Zendesk vs HubSpot: The Definitive 2025 Comparison

Picking a new customer service platform can feel like a massive, stressful decision. You’re often stuck between two big names: Zendesk, the dedicated support heavyweight, and HubSpot, the all-in-one CRM that also does service. Both are solid tools, and both promise to make your team’s life easier.

But let’s be real, the best choice isn’t just about a long list of features anymore. It comes down to how quickly you can get your team comfortable, whether the AI is actually smart enough to help, and how well it connects to the knowledge you’ve already got stored all over the place.

This guide cuts through the noise of the Zendesk vs HubSpot debate. We’ll look at everything from the day-to-day agent experience to the price tag. We’ll also talk about a third option: what if you could get top-tier AI without the headache of switching helpdesks?

What is Zendesk?

Zendesk has been in the customer service world for a long time, and it was built from the ground up for support teams. Its main product, the Zendesk Suite, bundles everything you’d expect: ticketing, messaging, a help center, and phone support. For years, it’s been the default choice for companies that need a powerful and scalable support system.

If your team feels like they’re constantly buried under a mountain of tickets, Zendesk is designed to handle that kind of volume. It’s known for its robust workflows and a deep set of features aimed at making support efficient. Lately, Zendesk has been adding its own AI agents and copilot tools to automate common questions and give human agents a hand right inside their workspace.

What is HubSpot Service Hub?

HubSpot Service Hub is a module within the bigger HubSpot ecosystem. At its core, HubSpot is a CRM, so everything is built around a single customer database. The biggest draw for Service Hub isn’t just that it can manage support tickets; it’s that it gives you a complete picture of every interaction a customer has had with your company, from marketing and sales right through to service.

It’s built to be easy to use and helps teams see how their support work impacts business goals like revenue and customer loyalty, all in one place. HubSpot’s AI, called "Breeze," works across the whole platform, helping with everything from writing marketing emails to analyzing sales calls, which makes it more of a generalist AI assistant.

Feature comparison: Zendesk vs HubSpot

Alright, let’s put them side-by-side and see how they really compare on the things that matter.

Ticketing and agent experience

Zendesk’s main strength is its ticketing system. If you love tinkering, you can set up detailed routing rules, strict SLAs, and automated triggers for just about any situation. The Agent Workspace is built for speed and efficiency, perfect for teams handling a huge number of tickets. The downside? Your agents are often working with blinders on. Since sales and marketing data lives in other systems, you have to rely on integrations to pull that context in, which can feel a bit clunky.

HubSpot takes the opposite approach. Its ticketing is simpler, but the 360-degree customer view is front and center. An agent can see a contact’s full history, every marketing email they’ve opened, every sales call, and past purchases, all right next to their support ticket. It’s less about complex ticket management and more about giving agents the full story so they can provide better service.

The problem with both is that you’re stuck in their world. Zendesk agents can’t easily see sales data, and HubSpot’s support tools aren’t as specialized for complex queues.

This is a classic trade-off, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead of moving your whole operation, a tool like eesel AI plugs right into the helpdesk you already use, like Zendesk. It lets you keep the ticketing system you like while adding powerful AI that understands context from all your company’s knowledge, not just what’s inside the helpdesk.

AI and automation capabilities

Zendesk AI has learned from billions of general customer service tickets across all its customers. It’s pretty decent at things like summarizing a long ticket thread or suggesting a canned macro. The big limitation, though, is that its knowledge stops at the Zendesk wall. It has no idea about that new feature spec in Google Docs or the troubleshooting guide your engineers just posted in Confluence. It doesn’t know your company’s specific voice or business logic.

HubSpot’s Breeze AI has a different strength; it uses the entire CRM for context. It can help an agent write a reply that mentions a customer’s subscription plan or a recent chat they had with a salesperson. That’s great for personalizing responses. However, its automation tools are designed for the whole company, so they often lack the specific, detailed functions a busy support team really needs.

In both cases, the AI is working in a silo. To be truly helpful, an AI agent needs access to everything your company knows, no matter where that information is kept.

That’s the exact gap eesel AI is built to fill. It connects to your helpdesk in minutes but also plugs into your Confluence, Google Docs, Notion pages, and even your old support tickets. It learns from your team’s past resolved tickets and internal docs, so its answers are accurate, use your brand’s voice, and follow your business rules. The best part? You can go live in minutes, not months.

Customization and control

Zendesk is famous for letting you control every little detail of your support workflows. You can build out complex triggers and automations for any scenario you can dream up. But that power comes with a price: a steep learning curve and a lot of admin time to get it all working just right.

HubSpot puts its energy into automation that crosses departments. For instance, you can build a workflow that pings a sales rep when a customer asks about upgrading their plan in a support ticket. This is awesome for keeping the whole company in sync but gives you less precise control over support-specific rules than Zendesk does.

With either one, you’re buying into their way of doing things, and fine-tuning the automation can feel rigid and time-consuming.

There is a more flexible approach. With eesel AI, you get a fully customizable workflow engine with selective automation. This means you get to decide exactly which types of tickets the AI should handle (like "where’s my order?" questions) and what it should do (like look up the order status via an API, then tag and close the ticket). Before you even turn it on, you can use a simulation mode to test the AI on thousands of your past tickets. This shows you exactly what your automation rate will be, so you can roll it out with confidence when you’re ready.

Pricing: Zendesk vs HubSpot

When you’re looking at cost, the price on the website is just the start. Let’s break down what you’re likely to actually pay.

Platform	Plan	Annual Price (per seat/month)	Key limitations & hidden costs
Zendesk	Suite Team	$55	Basic AI, limited reporting.
	Suite Growth	$89
	Suite Professional	$115	Advanced features require this tier.
	Add-ons	Varies	Advanced AI, WFM, and QA are extra costs.
HubSpot	Starter	~$20 (for 2 seats)	Basic ticketing, limited automation.
	Professional	$100	Minimum 3 seats required.
	Enterprise	$150	Minimum 5 seats required.

At first glance, Zendesk’s per-seat price can seem lower, but the costs get big, fast. Important features like advanced AI, workforce management, and quality assurance are usually sold as pricey add-ons. You can easily get nickel-and-dimed.

HubSpot’s pricing looks a bit more all-inclusive, but it can be expensive, especially for smaller teams. The required seat minimums on their Professional (3 seats) and Enterprise (5 seats) plans mean you could end up paying for licenses you don’t even use.

Now, compare that to eesel AI’s pricing. Our plans are based on monthly AI interactions, not how many agents you have on your team. There are no per-seat fees and, just as importantly, no per-resolution fees. All our main products (AI Agent, Copilot, Triage) are included in every plan. This model gives you predictable costs and doesn’t punish you for growing your team.

Choose the right tool or upgrade the one you have

So, who wins the Zendesk vs HubSpot showdown? Honestly, it depends on what your company needs most.

• Choose Zendesk if: You are a support-first organization that deals with a high ticket volume. You need a powerful, dedicated helpdesk and you’re ready to put in the time and effort to configure it perfectly.

• Choose HubSpot if: Your business strategy is built around a single CRM. You want your sales, marketing, and service teams working together in one system and value that complete customer view above everything else.

But picking either one means making a compromise. You’re either signing up for a complex setup, a painful data migration, or getting locked into one company’s way of doing things.

There’s another way. You can give the helpdesk you already have a serious AI boost, one that’s more connected, easier to control, and much faster to get running. Instead of a massive "rip and replace" project, eesel AI gives you a smarter upgrade. It brings the power of a specialized AI tool together with the complete context of your entire business knowledge.

Get smarter AI without switching your helpdesk

Why go through the pain of a big migration project? You can keep the helpdesk your team already knows and add an AI layer that learns from all your company knowledge, gives you complete control, and goes live in minutes.

Ready to see how it works? Start your free trial of eesel AI or book a demo with our team.