Crisp vs Zendesk: which fits your store?

Last verified 2026-10-01

Crisp and Zendesk are both helpdesk & cx app tools compared here on pricing verified 2026-10-01, published plans, App Store standing, and themes from recent merchant reviews. Crisp starts cheaper (free vs $25/mo); Crisp has a free tier, Zendesk does not. Zendesk: These reviews suggest the app fits established support teams already using Zendesk who mainly need Shopify order and customer context available inside tickets. — from tracked pricing and recent App Store review analysis.

How do Crisp and Zendesk compare?

	Crisp	Zendesk
App Store rating	—	3.5 ★ (77 reviews)
Price from	free	$25/mo
Free tier	✓ yes	✗ no
Published plans	5	8
Data confidence	high	high

What would you actually pay?

Crisp plans

Plan	Monthly	Limits / notes
Free	$0	2 agents; 100 customer profiles; 0 sub-inboxes; unlimited conversations; no AI credits
Mini	$45	4 agents; 5,000 customer profiles; 0 sub-inboxes; $5 in AI credits for around 90 automated conversations
Essentials	$95	10 agents; 50,000 customer profiles; 2 sub-inboxes; $25 in AI credits for around 450 automated conversations
Plus	$295	20+ agents; 200,000 customer profiles; 5 sub-inboxes; $75 in AI credits for around 1,350 automated conversations; additional agents are $10 per month
Enterprise	—	Custom limits, onboarding, SLA, features, and team training

Prices are displayed in USD and exclude VAT. Yearly billing is available, but no yearly price or discount is stated.

Verified 2026-10-01 from vendor pricing page.

Zendesk plans

Plan	Monthly	Limits / notes
Support Team	$25	Per agent; includes 5 automated resolutions per agent/month. Additional committed automated resolutions cost $1.50 each; pay-as-you-go resolutions cost $2.00 each.
Suite Team	$69	Per agent; includes 5 automated resolutions per agent/month. Additional committed automated resolutions cost $1.50 each; pay-as-you-go resolutions cost $2.00 each.
Suite Professional	$149	Per agent; includes 10 automated resolutions per agent/month and 5 pooled Copilot uses per agent/month, capped at 500 uses per instance/month. Additional committed automated resolutions cost $1.50 each; pay-as-you-go resolutions cost $2.00 each.
Suite Enterprise + Copilot	—	Custom pricing; contact sales. Includes advanced security, governance, Copilot, intelligent triage, Auto Assist, generative AI for voice, approval workflows, sandbox, and custom agent roles.
Copilot add-on	—	Per agent/month, paid yearly.
Workforce Engagement Bundle add-on	—	Per agent/month, paid yearly.
Contact Center add-on	—	Per agent/month, paid yearly; calling usage and some telephony features may incur additional fees.
Zendesk + Forethought	—	Custom pricing; contact sales.

Prices shown in USD. Zendesk also supports EUR, GBP, and BRL, but no prices in those currencies are shown.

Verified 2026-10-01 from vendor pricing page.

Which features does each include?

Feature	Crisp	Zendesk

Extracted from each vendor's App Store listing (2026-07-20); "—" = not stated there. Verify tier availability on vendor pricing pages.

What do merchants say about them?

No review analysis yet for Crisp.

Zendesk

Sentiment is sharply split by time and use case: older reviews often praise the Shopify-Zendesk integration for surfacing order details inside support tickets, while recent reviews are overwhelmingly negative about Zendesk's own support, setup, billing, and communication. Merchants who only need order visibility in Zendesk report clear workflow gains, but those evaluating Zendesk as a full service platform describe high friction and poor vendor responsiveness.

＋ Order context in tickets — Merchants value seeing customer, order, transaction, shipping, and note details directly inside Zendesk while handling tickets.
＋ Faster support workflow — The integration reduces tab switching and helps teams answer customer questions more quickly and efficiently.
＋ Useful support-team tool — Several merchants describe the app as a reliable or important part of their customer service workflow.
＋ Time savings — Reviewers say having Shopify data embedded in Zendesk saves agent time during ticket resolution.

－ Poor Zendesk support — Many negative reviewers report slow, unhelpful, absent, or unresolved support interactions from Zendesk itself.
－ Billing and cancellation issues — Several merchants describe unwanted charges, refund difficulties, confusing renewals, or cancellation friction.
－ Difficult setup and onboarding — Some merchants found configuration confusing, under-documented, dated, or blocked by weak onboarding help.

Watch out: The main caveat is recurring dissatisfaction with Zendesk support, billing, setup complexity, and gaps in advanced workflow features.

Synthesized from the 20 most recent App Store reviews (2026-07-16); themes paraphrased.

FAQ

Which is cheaper, Crisp or Zendesk?

Crisp starts lower at free, vs $25/mo for Zendesk (verified 2026-10-01).

Does Crisp or Zendesk have a free plan?

Crisp has a free tier; Zendesk does not publish one.

Which is rated higher on the Shopify App Store?

App Store ratings are shown in the table above where available.

How we compare: pricing and plans are collected automatically from vendor pages on a schedule and shown with verification dates; ratings come from the Shopify App Store; merchant sentiment is synthesized from the most recent App Store reviews (paraphrased, never quoted). We currently have no affiliate relationship with either vendor. Found an error? The data snapshot behind this page is dated — check the vendor's page for same-day changes.

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