
- The look and feel might seem less modern or as easy to figure out compared to some newer platforms.
- Some advanced things require higher plans.
- Zia AI is only included in Enterprise Plan which is priced at $50 per seat per rmonth. You can find their pricing here.
5. Kustomer: Unified customer timeline
Kustomer is an AI-powered CRM designed for support that’s really good at showing you everything about a customer’s history and conversations all in one place, like a single timeline. This makes it way faster for agents to get the full picture.
Features include a workspace that handles all channels, that cool unified customer view, custom ways to set up workflows, powerful automation, and real-time reporting. Kustomer has strong AI features for both customers (like bots) and agents (to help them out). This AI uses all that combined customer data for smarter chats and to figure out how customers are feeling .
- Good stuff:
- It gives you fantastic customer context with that timeline view.
- Has solid AI and automation features.
- Works well for businesses with more complicated ways of working
- Things to note:
- It’s usually more expensive than platforms built for smaller businesses.
- Might take a bit more effort to learn how to customize everything fully.
- Plans start at $89 per user per month billed yearly. Their pricing is available here.
6. Gorgias: E-commerce support specialist
Gorgias is a helpdesk platform made especially for e-commerce businesses. Its main strength is how deeply it connects with popular e-commerce platforms like Shopify. This lets agents see and even change order details right there in the support screen.
Features include support across email, chat, social media, and SMS, direct connections to e-commerce platforms to view/edit orders, and ways to automate tasks that are common in e-commerce. Gorgias uses AI for things like suggesting replies and powering chatbots that can handle typical e-commerce questions, like “Where’s my order?” or “How do I return this?”. Just so you know, eesel AI also integrates with Gorgias and Shopify if you want even more e-commerce AI automation.
- Good stuff:
- It’s fantastic for businesses selling online, especially on platforms like Shopify.
- It saves agents a ton of time by putting order management right into the support workflow.
- Things to note:
- It’s not really the right fit if you’re not in the e-commerce world.
- Pricing can change based on how many tickets you handle, which might be a bit unpredictable.
- Pricing is often based on how much you use it, starting low but going up with the number of tickets. You can find their pricing details here.
7. Help Scout: Simple, email-style support
Help Scout describes itself as a customer service platform that feels more like using email. It focuses on being simple and keeping a human touch in support. It’s a popular pick for teams who want something easy to use without all the bells and whistles of bigger platforms.
Features include shared inboxes (they call them Mailboxes), a knowledge base (Docs), a live chat tool (Beacon), saved replies for common questions, and reporting tools. Help Scout also has AI features. They’ve added simple AI help into their straightforward platform to assist with things like suggesting replies or summarizing conversations.
- Good stuff:
- It’s super easy to get set up and start using.
- The interface is clean and simple.
- The pricing is reasonable.
- Has strong features for teams working together in that shared inbox style.
- Things to note:
- It doesn’t have as many features or customization options as platforms built for huge companies, which might be a limit if your needs are really complex.
- Pricing starts low, often with different levels based on how many users you have. You can see their pricing here.
How they stack up
Here’s a quick look at how these seven alternatives compare to each other:
| Platform | Core Features | Key AI Capabilities | Starting Price or Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| eesel AI | Connects to existing helpdesk, trains on help docs, tickets, and internal files, performs real actions | Advanced bot actions, multi-source training, automatic syncing, full workflow control | $239 per month for up to 3 bots and 1,000 interactions |
| Intercom | Shared Inbox, Live Chat, Help Center, Proactive Messaging | Fin AI Agent, Copilot AI focused on fast, chat-based support | $39 per seat per month, plus Fin usage (50 resolutions minimum) |
| HubSpot Service Hub | Shared inbox, ticketing, knowledge base, CRM integration, surveys, SLA | Breeze Agent, Conversation Intelligence trained on CRM data (credit-based) | $20 per seat per month for Starter, Breeze starts at $45/month + $9/seat |
| Zoho Desk | Omnichannel ticketing, Knowledge Base, Automation, Community, Reporting | Zia AI with suggestions, sentiment analysis, and basic chatbots | $50 per user per month billed annually (Enterprise plan) |
| Kustomer | Omnichannel support, Unified Customer Timeline, Custom Workflows, Reporting | AI trained on complete customer history with advanced workflows | $89 per user per month billed annually |
| Gorgias | Email, Chat, Social, SMS, E-commerce integration, Order management | AI suggestions and automation built for e-commerce tasks like refunds or tracking | Usage-based pricing that scales with ticket volume |
| Help Scout | Shared Inboxes, Knowledge Base, Live Chat, Saved Replies, Reports | Simple AI tools that suggest replies and summarize conversations | Starts low with per-user pricing billed annually |
Boosting support with AI: A smarter approach
While the platforms we’ve talked about offer solid helpdesk features and often come with their own AI tools, many businesses find that the built-in AI can have some limits. Maybe it’s hard to customize, tough to train the AI on all your relevant info (not just the help center), the AI can’t actually do things, or the pricing gets unpredictable as you grow.
eesel AI comes in with a different idea. Instead of replacing your whole helpdesk, eesel AI works as a smart AI layer that connects with the platform you’re already using. This could be Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, or lots of others. The cool part is you can keep the helpdesk interface your team knows and likes while adding advanced AI features on top.
eesel AI offers some neat benefits:
- Its AI training is pretty good – you can teach bots using all your knowledge sources, not just help center articles. This means bringing in info from over 100 places, including past tickets, internal documents like Google Docs or Confluence, PDFs, external wikis, and more.
- It syncs automatically, so your AI’s knowledge stays current.
- eesel AI provides AI that can actually do things. Bots aren’t just stuck repeating info; they can perform real tasks like giving refunds or checking order statuses by using Custom API actions.
- It’s also really flexible and you can customize it a lot, like fine-tuning the bot’s tone or building complex multi-bot processes.
- With clear pricing based on interactions, you avoid those per-agent fees or surprising per-resolution costs that pop up elsewhere .
- Getting it set up is fast too, often just taking a couple of weeks, not months.
Tips for choosing the right platform
Picking a new customer support platform feels like a big deal, and honestly, the “best” one really just depends on what you need. Here are a few pointers to help you think through the options:
- Start by figuring out exactly what your business needs, how big your team is, and what your budget looks like. What’s really bugging you about your current setup? What are you hoping a new platform will help you do?
- Pay close attention to the platform’s AI features. Don’t just tick a box because it has AI; understand what it can actually accomplish. Does it match what you want to do with bots answering questions, helping agents, or automating complicated tasks? Look into how the AI learns and how much you can tweak it.
- Look past the sticker price. Try to get a sense of the total cost, including how long it takes to set up, any potential fees for using AI, and ongoing costs. Free trials are super useful here – use them to test things out and see how the platform feels.
- Think about the tools you’re already using. How well does the new platform connect with your CRM, your e-commerce platform, your internal tools, or communication apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams? Smooth connections really help with getting things done efficiently.
- Finally, consider how much work it will be to switch. Moving helpdesk data can be tricky, but remember that adding an AI layer like eesel AI is designed to be quick to set up, often just taking a couple of weeks.
Ready to see smarter AI in action?
Thinking about moving on from Zendesk or Freshdesk can open up options for platforms that just fit better with what you need now and where you want to go. Whether you care most about being easy to use, connecting deeply with your CRM, specializing in e-commerce, or saving money, there’s probably an alternative out there that’s a better match.
Ultimately, the “best” platform is the one that helps your team give great support efficiently while having pricing that makes sense for your business. As AI keeps changing customer service, choosing a solution with strong, flexible AI isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore – it’s pretty important for growing effectively and keeping up with what customers expect.
No matter which helpdesk platform you end up choosing, smart AI can really take your support to the next level. See how eesel AI can connect with your chosen platform (or even your current Zendesk or Freshdesk setup!) to give you cost-effective, actionable, and highly customizable AI automation.
Book a demo to see eesel AI live or start a free trial today – you don’t even need a credit card!
