The Zendesk alternative you can start for free.
Start free with email and live chat in one inbox, a branded help center in your customers' language and customers verified on first contact. No credit card needed. Bring the whole team, every channel and the AI agent when you grow.
No credit card. Email, live chat, portal and knowledge base included.
Zendesk facts checked 3 October 2026 from its public pages. Sources at the bottom.
A real helpdesk. Free.
Free plan, not a trial. Everything a small team needs to answer customers well.
Zono Free
- Email and live chat in one inbox
- A help portal or help center on your own domain, with automatic SSL
- A knowledge base
- One brand kit for your portal, chat widget and customer emails
- One extra language for your portal, widget and emails, with your own translations
- Sign customers in with your own app
- Customers verified on first contact: Envato, Shopify, WordPress, Gumroad, LemonSqueezy or your own license server
- Limited AI credits each month
- A small team with unlimited tickets
- No credit card
Zendesk
No free plan. A 14-day trial of Suite Professional.
Zono and Zendesk, line by line
Zono:Free plan, not a trial: a small team with unlimited tickets, email and live chat, a branded portal and knowledge base, customer verification and free AI credits every month. No credit card
Zendesk:No free plan. A 14-day trial of Suite Professional
Zono:Email and live chat on Free; Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, LINE and TikTok on Premium. Replies go back where the customer wrote
Zendesk:Messaging, live chat and social channels from Suite Team
Zono:An AI agent on Premium, grounded in your knowledge base, saved replies and resolved tickets. Confidence threshold, escalation keywords, a live activity feed and a stop button; it acts on its own only once you switch it on. Cap it with a monthly budget or bring your own OpenAI or Anthropic key
Zendesk:AI agents billed per automated resolution, with a small monthly allowance per agent
Zono:Portal, chat widget and customer emails in your customers' language, with your own translations: one extra language on Free, no limit on Premium. Right-to-left languages supported
Zendesk:Multilingual help center from Suite Professional
Zono:SLA policies, business hours and CSAT surveys on Premium
Zendesk:SLAs and CSAT surveys from Suite Professional
Zono:Free: sign customers in with your own app, with one identity secret for chat and portal and portal single sign-on. Premium: "Continue with" Okta, Auth0, Microsoft Entra ID, Keycloak or any OpenID Connect provider
Zendesk:End-user single sign-on with JWT, SAML or OpenID Connect on Team plans and up
Zono:Premium: 14 tools for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code, with OAuth sign-in or API tokens
Zendesk:Not listed on Zendesk's plans page
Zono:Envato, Shopify, WordPress, Gumroad, LemonSqueezy or your own license server, verified on first contact on every plan
Zendesk:Not part of Zendesk's published plans
Switching from Zendesk
- Start on the free plan. No credit card needed.
- Run Zono alongside Zendesk on email and live chat until you are sure.
- Import customers and knowledge base articles from CSV.
- There is no automatic ticket importer. If you want help moving over from Zendesk, we help by hand.
- Upgrade to Premium when your team grows.
- Want a hand moving over? Email [email protected].
Zono or Zendesk?
Sources
Zendesk facts come from its public pages, checked 3 October 2026. Prices and plans change; if something here is out of date, tell us at [email protected] and we'll fix it.
Answer your next customer free.
Upgrade when you grow.
No credit card. Email, live chat, portal and knowledge base included.