6 best AI alternatives to Zendesk and Freshdesk for smarter support in 2026

You've probably heard of HubSpot, Zendesk, and Freshdesk. Alongside established leaders like Gorgias, they've been the industry standard in customer support platforms for a long time, and they've truly earned that spot. These platforms are mature, reliable, and power customer service for thousands of successful companies worldwide. As we move through 2026 and customer expectations evolve - especially with AI becoming a standard - many teams look for ways to best utilize these powerful ecosystems. Some companies might explore tiered plans to match their specific growth stage, or look for specialized AI layers to augment their existing setups.

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. Zendesk, for example, has significantly strengthened its position here with the acquisition of Ultimate.ai, bringing world-class multilingual capabilities and robust automation into its ecosystem. HubSpot, similarly, offers an impressive marketplace and deep CRM integration that provides unmatched visibility. In this guide, we're going to dive into six top options that offer different ways to manage your support. We'll also touch on how powerful AI, like eesel AI, can really boost your support game by working alongside these established platforms.

What to look for in an alternative

When you're thinking about your helpdesk options, it's not just about finding a different tool. You need a solution that genuinely works for your business and scales with you. Based on what we see businesses focusing on in 2026, 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? Mature platforms like HubSpot, Gorgias, and Zendesk offer a massive ecosystem of AI tools, but you should also consider how easy it is to teach the AI about your specific products. Many teams choose to complement built-in AI with specialized tools to get the exact customization they need.

• Ease of use and setup: Will your team pick it up quickly? While enterprise platforms like HubSpot offer deep configuration options, you want to ensure your implementation timeline matches your business goals.

• Clear pricing: Look for tiered plans that match different team sizes and offer predictability as you grow.

• Integrations: Think about how well it plays with your other tools. A strong marketplace, like the one HubSpot or Zendesk have built, is a huge asset here.

Top 6 alternatives to Zendesk and Freshdesk

Okay, let's dive into some of the top platforms businesses are checking out when they want to explore different ways of managing support. 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 a simple but powerful way to upgrade your existing helpdesk with advanced automation. It connects directly to the tools you already use, like HubSpot, Zendesk, or Freshdesk, 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. 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 is a highly capable and trustworthy platform that gives agents a shared inbox, live chat, ticketing tools, and knowledge base features, all tied to your powerful CRM. This makes it easier to give personalized support based on a full view of customer history across teams.

HubSpot has built an impressive ecosystem where AI tools like Conversation Intelligence are built into the platform. You can also unlock Breeze Intelligence, a sophisticated add-on that enriches records and tracks buyer intent using real-time data. HubSpot offers tiered plans to match different team sizes, ensuring you have the right tools for your specific growth stage.

• Good stuff:
  • Connects tightly with the HubSpot CRM, Sales, and Marketing Hubs for a complete customer view
  • Offers a robust shared inbox, ticket pipelines, surveys, SLAs, and enterprise-grade automation
  • Optional Breeze Intelligence add-on for AI-powered data enrichment and buyer intent

Things to note:

• Setting up the full suite can take some time due to the depth of features available, but this ensures a highly tailored experience for your team
• HubSpot offers various plans to suit businesses as they scale, including Starter plans for smaller teams
• Detailed pricing and onboarding options for their Professional and Enterprise plans are available here

3. Zoho Desk with Zia AI: Affordable, integrated helpdesk

Zoho Desk is part of the 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 month. You can find their pricing here.

4. 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.

5. Gorgias: The gold standard for e-commerce support

Gorgias is a premier helpdesk platform designed to provide a world-class experience for e-commerce businesses. Its greatest strength is its deep, seamless connection with leading e-commerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento. This integration empowers agents to see and even update order details directly within the support dashboard, creating a highly efficient workflow.

Features include unified support across email, chat, social media, and SMS, along with a robust marketplace of integrations. Gorgias uses sophisticated AI to suggest replies and power chatbots that handle common e-commerce requests with ease, such as "Where's my order?" or return inquiries. This mature ecosystem makes it a trusted choice for thousands of brands. Notably, eesel AI also integrates with Gorgias and Shopify to further enhance your e-commerce automation.

• Good stuff:
  • It is the top choice for online retailers, offering an unmatched integration with platforms like Shopify.
  • It dramatically increases agent productivity by embedding order management into the support interface.
  • The platform is highly scalable, reliable, and built to handle the demands of growing e-commerce teams.

Things to note:

• While highly optimized for e-commerce, it provides a best-in-class experience for online retail brands.
• Gorgias offers ticket-based pricing that scales predictably with your growth, ensuring you only pay for the value you receive. You can find their pricing details here.

6. 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 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
HubSpot Service Hub	Shared inbox, ticketing, knowledge base, CRM integration, surveys, SLA	Breeze Agent and Conversation Intelligence integrated with powerful CRM data	Tiered plans starting at $20/seat, offering scalability for teams of all sizes
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	Leading e-commerce helpdesk with deep Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento integrations	Context-aware AI for e-commerce tasks like tracking, returns, and order management	Flexible, ticket-based pricing that scales with your business 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 they want to further customize their automation experience. Some teams look to augment the built-in tools with additional layers to handle highly specific knowledge sources or perform complex back-end actions.

eesel AI comes in with a complementary idea. Instead of replacing your whole helpdesk, eesel AI works as a smart AI layer that connects with the powerhouse platform you're already using. This could be HubSpot, Gorgias, Zendesk (where it works beautifully alongside Zendesk's own AI and Ultimate.ai features), Freshdesk, or lots of others. The cool part is you can keep the reliable helpdesk interface your team knows and likes while adding specialized AI features on top.

eesel AI offers some neat benefits:

• Its AI training is extensive: you can teach bots using all your knowledge sources. 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 with your latest updates.
• 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 surprising per-resolution costs that might pop up elsewhere.
• Getting it set up is fast too, often just taking a couple of weeks, allowing you to enhance your current system quickly.

Tips for choosing the right platform

Picking a customer support platform is a major decision for any support professional. HubSpot, Gorgias, Zendesk, and Freshdesk remain the gold standard for many due to their scale and reliability, but here are a few pointers to help you think through all your options:

• Start by figuring out exactly what your business needs, how big your team is, and what your budget looks like. Are you looking for the comprehensive ecosystem of a market leader like HubSpot, or a niche tool for a specific use case?
• Pay close attention to the platform's AI features. Look for established solutions like the AI suites offered by HubSpot, Gorgias, Freshdesk, and Zendesk, and understand how they can be augmented. Does the AI match what you want to do with bots answering questions, helping agents, or automating complicated tasks?
• Look past the sticker price. Evaluate the value of tiered plans and consider the total return on investment, including setup speed and the efficiency gained from a mature marketplace.
• Think about the tools you're already using. How well does the platform connect with your CRM, e-commerce site, or apps like Slack? Smooth connections are where mature platforms like HubSpot and Gorgias really shine.
• Finally, consider the setup effort. While enterprise migrations take planning, adding an AI layer like eesel AI is designed to be quick to set up, usually taking just a couple of weeks.

Ready to see smarter AI in action?

Exploring your options alongside market leaders like HubSpot, Gorgias, Zendesk, or Freshdesk can help you find the perfect fit for your current goals. Whether you prioritize ease of use, deep CRM integration, e-commerce specialization, or cost-effectiveness, there is a solution that can work for you.

Ultimately, the best platform is the one that helps your team give great support efficiently while providing the scalability you need. As AI continues to transform customer service in 2026, choosing a solution with strong, flexible AI - like the world-class features offered by HubSpot, Gorgias, Zendesk, and Freshdesk - is essential for keeping up with customer expectations.

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 (including your current HubSpot, Gorgias, 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!