ChatFrom vs Zendesk: price, AI and when you need a help desk

A small support team can pay $577 a month for Zendesk once its AI agent is added. ChatFrom answers the same questions for $29, alone or in front of Zendesk.

ChatFrom and Zendesk are often weighed against each other, but they are built for different jobs. Zendesk is a help desk, where a team works through tickets, and it now has an AI agent that can answer customers on its own. ChatFrom is a chatbot that answers customers from your own documents and website, and hands the rest to a person. Which one you need depends on how your support works, and the difference in price is large.

For a team of three that answers about 600 conversations a month, where the AI resolves 200 of them, Zendesk Suite Team with its AI agent comes to about $577 a month, or $442.50 if you pay yearly. ChatFrom answers those questions for $29 a month on Pro, with no seats, and hands the rest to your inbox. The two also work together. With ChatFrom answering first and Zendesk taking the rest as tickets, the same team pays $236.

ChatFrom is what I make, so I will also say where Zendesk is the better choice.

Two products for different jobs

A help desk is where a team works. Every request becomes a ticket with a status and an owner, several people share one inbox, and reports show how the team is doing. A chatbot that answers is for the questions that come every day, answered from what is already written down, without anyone at the desk.

Zendesk does the first job very well, and its AI agent is a way into the second. ChatFrom does only the second, and leaves the first to your inbox or to the help desk you already have. A team that spends its day on the same twenty questions often needs the second more than the first, and that is worth knowing before you compare prices.

How each one charges

Zendesk charges for each person on your team, which it calls an agent. These are the plans a small team chooses between.

The AI agent comes with every plan, but only a handful of its resolutions do. Past those, each one costs $2.00 as you go, or $1.50 if you buy them in advance. There is no free plan, and the trial lasts 14 days.

Zendesk's help centre describes a newer way of counting, and it is fairer. The AI's work is sorted into three kinds, and only one of them is charged, a conversation where the customer asked nothing more and a second AI check confirmed it was solved. A conversation a person had to finish costs nothing, and so does one the check could not confirm.

Instead of a count, each plan then gets a small allowance, $2 per agent a month on Suite Team and $5 on Professional, and anything past it is charged as you go. The pricing page still lists the included count, and neither page says which accounts are on which, so it is worth asking Zendesk which applies to you.

ChatFrom charges by plan, not by person or by resolution. Each plan comes with credits, and each reply uses one on the default model.

When the month's credits are used, the chatbot stops answering until the month starts again, so the bill never grows past the plan.

What a month costs

Here is what the same team would pay each way. Three people answer about 600 conversations by email and chat, and the AI resolves about 200 of them without anyone stepping in. The prices are for paying monthly, with the yearly price in brackets where there is one.

The difference comes from how the AI is paid for. Zendesk charges for each conversation its AI resolves, so the better the AI works, the more it costs, and for this team the AI is most of the bill. ChatFrom's answers are part of a flat plan, so a good month costs the same as a quiet one. What you give up is the help desk itself, unless you keep Zendesk behind it.

If the newer way of counting applies to your account, the Zendesk line moves a little. The allowance covers fewer resolutions than the included count, but conversations the check could not confirm are not charged, so for this team the two come out close.

What the AI can do

Zendesk's strength is everything around the AI. Your team gets tickets, saved replies, routing rules, reports, voice and social channels, and a large marketplace of integrations, all in one place, and a person can step into the same chat the AI started. That matters for a team of several people who answer customers all day.

ChatFrom's strength is the answering itself. It learns from more kinds of sources, shows the source under each answer, and answers in Telegram, Slack and Discord as well as on your site and in WhatsApp. Once you connect your accounts, it can look up a Shopify order and request a return, show or cancel a Stripe subscription, book a call in Cal.com or Calendly, and save a lead to HubSpot. Its price does not move with each conversation.

Where your data is kept

Zendesk can keep an account's data in the EU from Suite Professional upwards, at no extra cost, once you ask for it. On Support Team and Suite Team it is not offered. ChatFrom keeps everything in Frankfurt on every plan, the free one included. For both, the AI models behind the answers may run elsewhere.

Use both, with ChatFrom in front

You do not have to choose one. ChatFrom can answer first and pass the rest to Zendesk as tickets, so your team keeps working the way it does today and stops paying for each AI resolution.

The simplest way is a hand-off by email to your Zendesk support address. The email carries the whole conversation, and when the customer gave their email, it names that address as the one to reply to. Zendesk makes that address the ticket's requester, so the ticket is in the customer's name and your team's answer goes straight to them.

For the team above, that is $236 a month instead of $577, or $194 instead of $442.50 if you pay Zendesk yearly. If ChatFrom answers all the chat on your site, Support Team, which is email only, may be enough for the tickets, and the month comes to $104.

There is a trade-off. Zendesk's own AI answers inside Zendesk's messaging, and a person can take over the same chat. With ChatFrom in front, the customer chats with ChatFrom, and a hand-off continues as an email from your team rather than in the same chat window. One practical detail when you set it up. ChatFrom asks a new hand-off address to confirm itself with a link, and that email arrives in Zendesk as a ticket, so open it there and press the link.

What ChatFrom does not do

• It is not a help desk. There are no tickets, statuses or team reports. The work after a hand-off happens in your help desk or your inbox.
• There is no live takeover in the same chat, except in Crisp, where your team can write in a conversation and the chatbot steps aside.
• One person per account. Several people cannot share a ChatFrom account yet.
• It does not answer by phone, SMS, Messenger or Instagram. It works on your website, WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Crisp and email.
• Answers stop at the plan's limit. When the month's credits are used, the chatbot stops answering until the month starts again or you move to a bigger plan.

Common questions

Does Zendesk have a chatbot?

Yes. Zendesk's AI agent comes with every Suite and Support plan and answers customers in Zendesk's messaging from your help centre articles. It is charged per resolution, with five per agent a month included on the Team plans and $2.00 for each one after that, or $1.50 if you buy them in advance.

How much does Zendesk's AI agent cost?

For three agents on Suite Team and 200 resolutions a month, 15 are included and the other 185 add $370, or $277.50 if you buy them in advance. That is on top of $207 for the seats. Under the newer way of counting in Zendesk's help centre, only resolutions that a second AI check confirms are charged.

Is ChatFrom cheaper than Zendesk?

For answering customers, yes. ChatFrom Pro is $29 a month with no seats, against $577 for the team above on Zendesk with its AI agent. But ChatFrom is not a help desk, so a team that works tickets all day still needs one, and then the cheapest setup is Zendesk with ChatFrom in front.

Can I use ChatFrom with Zendesk?

Yes. ChatFrom can answer first and hand over to your Zendesk support address by email, where the conversation becomes a ticket in the customer's name. It can also call one of your own actions, such as one that opens a ticket through Zendesk's API.

Which one keeps data in the EU?

ChatFrom keeps everything in Frankfurt on every plan. Zendesk can keep data in the EU from Suite Professional, at $149 an agent a month, once you ask.

Is there a free plan?

Zendesk has no free plan, only a 14-day trial. ChatFrom's Hobby plan is free, with 50 credits a month, enough to try it on your own questions.

Which one to choose

If your team works tickets all day, Zendesk is the better tool, and the way to keep its bill down is to keep the AI part small. If you like Zendesk and only the AI bill hurts, keep it and put ChatFrom in front. And if most of your messages are the same questions, you may not need a help desk yet. I would try ChatFrom on a week of your real messages and see how many it answers before you decide.

ChatFrom builds an AI support chatbot that answers your customers from your documents and website, on your site, in chat apps and by email. You can start on the free Hobby plan, with no card, and see how it compares on the compare page and the pricing page.