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Zendesk vs HubSpot

Service Hub is easy and powerful customer service software that connects without complexity, powers productivity with easy-to-adopt tools, and supports growing service teams.

Get started with Service Hub today!

HubSpot

HubSpot is a cloud-based customer platform that helps scaling businesses grow better with sales, service, marketing, and content management software.

Service Hub is a seamless component of HubSpot’s AI-powered Smart CRM, providing businesses with a streamlined way to resolve customer issues, and a complete view of their customer interactions and data from every aspect of the flywheel. 

Zendesk

Zendesk is a cloud-based platform focused on providing service-oriented solutions aimed at improving customer relationships.

Zendesk Service is a customer support solution under the Zendesk platform. It is designed to manage customer requests, tickets, and communication channels such as email, chat, phone, and social media.

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Key Capabilities of Service Hub

  • Connected: Service Hub is a component of HubSpot’s AI-powered Smart CRM, which means you’ll have a complete view of customer interactions in one place. This powers businesses to pinpoint significant opportunities for bolstering customer connections with context for marketing, sales, and service.

  • Productive: Drive team efficiency by automating processes, eliminating manual tasks, streamlining ticketing, providing self-service for customers, and creating avenues for personalizing communications.

  • Engaged: Provide the customer service tools to help you deliver authentic service and grow better by putting the customer first.

What Sets HubSpot Apart

Connected

What Zendesk Offers:

  • Zendesk has an extensive Marketplace that allows customers to integrate third party tools.
  • To foster collaboration and communication between Service and Sales, Zendesk users will be required to purchase Zendesk Sell.

What Sets HubSpot Apart:

  • Service Hub enables businesses to provide personalized customer service, marketing, and sales experiences, resulting in increased customer engagement and insights that power your whole front office.
  • There are tools to help increase collaboration between Service, Sales and Marketing such as Playbooks, Email Templates, Sequences and Meetings. No connectors or data sync required!
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Service Hub customers with every size of company see their ticket close rate increase by 24% or more after 12 months. (Hubspot Annual ROI Report)

Productive

What Zendesk Offers:

  • Zendesk Support organizes agents into appropriate groups and sorts tickets into views, ensuring that each ticket is presented to the most suitable agent for resolution.
  • Bots boost customer engagement with timely advice and keep agents focused on crucial tasks. Integrate your own chatbots or use a third-party chatbot builder, which typically requires add-ons.

What Sets HubSpot Apart:

  • Service Hub helps you stay organized and streamline your service processes through a single source of customer information in the CRM. And you can set custom statuses for tickets ensuring your ticket pipeline works for you and your process.
  • HubSpot helps you store, track, manage, and report on tickets customers make throughout the service process, with custom reporting to ensure you’ve got the data to continue growing. Service Analytics offers a comprehensive reporting tool to track customer satisfaction, team performance, and support volume.
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Service Hub customers see an average increase of 324% in tickets closed after 12 months. (Hubspot Annual ROI Report)

Engaged

What Zendesk Offers:

  • Zendesk tools foster customer engagement by enabling users to submit inquiries and give feedback, monitor ticket status, access self-help knowledge bases, and obtain prompt responses.
  • In Zendesk, users have the ability to create CSAT surveys. To craft custom surveys or enhance existing survey options, users will typically have to rely on integrations and API implementations.

What Sets HubSpot Apart:

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Customers who own Service Hub for 7-12 months see a higher ticket close rate than customers who own Service Hub for less time. (Hubspot Annual ROI Report)

Feature Comparison

Feature HubSpot Zendesk
Base License
Service Hub Enterprise
Zendesk Service Enterprise
Conversation Routing
Knowledge Base
Live Chat
Customer Portal
Channel Switching
Conversational Intelligence
Workflow & Approval Automation
Service Mobile App
SMS Hosted Support
Phone Numbers Provided
Playbooks
Custom Surveys
Multiple Custom Ticket Status
Add 50 different pipelines, with custom ticket status
Can only customize the ticket status across the platform
Get a demo

Total Cost of Ownership

HubSpot

HubSpot Service Hub provides customer service and support, enables efficient handling, and addresses the resolution of customer inquiries.

  • Implementation: The average time to activation for Service Hub Enterprise is around 3 months and 68% of Service Hub Enterprise customers display high feature usage (source).
  • Service & Support: HubSpot provides different support channels depending upon your subscription, all included.
  • Tickets Closed: Service Hub customers see an average increase of 324% in tickets closed after 12 months.

Zendesk

The total cost of owning Zendesk goes beyond subscription fees, including hidden costs like service and support, implementation, and training. 

Capability
HubSpot
Zendesk
Base License
Service Hub Enterprise
$$
Zendesk Service Enterprise
$$
Seats
10
*No Seat Minimum
10
Onboarding
$
$$$
Service & Support
Phone, Chat, and Email support included
$$
Training & Educational Resources
Included:
HubSpot Academy, Community
Included:
Zendesk Help Center, Community
Migration
Not required
$
Add-on
Customization / Configuration
Easy to customize & configure in-house
$$
Add-on
Developer Support
$
$$
Add-on
Integrations
$
App Marketplace
$
Zendesk Marketplace
Time to Value
$
51 days to activation
$
~ 2 months
Maintenance / Admin
Enjoy a seamless platform built on one code base
Admin not required
$
 Low-code, logic-based platform
1 admin
Sandbox
Included
Included
Get a demo

Service Software That Grows With You

Start with free tools and upgrade as you grow, or hit the ground running with one of our premium editions.

What are customers saying?

HubSpot Service Hub received G2's top 100 Best Software Products & Highest Satisfaction Products 2023.

We can identify and fix issues on the spot with HubSpot, unlike Zendesk where marketing and service were in two different worlds… Anytime you have a more robust picture of a customer, your interactions with the customer are going to be better. HubSpot gives us that complete picture.

Rick Raven

Director of Customer Success

Studio Designer

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Related Resources

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Comparison Library

Picking customer service software to run your business is not a decision you make lightly.

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App Ecosystem

HubSpot helps seamlessly integrate customer service tools that you and your team already leverage.

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Free Meeting Scheduler

Schedule meetings faster and forget the back-and-forth emails. Boost your productivity.

Delight More Customers with HubSpot today.

Use HubSpot Service Hub to provide seamless, fast, and delightful customer service.