Best for — Customer Support
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Medium
Who is Zoho Desk best for?
Quick fit guide: Who is Zoho Desk best for, who should avoid it, and what typically forces a switch.
Sources linked — see verification below.
Freshness & verification
Best use cases for Zoho Desk
- Teams already on Zoho CRM; native contact/account sync without integration cost
- Budget-conscious SMBs (5–30 agents); $14–23/agent vs $55+ for Zendesk
- Organizations wanting free tier with no expiration (3 agents forever)
- Support teams needing telephony, blueprints, multi-department at low cost
- Multi-brand help centers without Enterprise Zendesk pricing
- Teams in Zoho ecosystem (CRM, Projects, Analytics) for suite cohesion
Who should avoid Zoho Desk?
- Not on Zoho CRM; Zoho Desk's biggest advantage is native CRM sync
- E-commerce-only—Gorgias has native Shopify order actions
- Chat-first, AI deflection—Intercom stronger
- Need 1,000+ integrations—Zendesk marketplace deeper
- Regulated industries requiring US-only AI; Zia/Answer Bot in limited DCs
- Collaborative inbox over tickets—Front built for that
Upgrade triggers for Zoho Desk
- Outgrow 3-agent free tier—Standard $14/agent minimum
- Need live chat, knowledge base, custom reports—Standard tier
- Telephony, blueprints, multi-department—Professional $23/agent
- Zia AI, Answer Bot, AI Agents—Enterprise $40/agent
- Skill-based routing, IVR, multi-brand—Enterprise tier
- Light users: Professional has optional; Enterprise includes 50 free
Sources & verification
Pricing and behavioral information comes from public documentation and structured research. When information is incomplete or volatile, we prefer to say so rather than guess.