Zendesk pros and cons review: An honest look in 2025

Zendesk is a big name in the customer service game. If you work in support, you’ve probably used it, heard of it, or at least sat through a demo. It’s the go-to choice for thousands of companies, but does that automatically make it the right choice for you? In 2025, with AI changing how we all think about support, the answer isn't so simple anymore.

This is our straightforward, no-fluff zendesk pros and cons review. We're here to look at how it really performs, dig into its notoriously complicated pricing, and see if its built-in AI can actually keep up. By the end, you should have a much clearer picture of what it does well, where it falls short, and whether it’s the right move for your team.

What is Zendesk?

Basically, Zendesk is a customer service platform that bundles everything together in one place. Most people sign up for the Zendesk Suite, which gives you a package of their main tools:

• Support: This is the core of the platform, the ticketing system where all the customer requests live.

• Chat: For adding live chat to your website or app.

• Talk: A built-in phone system for voice support.

• Guide: Their tool for building out a knowledge base or help center.

It's designed to work for everyone from tiny startups to huge corporations, and it’s known for being a very thorough, if sometimes complicated, way to manage all your customer conversations.

Zendesk pros

Zendesk got to where it is for a reason. It’s loaded with some pretty powerful features that can help the right team get their support operations seriously organized.

A comprehensive ticketing system and omnichannel support

Zendesk’s biggest win is pulling all your customer conversations into one place. It doesn't matter if a customer sends an email, pings you on social media, calls, or starts a live chat, it all ends up in a single, unified dashboard. For any team that’s tired of juggling conversations across a dozen different apps, this is a huge relief.

A screenshot of the Zendesk user interface, showing the omnichannel ticket view feature. This is a key point in our zendesk pros and cons review.

Agents can see a customer's entire history without having to ask the same questions over and over, which lets them get straight to solving the problem. The system also makes it simple for agents to work together on tricky tickets. They can leave private notes for each other and loop in other teammates without ever leaving the ticket screen. It just makes the whole process smoother and keeps everything about a customer's issue in one spot.

Advanced reporting and analytics

If your team is driven by data, Zendesk Explore is a big selling point. It comes with a bunch of pre-made dashboards so you can start tracking important metrics right away. You can easily keep an eye on things like ticket volume, how long it takes to first reply, resolution time, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores.

Zendesk's support analytics dashboard, a feature highlighted in this zendesk pros and cons review.

The real power comes from building your own custom reports. Need to see how a specific agent group is performing? Or track customer questions about a new product? You can build a report for just about anything. This is super helpful for support managers who need to show their team's impact and make decisions based on cold, hard data.

Scalability and extensive integrations for enterprise teams

Zendesk is designed to grow with your company. It can handle the workload of a small team just as easily as it can for a global company with thousands of agents. This scalability is a major reason why it's so popular with bigger businesses.

The Zendesk App Marketplace, demonstrating the platform's extensive integration capabilities as discussed in this zendesk pros and cons review.

It also has a massive marketplace with over 1,000 apps and integrations. This means you can connect Zendesk to pretty much any other software you're using, from your CRM to collaboration tools like Slack. For large companies with a tangled web of different software, having Zendesk act as the central point for all customer data is a huge plus.

Zendesk cons

While Zendesk has its strengths, it also comes with some real downsides that can slow you down, hit your budget hard, and leave you wishing its AI did more.

Steep learning curve and overwhelming complexity

One of the most common complaints about Zendesk is that it’s just… a lot. Its massive feature set is great in theory, but it makes for a tough learning curve for new agents and administrators. Setting up workflows, triggers, and automations can feel like you’re trying to solve a logic puzzle, and you often need a dedicated admin to get it all working correctly.

An illustration of Zendesk's workflow creation interface, noted for its complexity in this zendesk pros and cons review.

This is a pretty big contrast to newer tools. For example, eesel AI is built to be self-serve and plugs into your existing helpdesk in a few minutes, so you can get started without a months-long setup project.

Inconsistent customer support and a lack of human touch

It’s a little ironic for a company that sells customer service software, but Zendesk's own support team gets pretty mixed reviews. Customers, particularly those on the cheaper plans, often talk about slow response times and getting stuck dealing with automated replies when they really need to talk to a person. When your main support platform is broken, the last thing you want is to be arguing with a chatbot. For a lot of teams, this can be a real deal-breaker.

Limited and rigid AI automation

Zendesk’s automation is based on a system of triggers you have to build yourself. They work on a simple "if this happens, then do that" logic. This is fine for basic tasks, but it can quickly turn into a messy web of rules as your support needs get more complicated. Trying to customize these workflows is often a headache, and they don't handle nuance very well without a developer stepping in.

This is a pretty common issue with platforms where AI feels like an add-on instead of a core part of the product. In contrast, specialized AI platforms like eesel AI give you a fully customizable workflow engine. You get fine-grained control to pick exactly which tickets to automate and fine-tune how the AI responds.

How Zendesk's AI features stack up

Let's be real, AI is non-negotiable for support teams these days. It’s not just a nice-to-have feature; it’s fundamental to running an efficient support operation. So, how does Zendesk’s AI actually stack up?

An overview of Zendesk's native AI capabilities

Zendesk has its own collection of AI tools. This includes AI agents (their chatbots) that can field simple questions, generative replies that suggest answers for human agents, and an intelligent triage feature that tries to sort and route incoming tickets automatically.

A view of Zendesk's Intelligent Triage feature, an important aspect of this zendesk pros and cons review of its AI capabilities.

On paper, these features sound pretty good. They can deflect some of the easy-to-answer questions and give agents a head start on their replies. But once you start using them, you run into the limits of a closed-off AI system.

The hidden limitations of a built-in AI

The problem with a "one-size-fits-all" AI is that it doesn't really fit anyone perfectly. Zendesk's AI is trained on general data, which means it often misses the specific context of your business. It mostly learns from articles in your Zendesk Guide knowledge base. That’s a decent start, but it completely ignores the wealth of information you have in all your other tools.

The biggest issue with a closed system is that your knowledge is trapped. A tool like eesel AI connects to all your apps, not just your help center, but also past tickets, Google Docs, Confluence, and more. It learns from your team's actual support conversations, making sure its answers are always on-brand and factually correct.

Another huge risk is launching an AI without testing it first. You can't just turn it on and cross your fingers. eesel AI gets around this with a simulation mode that lets you test your setup on thousands of your past tickets. You can see exactly how it will perform before it ever talks to a real customer. This lets you roll out automation with confidence.

Zendesk pricing breakdown

You can't have a zendesk pros and cons review without talking about the price. Zendesk's pricing is known for being confusing, and it's a common headache for its customers.

Here’s a look at their main "Suite" plans, which package up the features most teams need.

That initial price is just the starting point. The real costs often pop up in the add-ons. Need smarter AI? That’s extra. Want their AI assistant for agents? That's also extra. Using their phone feature? You'll pay by the minute. Many of the tools that teams really need, like advanced AI, are only available on the pricier plans.

This tiered pricing can make your monthly bill pretty unpredictable. It’s why a lot of teams are moving towards platforms with more transparent pricing, like eesel AI, which has simple, feature-based plans without charging you per ticket resolution. You know what you're paying for, without any surprises.

The verdict: Is Zendesk right for you?

So, after looking at this zendesk pros and cons review, it’s pretty clear Zendesk is a solid platform with some significant drawbacks. The big question is, who is it really for?

Zendesk is probably a good fit for:

• Large enterprise companies with a healthy budget that need one system to do it all.

• Businesses with dedicated admins or developers who can handle the complex setup and maintenance.

• Teams that need deep integrations with...Salesforce.

Zendesk might not be the best choice for:

• Small to medium-sized businesses that need something affordable and easy to get started with.

• Teams that want to add powerful, custom AI without having to switch their entire helpdesk.

• Companies that need their AI to learn from all their internal knowledge, not just what’s in Zendesk.

If you like your current help desk, like Zendesk, but just want to add better AI, then a specialized tool is probably your best bet. Instead of getting locked into one company's way of doing things, you get the freedom to use the best tool for each job. And that’s exactly what eesel AI was built for.

Give your support a boost with eesel AI

eesel AI is designed to fix Zendesk's biggest weaknesses: its complexity, its rigid AI, and its siloed knowledge. It plugs right into the tools you already use, adding a smart and flexible AI layer on top.

• Go live in minutes: Forget about spending months on setup. You can connect eesel AI to your helpdesk with a single click and start automating support right away.

• You're in total control: You decide what gets automated. Use our simple prompt editor and workflow builder to create an AI that works the way your team works.

• Unified knowledge: Train your AI on everything, past tickets, your Confluence pages, Google Docs, and more, so it can give truly helpful and accurate answers.

Ready to see what a modern AI support agent can do for your team? Try eesel AI for free or book a demo to see how you can lower your ticket volume and make your agents' lives easier.