Looking for a Zendesk alternative with more affordable price?

Zendesk is a great software. Period. But what should you do when looking for a Zendesk alternative which is more affordable?

Okay, their service is full of features. Do you need all of them?

Starting there, you will gain another perspective. Why don’t you start scratching off every feature you don’t really need at the moment?

Lots of questions, I know, maybe you should start taking action and trying to solve all of them. You’ll see the more you look it up, easier it will become.

But before I show you some alternatives, let’s understand how Zendesk’s price became what it is today:

Understanding Zendesk’s Price

As products evolve, like Zendesk, their feature sets also increase and in turn they can command a higher price point for their product. In other words, as they improve their product, they increase pricing and it costs you more.

This model is a natural thing for companies. What it means though is that as the product grows there two things can happen:

Price increases

I’m sure Zendesk started a lot lower than they are now (here’s their current pricing) and that’s fine for them to go up. It’s their business. But what is the impact on your business?

Picking the right Help desk software is like a rabbit hole. Once you choose your Help Desk solution, it’s hard to go back (there’s no going back, once you’re in, you’re in).

More features added to the product

There’s something called product bloat. It’s when a product expands to appeal to more and more segments of the market. In order to do this, they need to introduce more features (while still trying to stay universal).

It’s not just Zendesk that suffer from this, lots of mature Help Desk softwares have needed to go this way to expand their product into different markets and ultimately make more profit.

Now let’s have a look at some alternatives that offer different value propositions and — of course — more affordable prices.

Drag

Our software is the only one that doesn’t add any new logins/websites for your team. It works straight from your Gmail Inbox.

By doing so, we allow your team to learn faster and have less questions about what’s new. We also centralize work, because we have Helpdesk boards inside your email. Basically we change everything, but we keep it visually the same.

Drag starts for free, but if you want to unlock its full power, it’s just $9/month/user. We believe that simple solutions make everything better for both sides because they decrease the amount of new information you need to learn something new.

Most features isn’t always better, so you have to really understand what works best for your company by thinking about what you really need.

You can add labels to your cards, so every task belongs somewhere. Here are some other features you can add to your cards:

• Delegation of tickets;
• Customer info, such as phone number and company;
• Progress bar;
• Due dates;
• Checklists;
• Internal notes.

All of it. Right into your Gmail team inbox.

Dixa

By integrating the whole system in their platform, Dixa aims to minimize switching between apps. One cool feature is the Direct Routing, it directs your request to the most able agent in that field available.

When it comes to channel, they’re available not only in email and chat, but also for Calling. With all features together, they’re also able to integrate everything, making a seamless communication with clients.

Pricing starts at $15/month/agent, but if you want to have access to everything you might want to use their Pro plan, which costs $49/month/agent.

Conclusion

Zendesk is awesome, but do you need it all? Other softwares start from the same base and change the game in their own way.

As I said before, it is crucial to understand your needs and how much resources (time, people and money) you have available to spend invest on it.

Your email won’t be able to do everything Zendesk does, but it surely will make work faster and much simpler. By prioritizing simple processes, you can do much more for your customers, team and company.

Then, choose your tool based on your specific context and priorities.

Lastly, check Drag out to see if a Shared Inbox, in Gmail, in a Kanban format fits your needs. Maybe it does 🙂