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Zendesk vs. HubSpot

Great customer experiences require intuitive, scalable support software. When considering Zendesk vs. HubSpot, pick the proven leader in CX: Zendesk.

What sets Zendesk apart?

Laatst gewijzigd September 19, 2024

Zendesk has been the leader in CX software for over two decades. Today, we’re at the forefront of AI-powered CX with AI tools purpose-built for service teams trained on more than 18 billion real customer interactions. Our AI is seamlessly integrated into every aspect of our product, including our industry-leading Agent Workspace that empowers agents to manage and resolve customer interactions across all channels efficiently. We offer the most complete customer service solution for the AI era that scales to any use case.

Why choose Zendesk over HubSpot?

Businesses choose our CX solution over HubSpot's Service Hub for our unmatched CX expertise, product scalability, and intuitive design. Below, we'll dive deeper into each of these areas.

Three icons represent why users prefer Zendesk over HubSpot for its CX expertise, scalability, and easy-to-use interface.

1. CX expertise

Since our founding in 2007, we’ve been designing software specifically for CX. We embedded extensive expertise and best practices into our products, our exclusive community of CX leaders, and the guidance we provide to our customers. Meanwhile, HubSpot didn’t introduce its service solution until 2018.

2. Product scalability

From startups to global enterprises, our software scales effortlessly to meet the needs of any team, regardless of support volume or complexity. In contrast, HubSpot's Service Hub may struggle to scale due to fewer integrations, limited native service channels, less customizable reporting, and other product gaps.

3. Intuitive design and ease of use

Zendesk is easy to use and customize, enabling you to move at the speed of your business. Agents can manage all customer interactions in one place, with AI tools ready to boost productivity. Admins can effortlessly tailor workflows, reporting, and self-service to fit their needs. In contrast, HubSpot's lack of a unified agent workspace and limited customization options can hinder ease of use and productivity.

More in this guide:

At-a-glance comparison: Zendesk vs. HubSpot

Use this chart as a bird’s-eye view of benefits, features, and capabilities to quickly compare Zendesk and HubSpot. We based our analysis on user reviews, our customers' experiences, and deep research by our product team.

Critical capabilitiesZendeskHubSpot
Reporting and analytics
  • Advanced custom reporting
  • Custom metrics
  • Custom reports
  • Custom dashboards
  • Custom drill-in
  • Custom correlation
  • Basic, canned reporting
  • 5 service analytics reports and dashboards
    • Canned metrics
    • Canned reports
    • Canned dashboards
  • No custom drill-in
  • No custom correlation
Ticket management
  • Intelligent routing
  • Centralized ticket view
  • AI-generated ticket summaries
  • Dynamic ticket layouts
  • Automation to streamline handling
  • SLAs and OLAs
  • Skills-based routing
  • Centralized ticket view
  • Automation to streamline handling
  • SLAs
    • No OLAs

Knowledge base (AI and self-service)
  • Flexible hierarchies in the knowledge base
  • AI-powered Content Cues and knowledge base management
  • 6 levels of categorization for help center articles
  • Multi-language
  • Create and update content that lives across multiple articles or help centers
  • Limited hierarchies for categorizing content
  • No smart content cues
  • 2 levels of categorization for help center articles
  • Limited languages for help center translations
  • No ability to easily create and update content that lives across multiple articles or help centers
Integrations
  • Robust integration with HubSpot (1,900 customers currently use the integration)
  • Integrations with best-of-breed marketing and CRM solutions such as Salesforce, ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo, Iterable, and Klaviyo
  • Full CRM suite (sales, marketing, service)
  • Bi-directional integration with Salesforce, Jira, and Zendesk
Omnichannel support
  • Omnichannel support
  • Web and app messaging, social media, telephony, SMS, email, and Apple Messages for Business
  • Seamlessly shift conversations between channels
  • Limited native channel breadth
  • Unreliable native voice solution
  • No native SMS
  • Does not natively support frequently used social channels (Line, Apple Messages for Business)

Zendesk vs. HubSpot: Features comparison

The best customer service solutions have the right features to set your team up for success. Let’s look at the ones you need to deliver a top-tier CX.

Omnichannel support and ticket management

With Zendesk, your agents can deliver fast and personalized support across any channel, managing all interactions in one place. Our intuitive, industry-leading Agent Workspace surfaces important customer context so agents don't have to toggle between apps and waste time searching for information. Zendesk also enables businesses to offer support over popular social messaging apps—including Line, Apple Messaging for Business, and traditional SMS—opening up even more ways for customers to reach your business.

HubSpot’s omnichannel capabilities are not as extensive. It does not natively support frequently used social channels, like Line and Apple Messages for Business, and lacks native SMS support. Additionally, it lacks a true omnichannel workspace for agents. This means multiple conversations are spread across HubSpot’s agent workspace, increasing resolution times.

The Zendesk Agent Workspace centralizes customer interactions into one view.

See the Zendesk Agent Workspace in action.

Reporting and analytics

Zendesk reporting and analytics give insights on key customer metrics.

Improve agent performance with reports via Zendesk quality assurance software.

Zendesk offers robust analytics software with AI-powered workforce management (WFM) and quality assurance (QA) tools. Our QA solution evaluates 100 percent of interactions, helping you proactively address churn. Meanwhile, our WFM tools offer real-time insights into agent performance and accurately forecast staffing needs. With pre-built dashboards that integrate data from all channels, tracking performance is effortless. Customizing reports is seamless too, letting you focus on the metrics that matter most to your business.

HubSpot offers a basic set of reporting and analytics tools, with only five service analytics reports and dashboards. The software has canned reporting, metrics, and dashboards with no custom drill-in or custom correlation. And users don’t have access to QA or WFM features for additional insights.

Knowledge base

Zendesk provides AI-powered knowledge base tools that empower customers to self-serve effortlessly, freeing your team to focus on more valuable tasks. AI-driven search helps customers quickly find answers, while tools like Content Cues help your team maintain the knowledge base by identifying gaps and flagging underperforming content for updates. Integration with Google Analytics allows for deep, data-driven optimization, ensuring your knowledge base stays effective and up-to-date.

HubSpot’s knowledge base lacks functionalities such as AI-based robust search capabilities and in-depth data analytics, limiting the user experience. Organizing and maintaining content effectively can be more challenging with fewer categorization levels and a lack of smart features like Content Cues. Additionally, HubSpot’s knowledge base is only available in higher-tier plans, making it less accessible to businesses with limited budgets.

The Zendesk Marketplace, with over 1,700 integrations and apps.

Build a 360-degree customer view with the Zendesk Marketplace.

From marketing automation tools to CRM software, Zendesk offers more than 1,700 pre-built apps and integrations on our Marketplace. This enables businesses to extend our software to meet any use case, unify their data across systems, and build a 360-degree customer view. And Zendesk even integrates with HubSpot.

HubSpot offers a limited number of apps purpose-built for customer service, and only a fraction of its integrations are compatible with its service product. Users also cannot add individual permissions to apps, so they can’t prevent unintended access to certain information. Additionally, the ticketing workspace doesn't display integrated apps, meaning agents must leave their workspace to use them, impacting productivity and efficiency.

Pricing plans: HubSpot Service Hub vs. Zendesk

Compare the pricing plans of HubSpot vs. Zendesk.

ZendeskHubSpot Service Hub
  • Support Team: $19 per agent/month
  • Support Professional: $55 per agent/month
  • Support Enterprise: $115 per agent/month
  • Free: $0/month (for up to 5 users)
  • Starter: $15 per seat/month
  • Professional: $90 per seat/month
  • Enterprise: $150 per seat/month

*All plans are billed annually.

Zendesk grows with your business, enabling you to pivot and adapt quickly to changing needs. It sets up fast and has an intuitive interface that’s easy for agents to learn, so you don’t have to spend money upfront on costly developer teams or intensive training programs—and you benefit from a lower total cost of ownership overall. HubSpot isn’t built to scale, mostly due to its lack of advanced features, like problem-incident linking. And many important features are only available in the Enterprise plan, including single sign-on, field-level permissions, custom objects, and admin notifications management.

Zendesk customer stories

Don’t just take our word for it. Listen to what these companies had to say about Zendesk as the leading CX solution.

RapidG + Zendesk: Driving greater value

Everyone can see the value in Zendesk, and it’s making their lives easier,” according to RapidG’s Brendan Cappello.

Utila Dive Center + Zendesk: Centralizing support across multiple channels

Utila Dive Center’s Manny Lagos says the team uses Zendesk “as a centralized platform to receive messages…all in one place.”

Grove Collaborative + Zendesk: Increasing self-service engagement

Zendesk’s “self-service options [have] increased customer engagement with our help center,” according to Lucy Hussey at Motel Rocks.

Frequently asked questions

Ready to try Zendesk?

Zendesk is a trusted leader in customer service, purpose-built for CX since day one. Our scalable, intuitive, AI-driven omnichannel solution puts CX expertise in the palm of your hand. Try Zendesk for free and see how a complete, industry-leading CX solution can transform your customer service.

Start delivering better customer experiences with Zendesk