The best Zendesk alternatives

Paid plans from

US$24.17 per workspace per month, billed annually

Pricing model

Tiers by conversation volume

Free plan

Yes — Free

EU data hosting

Yes

Tidio is a Polish live chat and help desk suite that sells three separately metered quotas: human-handled conversations, Lyro AI Agent conversations and Flows chatbot visitors. Every self-serve plan, including Free, includes 10 seats, so the bill grows with conversation volume rather than headcount, from US$29 a month billed monthly on Starter. Tidio suits small shops and support teams with several people but modest, predictable chat volume.

The catch: The Free plan covers only 50 human-handled conversations a month, and at the limit agents can neither see nor answer new messages until the quota resets or the plan is upgraded.

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Paid plans from

US$45 per workspace per month, billed monthly

Pricing model

Per workspace

Free plan

Yes — Free

EU data hosting

Yes

Crisp is a French customer support suite (shared inbox, chat widget, CRM, knowledge base) that charges a flat monthly price per workspace with a fixed number of seats and no conversation cap. Paid plans run from Mini at US$45 a month for 4 seats to Plus at US$295 for 20, and the Hugo AI agent is metered through included USD credits. Crisp suits small and growing teams that want a predictable bill, many channels and data held in the EU.

The catch: The Crisp watermark stays on every plan below Plus at US$295 a month, and the Free plan has no full conversation history and caps you at 100 customer profiles.

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Paid plans from

US$19 per seat per month, billed annually

Pricing model

Seats plus AI usage

Free plan

Yes — Free

EU data hosting

Yes

Freshchat is Freshworks' live chat and messaging product, with a Free plan for up to 10 agents and paid plans billed per agent from US$19 a month on annual billing. Its Freddy AI Agent is sold in packs of 100 sessions for US$49, available from the entry paid plan. It suits small and mid-sized teams that want several people on chat for free and may later move up to Freshworks' helpdesk.

The catch: Freddy AI Agent is billed per 24-hour session whether or not the question gets resolved, and rule-based bot flows and builder previews draw from the same session pool.

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Paid plans from

US$20 per seat per month, billed monthly

Pricing model

Seats plus AI usage

Free plan

Yes — Free tools

EU data hosting

Yes

HubSpot Live Chat is the chat widget and shared inbox that come with HubSpot's free CRM, for up to 2 users at no charge. Removing the HubSpot branding, routing chats and adding the AI customer agent all require paid Service Hub seats, billed per seat, with the agent's resolutions billed in HubSpot Credits on top. It suits small teams that already use, or plan to use, HubSpot as their CRM.

The catch: The widget keeps HubSpot's branding until you buy a paid seat, and HubSpot's own pages list three different Starter prices: US$7, US$10 and US$20 a seat a month.

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Paid plans from

US$19 per seat per month, billed monthly

Pricing model

Per seat

Free plan

Yes — Hacker

EU data hosting

No

Chatwoot is an open-source customer support inbox from Chatwoot Inc. in San Francisco, sold as a US-hosted cloud service billed per agent and as a free, MIT-licensed Community Edition you run on your own servers. The cloud plans cover website chat, email, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, SMS, Telegram and, on Business and Enterprise, voice. Its Captain AI is metered in credits, with 1 credit per AI message or action.

The catch: Chatwoot Cloud is hosted only on AWS in the United States, so keeping data in the EU means self-hosting and maintaining the software yourself.

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Paid plans from

US$19 per seat per month, billed annually

Pricing model

Per seat

Free plan

No free plan · 14-day trial

EU data hosting

Yes

LiveChat is a paid live chat and messaging platform from Text, a Polish company, billed per agent account from US$19 a month on annual billing or US$25 billed monthly. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and the autonomous AI Agent is sold in Text and ChatBot.com plans rather than in classic LiveChat plans. LiveChat suits established sales and support teams that want wide channel coverage and can afford a price that rises with every seat.

The catch: LiveChat has no free plan and Starter holds a single user, so any team of two or more pays the Team rate of US$59 per person a month billed monthly, or US$49 billed annually.

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Paid plans from

US$29 per seat per month, billed annually

Pricing model

Seats plus AI usage

Free plan

No free plan · 14-day trial

EU data hosting

On some paid plans

Intercom is a customer service helpdesk whose live chat widget, the Messenger, comes with every plan, sold per full seat from US$29 a month on annual billing and US$39 on monthly billing. Its Fin AI Agent is available on all plans and billed separately at US$0.99 per outcome. The company behind it renamed itself Fin in May 2026 and has been owned by Salesforce since September 10, 2026; Intercom suits teams that want a full helpdesk with an AI agent built in and can pay per seat for it.

The catch: Intercom has no free plan and no included Fin allowance on standard plans, so the bill is seats at up to US$39 each plus US$0.99 for every Fin outcome, including customers who simply leave after Fin's answer.

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