Zendesk vs. Intercom

Customer expectations are already high, but with the rise of AI, consumers are expecting even more. They want a hyper-personalized experience on their channel of choice, and 81 percent of them believe AI has become part of modern customer service, according to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2025. To meet these rising expectations, businesses need to invest in AI models that are purpose-built for CX.

Zendesk and Intercom offer customer service software with AI capabilities; however, they are not created equal. With Zendesk, you get next-level AI-powered, intuitively designed, scalable, and cost-effective support software. Compare Zendesk vs. Intercom and future-proof your business with reliable, easy-to-use software.

1. Intuitive design

Zendesk is designed with the agent in mind, delivering a modern, intuitive experience. The customizable Zendesk Agent Workspace enables reps to work within a single browser tab with one-click navigation across any channel. Intercom, on the other hand, can be a complicated system, creating a steep learning curve for new users.

2. Greater scalability

Zendesk is built to grow alongside your business, resulting in less downtime, better cost savings, and the stability needed to provide exceptional customer support. Many customers start using Zendesk as small or mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and continue to use our software as they scale their operations, hire more staff, and serve more customers. Our robust, no-code integrations enable you to adapt our software to new and growing use cases. Compared to Zendesk, Intercom offers few integrations, which may hinder its scalability.

3. Low total cost of ownership

Zendesk is simple to set up, customize, and maintain. As a result, customers can implement the help desk software quickly, without the need for developers, and see a faster return on investment. Plus, our transparent pricing doesn’t have hidden fees or endless add-ons, so customers know exactly what they're paying for and can calculate the total cost of ownership ahead of time. In comparison, Intercom’s confusing pricing structure features multiple add-ons that may be unsuitable for small businesses.

More in this guide:

• At-a-glance comparison: Zendesk vs. Intercom
• Zendesk vs. Intercom: Features comparison
• Pricing plans: Intercom vs. Zendesk
• Why customers choose Zendesk over Intercom
• Frequently asked questions
• Ready to try Zendesk?

It’s easy to see how Zendesk excels over Intercom. Check out our chart that compares the capabilities of Zendesk vs. Intercom.

It’s easy to see how Zendesk excels over Intercom. Check out our chart that compares the capabilities of Zendesk vs. Intercom.

AI and automation

Experience intelligent CX with Zendesk AI.

Zendesk AI infuses CX intelligence into every step of the customer journey. In addition to being pre-trained on billions of real support interactions, our AI powers capabilities likeAI agents, AI copilot, agent and admin assist, and intelligent workflows that help businesses improve their CX and do more with less. Customers have also noted that they can implement Zendesk AI five times faster than other solutions.

Intercom also uses AI and features a chatbot called Fin, which many users note problems with, highlighting slow support response times and knowledge gaps. In comparison, Zendesk delivers quick answers and avoids knowledge gaps, helping users complete tasks and find what they need more efficiently than Fin.

AI-powered voice

Zendesk provides the ultimate voice solution for the AI era. For inbound needs, teams can deploy AI agents to answer calls, solve sophisticated interactions, and redirect customers to a human agent if necessary. After a call is complete, AI-powered transcription features deliver a call summary to the agent's workspace, so they can focus on helping the next customer. Finally, quality assurance (QA) capabilities empower managers to evaluate 100 percent of customer interactions to monitor agent performance and identify customer churn risks and outliers. 

Intercom does not have AI voice capabilities. However, it does offer general phone support, allowing teams to make inbound and outbound calls that link into a shared agent inbox. It also offers IVR routing, video calls, and a call dashboard. However, the product's AI agent, Fin, cannot currently integrate with phone capabilities.

Dial up your phone support with Zendesk Voice.

Native unified omnichannel workspace

Learn more about the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

Zendesk gives agents a unified omnichannel workspace with an intelligent ticketing system and embedded call center software. This single interface allows support agents to manage emails, SMS, phone calls, live chat, in-app messaging, and social messaging interactions seamlessly from one place.

Intercom primarily focuses on messaging and is still new to importantcommunication channels like voice. It also requires paid add-ons for critical channels like WhatsApp.

Robust integrations

The Zendesk Marketplace offers over 1,800 no-code apps and integrations. Our software is trusted by over 160,000 customers who have successfully integrated key technologies such as Salesforce, Jira, Shopify, Slack, and Microsoft Teams, backed by reliable APIs and proven custom integration references.

Intercom offers just over 450 integrations, which can make customizing the software and adapting to new use cases as you scale more expensive and complex. The platform also lacks transparency in displaying reviews, install counts, and purpose-built customer service integrations.

Explore our plug-and-play integrations in the Zendesk Marketplace.

Security and compliance

See how Zendesk prioritizes data security and compliance.

Zendesk provides comprehensive security and compliance features to ensure customer data privacy. These include secure login options like SAML or JWT SSO (single sign-on) and native content redaction for sensitive information. We also adhere to numerous industry standards and regulations, such as HIPAA, SOC2, ISO 27001, HDS, FedRAMP LI-SaaS, ISO 27018, and ISO 27701.

Intercom doesn’t offer native content redaction for sensitive information or offer device access restrictions. It reserves SSO and identity management for its highest-tier pricing as gated add-ons.

Reporting and analytics

Zendesk boasts robust reporting and analytics tools, plus a dedicated workforce management system. With custom correlation and attribution, you can dive deep into the root cause behind your metrics. We also provide real-time and historical reporting dashboards so you can take action at the moment and learn from past trends. Meanwhile, our WFM software enables businesses to analyze employee metrics and performance, helping them identify improvements, implement strategies, and set long-term goals.

Intercom offers reporting and analytics tools with limited capabilities for custom reporting, user behavior metrics, and advanced visualization. It also lacks advanced features like collaboration reporting, custom metrics, metric correlation, and drill-in attribution. Intercom does not have a dedicated workforce management solution, either.

Learn more about robust reporting and analytics from Zendesk.

Zendesk offers flexible pricing plans that grow with your needs, allowing you to pivot and add features exactly when you need them. Our product is easy to set up and use, and it’s designed to get teams up and running in minutes, not months. Zendesk empowers you to ditch the developers and lengthy training programs and achieve a low total cost of ownership.

Intercom, on the other hand, isn't built to scale as seamlessly as Zendesk. In the most expensive plan, teams only gain valuable features like service level agreements (SLAs) and advanced data security. The biggest red flag is the AI pricing. Intercom's AI capabilities are billed as add-ons no matter the plan, and the AI agent costs $0.99 per interaction, even when a chat is abandoned. This can easily add up for teams that intend to lean on AI to assist their help desk.

With over 160,000 customers across all industries and regions, Zendesk has the CX expertise to provide you with best practices and thought leadership to increase your overall value. But don’t just take our word for it—listen to what customers say about why they picked Zendesk.

Reprise

“There were a lot of shortcomings with the previous solution, Intercom. We couldn’t get the full messaging history or properly track different ticket queues—things that were super important to us. We sorely needed the ability to create a better help center and documentation. So we chose Zendesk and haven’t looked back.”

—Paul Vidal, VP of customer success at Reprise

Novo

“We built an agent view into our database directly in Zendesk, so they no longer have to switch off Zendesk to log into our database to view customer attributes. In the moment, it saves a couple of seconds, but over thousands of tickets? That saves hours. That alone has been one of the most impactful things.”

—Brian Kale, head of customer success at Novo

Bitly

“We saw a real improvement in the agent’s ability to iterate on their workflows and an increase in the number of one-touch tickets that could be solved with macros. We became much more efficient and successful on Zendesk.”

—Brad Harris, global customer support director at Bitly