Agentforce Service vs Zendesk
Pick Agentforce Service, which Salesforce still prices as Service Cloud, if your company already runs sales or commerce on Salesforce and support has to work from the same customer record. Pick Zendesk if support is its own operation and you want email, live chat, SLAs and an AI agent for about a third of Salesforce's seat price. Price decides most cases. For email, chat and an AI agent under SLAs, Salesforce's cheapest route is Core with Contact Center Digital at $270 a user a month plus the Help Agent, against $89 an agent for Zendesk Suite Growth, both billed annually.
| Fact | Agentforce Service | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $25/agent/mo | $25/agent/mo |
| Plans | Starter Suite, Pro Suite, Core, Advanced, Max | Support Team, Suite Team, Suite Growth, Suite Professional, Suite Enterprise + Copilot |
| Best for | — | Large support orgs, Multi-brand deployments, Complex routing |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, US | San Francisco, US |
| Founded | 1999 | 2007 |
| Facts checked |
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What each costs
Ten agents, billed annually, answering email and web chat under SLAs, with an AI agent that resolves 300 conversations a month without a person. Zendesk Suite Growth is the cheapest Zendesk plan with SLAs. Salesforce's Core has entitlements and case milestones but no web chat, so the cheapest Salesforce route adds Contact Center Digital and buys the AI agent separately.
Zendesk Suite Growth
- Seats: 10 × $89 = $890 a month, $10,680 a year
- AI: the plan includes 10 automated resolutions per agent a month, 100 for ten agents. The other 200 at the $1.50 committed rate are $300 a month, $3,600 a year ($4,800 at the $2.00 pay-as-you-go rate)
- Year one: $10,680 + $3,600 = $14,280
Agentforce Service Core with Contact Center Digital
- Seats: 10 × ($195 + $75) = $2,700 a month, $32,400 a year. Contact Center Digital adds web chat and messaging
- AI: the Help Agent is a separate purchase on Core, and Salesforce doesn't publish what buying it costs there. Its rate card lists Help Agent resolutions at $2, so 300 a month is at least $600 a month, $7,200 a year. Core's 500K included Flex Credits might cover it if the contract allows; Salesforce's pages don't say
- Year one: at least $32,400 + $7,200 = $39,600
Salesforce costs at least $25,320 more in year one. The seat gap is $21,720 ($32,400 less $10,680), and the AI bill adds at least another $3,600 ($7,200 less $3,600).
Advanced at $395 includes web chat and the Help Agent, and its seats cost $15,000 a year more than Core with Contact Center Digital. Seats are 10 × $395 = $47,400, and 300 Help Agent resolutions a month at $2 add $7,200, for $54,600. If your contract lets the Help Agent draw on Advanced's 1 million included Flex Credits, year one is $47,400, but Salesforce's pages don't say it does. That puts Advanced $40,320 above Zendesk at the published $2 rate, or $33,120 if the credits cover the agent, and the seat gap alone is $36,720. What it adds is the full sandbox, Backup & Recover and Data Detect. Pro Suite at $100 has chat and entitlements but no AI agent, and it is a CRM suite with transaction fees on top.
The fees the headline leaves out:
- On Advanced, messaging channels beyond web chat are Enhanced Messaging, another $75 a user a month, $9,000 a year for ten agents. Max includes them
- Voice: Salesforce's Contact Center is $125 a user a month, or $250 for Contact Center Plus. Zendesk's Contact Center add-on, for complex contact centres, is $83 an agent a month paid yearly
- Workforce and quality management are $50 a user a month each on Salesforce below Max. Zendesk's Workforce Engagement Bundle is $50 an agent a month paid yearly
- Agent-side AI: Zendesk Copilot is $50 an agent a month paid yearly and needs Suite Professional or above. Salesforce's Agentforce add-on, unmetered for your own staff, is $125 a user a month, and Max includes it
- Unused Flex Credits don't roll over into the next term, and use past your balance is billed monthly in arrears at the contracted rate
- Setup: neither publishes a price. Salesforce points buyers to its Professional Services team and certified partners, and Zendesk's plan comparison lists Professional Services (configuration, solution design, data migration) as an add-on
Agentforce Service plans
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter Suite | $25 | $25 | Starting price. |
| Pro Suite | – | $100 | Starting price. |
| Core | – | $195 | Billed annually. |
| Advanced | – | $395 | Billed annually. |
| Max | – | $550 | Billed annually. |
Prices are an agent a month, in US dollars. Source: salesforce.com/service/pricing, checked .
Zendesk plans
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support Team | $25 | $19 | Ticketing without the wider Suite. |
| Suite Team | $69 | $55 | The entry point to the Suite, which is where the AI and the extra channels start. |
| Suite Growth | $115 | $89 | Listed in the "Compare all plan features" table on Zendesk's pricing page, not on the plan cards. |
| Suite Professional | $149 | $115 | Marked Most Popular by Zendesk. |
| Suite Enterprise + Copilot | Contact sales | – | Quoted, not published. |
Prices are an agent a month, in US dollars. Source: zendesk.com/pricing, checked .
Where the features differ
25 of the 30 features we checked on both differ in availability or the plan you need. The other 5 are the same on both. Each answer links to the page on the vendor’s own site that says so.
| Feature | Agentforce Service | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Channels | ||
| Contact form and widget | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource |
| Every plansource | Every plansource | |
| Live chat | Some plansfrom Pro Suitesource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource |
| Phone | Paid add-onsource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource |
| SMS | Paid add-onsource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource |
| Social DMs | Paid add-onsource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource |
| Paid add-onsource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource | |
| AI and automation | ||
| Agent copilot | Some plansfrom Maxsource | Paid add-onfrom Suite Professionalsource |
| AI agent (customer-facing) | Some plansfrom Advancedsource | Every plansource |
| Automation rules | Every plansource | Every plansource |
| Intent detection and routing | Some planssource | Some plansfrom Suite Professionalsource |
| Voice AI | Paid add-onsource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource |
| Self-service | ||
| Customer portal | Some plansfrom Coresource | Some plansfrom Suite Growthsource |
| Customer-facing help centre | Some plansfrom Coresource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource |
| Multilingual support | Paid add-onsource | Some plansfrom Suite Growthsource |
| Workflow and admin | ||
| Native mobile app for agents | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Suite Growthsource |
| Sandbox | Some plansfrom Advancedsource | Some plansfrom Suite Enterprisesource |
| Side conversations | Some plansfrom Coresource | Some plansfrom Suite Professionalsource |
| SLA management | Some plansfrom Coresource | Some plansfrom Suite Growthsource |
| Reporting and quality | ||
| Custom reports and export | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Suite Professionalsource |
| QA and agent scoring | Some plansfrom Maxsource | Paid add-onsource |
| Reporting dashboards | Every plansource | Every plansource |
| Ecommerce | ||
| Order actions in the ticket | Some plansfrom Coresource | Some plansfrom Suite Teamsource |
| Security and reliability | ||
| 24/7 vendor support | Some plansfrom Advancedsource | Paid add-onsource |
| HIPAA | Every plansource | Some plansfrom Suite Professionalsource |
AI agents and how they bill
Zendesk's AI bill is easier to forecast. Salesforce's depends on the meter in your contract, $2 per Help Agent resolution, $2 per conversation or Flex Credits per action, and its pages don't say which one Advanced's included agent uses.
- Zendesk includes AI agents on every Suite and Support plan and bills per automated resolution, a request resolved with no escalation to a human: $1.50 committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go, after 5 included per agent a month on Suite Team and 10 on Suite Growth and Suite Professional, up to 10,000 a year
- Under Flex Credits, Salesforce meters actions. A standard Agentforce action is 20 Flex Credits ($0.10) and a voice action 30 ($0.15). Each action is metered individually, so a conversation that ends with a person has still used credits
- Salesforce also sells AI at $2 per conversation or $2 per Help Agent resolution. An org uses one meter at a time, though a Conversation customer can later swap its Conversation SKUs for Flex Credits
- Included credits are 500K on Core, 1 million on Advanced and 2.75 million per org per year on Max. Max's are per org, so adding seats adds cost without adding credits
From running support desks, we know an AI agent hands a lot of conversations to people in its first months, while the help centre fills in. Zendesk doesn't charge for those handoffs. Under Flex Credits every lookup the agent makes counts, so find out which meter your contract uses before launch and watch usage through the first quarter.
Chat, messaging and phone
Zendesk puts more channels in the seat price.
- Zendesk Suite Team and above include messaging, live chat and telephony alongside email. Phone numbers and call minutes bill on use, and Suite Professional adds an IVR phone tree
- On Salesforce Core, web chat needs Contact Center Digital and native voice needs Contact Center. Advanced adds web chat only
- Max includes digital channels, and its voice is Contact Center Voice at $75 a user a month with unlimited platform voice minutes, sold to Max customers only
Ten agents with email, chat and phone on Salesforce Core plus Contact Center come to 10 × ($195 + $125) = $38,400 a year. On Zendesk Suite Growth the same channels sit inside the $10,680 seat bill, with numbers and minutes on top.
Contracts and commitment
Zendesk asks for less up front.
- Zendesk subscriptions can be month to month, annual or multi-year
- Salesforce bills Core, Advanced and Max annually, Pro Suite requires a contract, and its FAQ says most products use annual contracts
- Salesforce offers a 30-day Service Cloud trial with no credit card. Zendesk's 14-day trial runs on Suite Professional with Copilot included
- If you hold an older Salesforce quote, Core replaces Enterprise Edition, Advanced replaces Unlimited Edition and Max replaces Agentforce 1 Edition, per Salesforce's FAQ
- Leaving Zendesk later is easier from the plan priced here. Its export tools need Suite Growth or above, and are off until the account owner asks Zendesk support to switch them on. Team plans have only the REST API
How we checked this
- The arithmetic is ours, from the published per-seat, per-credit and per-resolution prices
- Checked 2026-10-31
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