Zoho Desk review

Zoho Desk packs a lot into its lower editions. Even Express, the cheapest paid edition, lists AI agents: you can bring your own key or use Zoho's LLM, with access to pre-built agents and up to 30M free tokens a month. Express also covers email and social ticketing, web forms, workflows, direct assignment and multi-level escalations. Standard adds an answer bot that replies from your knowledge base, a community forum and instant messaging across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, WeChat and Line. Professional brings Zia AI, Blueprints for step-by-step processes, telephony, round-robin assignment and a help center in over 40 languages, while Enterprise adds SalesIQ live chat, guided conversations and skill-based routing. A Free edition with three user licenses lets small teams start without paying, and Zoho offers free migration. The pricing page showed us rupees rather than dollars, so the USD entry price is pending. Setup takes more configuration than Help Scout or Freshdesk.

Who it is for

Cost-conscious teams and companies already using Zoho CRM or other Zoho apps.

Price

See vendor pricing (USD check pending).

US price check pending. See the vendor pricing page.

Key features

• AI agents on Express and above, with pre-built agents and up to 30M free tokens a month
• Workflows, direct assignment and multi-level escalations from Express
• Answer bot and instant messaging on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger from Standard
• Zia AI and Blueprints drag-and-drop automation on Professional
• Multilingual help center in over 40 languages

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Free plan with three user licenses
• Strength: Generative AI can use your own OpenAI key
• Strength: Free data migration from other help desks
• Weakness: USD prices did not display from our location, so the entry price is pending
• Weakness: Telephony and Zia AI start on Professional
• Weakness: Live chat through Zoho SalesIQ and skill-based routing need Enterprise

Key facts

• Free plan: 3 user licenses
• Paid editions: Express, Standard, Professional, Enterprise
• AI agents: Pre-built agents and up to 30M free tokens a month
• Help center languages: Over 40
• Customers: 100,000+ companies, per Zoho

Where it ranks

Zoho Desk is No. 5 in our Best Help Desk Software verdict.