Head to head
Zendesk vs Freshdesk for a small team
Zendesk and Freshdesk are both help desks with a knowledge base and calling. Zendesk puts its phone system in its Suite plans and charges minutes by use; Freshworks sells its phone system, Freshcaller, and its CRM separately, at lower prices.
Zendesk and Freshdesk, need by need
| What a small team needs | Zendesk | Freshdesk |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts, companies and a deals pipeline | Not on Zendesk’s pricing page. Sell, its CRM, retires August 31, 2027. [A1][A2] | Freshsales Suite: contacts, accounts and deals on every plan. [B2] |
| Support email as cases in a shared queue | Yes, on every plan. [A1] | Freshdesk: tickets and a shared inbox on every plan. [B1] |
| Knowledge articles and a public help center | Suite Team and up. [A1] | Freshdesk Growth and up: a customer portal and knowledge base. [B1] |
| Calls in the browser, with recording and transfer | Suite Team and up: calls in the browser, recording, hold and warm transfer. Numbers and minutes are charged by use: $1 a month for a US number, $0.016 a minute answered in the browser, $0.003 a minute to record. [A1][A3] | Freshsales Suite’s built-in phone, with recording and transfer from Growth, paid with phone credits; or Freshcaller, priced per agent. [B2][B3] |
| A phone menu for callers | Suite Professional and up. [A1] | Freshcaller Pro and up (phone trees). [B3] |
| Marketing email to about 2,000 people | Not on Zendesk’s pricing page. [A1] | Freshsales Suite: 500 marketing contacts on each paid plan; more from $100 a month for 5,000. [B2] |
| Automation | Automations and triggers on every plan. [A1] | Freshdesk automations on every plan; Freshsales Suite workflows from Growth. [B1][B2] |
| Roles and who sees what | Custom agent roles on Enterprise. [A1] | Role-based access on every plan; custom roles in Freshsales from Pro. [B1][B2] |
| An API and webhooks | Yes. [A1] | Yes, from Growth. [B2][B3] |
What five and ten people would pay
A team that sells, answers support email with a knowledge base, takes calls with a phone menu and sends marketing email to 2,000 people. List prices, per month, paid yearly, in US dollars, before tax.
| What the team buys | 5 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|
| Zendesk: Zendesk Suite Professional for every person (tickets, the help center and calling with a phone menu), with Pipedrive — Zendesk’s named partner — for the CRM and its Campaigns add-on for marketing email to 2,000 people. | ||
| Zendesk Suite Professional, $115 an agent [A1] | $575 | $1,150 |
| Pipedrive Lite, $14 a seat, for the CRM [A4] | $70 | $140 |
| Pipedrive Campaigns, 2,000 subscribers [A4] | $20 | $20 |
| Zendesk, about | $665 | $1,310 |
| Freshdesk: Freshsales Suite Growth for the CRM and marketing email, its marketing contacts add-on for 2,000 people, Freshdesk Growth for tickets and the knowledge base, and Freshcaller Pro for calling with a phone menu. | ||
| Freshsales Suite Growth, $9 a user [B2] | $45 | $90 |
| Marketing contacts add-on, from $100 for 5,000 [B2] | $100 | $100 |
| Freshdesk Growth, $19 an agent [B1] | $95 | $190 |
| Freshcaller Pro, $39 an agent [B3] | $195 | $390 |
| Freshdesk, about | $435 | $770 |
Zendesk: Leaves out numbers, call minutes and recording minutes, which Zendesk charges by use, and taxes. Pipedrive Lite has no email sync or automations; its Growth plan adds them for $25 more a seat.
Freshdesk: Leaves out phone numbers ($1 a month for a US local number), outgoing minutes, recording ($0.0032 a minute) and incoming minutes past the 3,000 included, and taxes.
For a team of 3 people or fewer, ContactRoll Free costs nothing: 1,000 contacts, one pipeline, one support address, calling through your own Twilio account, and 500 marketing emails a month (Free’s limits). Zendesk has no free plan; it offers a 14-day free trial. (Zendesk’s pricing page, read .) Freshdesk has no free plan; it offers a 14-day trial. (Freshdesk’s pricing page, read .)
Which suits your team
Zendesk suits a team when
- You want the phone system inside the help desk plan, with phone trees, callback requests and priority numbers.
- You will use a large marketplace of apps and AI agents on every plan.
Freshdesk suits a team when
- You want lower per-person prices, and a CRM and marketing email from the same company.
- You want a large number of incoming minutes included with each phone agent.
Where ContactRoll fits
ContactRoll is one product for a small team’s sales, support, calls and marketing email, with one record of each customer. On Plus, at $59 a person a month paid yearly, five people come to $295 and ten to $590, with calls billed by Twilio to your own account, with no markup. Contacts exported from Zendesk or Freshdesk and saved as a CSV file import into ContactRoll, which shows what each row will do before it writes anything.
A Zendesk alternative for small teams · A Freshdesk alternative for small teams · Pricing
Questions
Is Freshdesk cheaper than Zendesk?
For the team on this page, yes: Freshworks’ help desk, CRM and phone system together come to less a month than Zendesk Suite Professional with a CRM beside it. Both charge some calls by use.
Does Zendesk or Freshdesk have a CRM?
Freshworks sells one, Freshsales. Zendesk’s pricing page sells no CRM; its CRM, Sell, retires on August 31, 2027, and Zendesk has named Pipedrive as the partner for Sell’s customers.
Sources
Each figure above, with the page it was read from and the date. Prices change, so check each vendor’s own pages before deciding. Each product named here is a trademark of its owner, named only to say which product is described.
Zendesk (A)
- Zendesk, pricing: https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Zendesk Help, announcing the retiring of Zendesk Sell: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9591462550042-Announcing-the-retiring-of-Zendesk-Sell, read 2026-10-14.
- Zendesk Help, Zendesk Talk number availability and pricing: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846483482-Zendesk-Talk-number-availability-and-pricing, read 2026-10-14.
- Pipedrive, pricing (its page data, in US dollars): https://www.pipedrive.com/es/pricing, read 2026-10-14.
- Zendesk Help, exporting ticket, user or organization data: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886165402-Exporting-ticket-user-or-organization-data-from-your-account, read 2026-10-14.
Freshdesk (B)
- Freshworks, Freshdesk pricing: https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Freshworks, Freshsales Suite pricing and comparison: https://www.freshworks.com/crm/suite/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Freshworks, Freshcaller pricing, comparison and call rates: https://www.freshworks.com/freshcaller-cloud-pbx/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Freshdesk Support, exporting contacts: https://support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/227562-can-we-export-contacts-from-freshdesk-, read 2026-10-14.
- Freshworks CRM Support, how to export reports: https://crmsupport.freshworks.com/support/solutions/articles/50000003040-how-to-export-reports-, read 2026-10-14.