Adaptive Insights vs Zendesk comparison

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Adaptive Insights

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Adaptive Insights and Zendesk compete in the enterprise technology space, addressing different business needs. Adaptive Insights holds an advantage in financial planning capabilities, while Zendesk leads in customer service management.

Features: Adaptive Insights delivers dynamic financial modeling, predictive analytics, and comprehensive cloud-based planning. Zendesk offers powerful ticketing systems, integrated communication channels, and automation tools for customer interaction enhancement.

Room for Improvement: Adaptive Insights could improve by simplifying its user interface, reducing setup complexity, and enhancing integration options with third-party tools. Zendesk can advance by enriching its analytics features, improving response times, and offering more customization options for its ticketing system.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zendesk provides a user-friendly deployment process supported by strong customer service, making implementation smooth. Adaptive Insights, while offering dedicated assistance, involves a more complex and time-intensive setup process due to its comprehensive features.

Pricing and ROI: Adaptive Insights necessitates a higher initial investment due to its extensive analytics capabilities, with a focus on long-term financial ROI for teams. Zendesk, offering a competitive pricing model, emphasizes customer satisfaction and scalability, aiming for improved operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Adaptive Insights vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: September 2025).

Adaptive Insights vs. Zendesk

September 2025

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Helped 872,706 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Adaptive Insights

Ranking in Reporting

18th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (9th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), Data Visualization (15th), ESG Reporting Software (6th)

Zendesk

Ranking in Reporting

14th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (6th), CRM (18th), Help Desk Software (8th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (7th), Sales Force Automation (8th), Knowledge Management Software (4th), Community Platforms (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zendesk	0.6%
Adaptive Insights	0.8%
Other	98.6%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg

Adaptive Planning Manager at Alight

Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models

For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.

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JohanSkibdahl

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Automating customer support with advanced AI capabilities and seamless communication

Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls. It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. This intelligent tool can manage complex queries before users even realize they are interacting with a non-human. Additionally, we have integrated Zendesk with Datto and Klaviyo, enhancing our workflows.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It's very stable."

"Changes to corporate structure, account codes are updated in all versions including prior years, hence "one-version of truth" as claimed."

"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."

"The important feature is integration with source data. It connects to various ERP systems, including Workday, Intact, and others. It can also import actuals and compare them to PlanPoint quite easily."

"It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday."

"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."

"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."

"The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes."

More Adaptive Insights pros

"The stability has been very good."

"It's a very stable tool, very powerful."

"One of the most valuable features is that Zendesk gives you a lot of configurability, and a lot of leeway in terms of customizing the look and theme. Zendesk offers you the facility to design your own landing page, as well as the look and feel of the entire knowledge base. At the same time, they offer themes that you can simply purchase and implement. Either way, it can really be turned into the right look and feel of the knowledge base required by our company, which is very important—if you have a bland-looking page, most of the time, people will lose interest. Zendesk also allows you to test the customizations before you publish it. It gives you a sandbox location where you can test everything new that you're trying to create and publish, which is very interesting."

"The most valuable feature is the trackability of incoming requests. The system keeps a comprehensive history of work requests, making it a useful tool for our internal processes."

"It is a scalable solution."

"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly."

"The most valuable features of Zendesk Support are collaboration, reports, and a self-service portal. The customer and team can see all the information needed from the portal."

"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"Better user interface (UI)."

"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."

"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."

"Adaptive Insights has a limit of 1,00,000 rows for HTML reports. It should be improved because we will have multiple dimensions that need to be populated to enhance the image."

"Adaptive Insights could improve the data designer interface to make integrations easier to set up."

"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."

"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."

"The product's configuration process could be faster."

More Adaptive Insights cons

"Zendesk Guide's customization could be improved. I would like it to be easier and maybe open-sourced, so that if you have a developer in your company, you can do it yourself. Right now, that isn't allowed, so you need to have it done via the integrator. Another improvement—this is nit-picking—is that it could be less easy to make changes. Some things are so easy that they sometimes look a little amateur-ish. Most of the templates are built-in so they can be used directly, so they are very simple."

"I'm going to piggyback on what I said regarding Freshdesk concerning what could be better in Zendesk: incorporate more AI."

"The data you get when logged in to Zendesk Support differs from the data you get when you programmatically query Zendesk Support through its API because of a sync time delay."

"Zendesk Guide could be improved by allowing us to put our assets in one location. What happens now for each article, for example, is we have to upload the images for that article to that location, so the image reuse is still not something that they have perfected. If they could allow us to update all the images in one location, and then pull the image from there, it would be easier when working on Multibrand projects. There are no Multibrand updates available—we have to update each brand manually. For my company, I have come up with an API tool which allows me to push the content to multiple brands together, but if you don't have something like that, you have to manually do it."

"The solution itself wasn't easy to set up."

"Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries."

"One of the drawbacks of Zendesk is that it doesn't provide a secure way for us to send data. So, we usually use a secure SharePoint folder link. We put that in the Zendesk ticket so that the requester has a secure way of getting to their data."

"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."

"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."

"It's affordable."

"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."

"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."

"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."

"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."

"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."

"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."

"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."

"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."

"The price is very competitive."

"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Real Estate/Law Firm

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?

It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?

12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few years ago. So, it's affordable. But there are other more affordable solutions that ...

What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?

The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be room for just improving the integrations, making it easier to integrate outside sys...

What do you like most about Zendesk Support?

I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?

Zendesk's pricing is reasonable. It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.

What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?

I'm going to piggyback on what I said regarding Freshdesk concerning what could be better in Zendesk: incorporate more AI. I know many CRM tools are already on the way to do that.

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Product Reports

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Adaptive Insights

October 2025

Download Zendesk product report

October 2025

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

Adaptive Insights is a cloud-based financial planning and analysis software that helps businesses streamline their budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.

With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics, it enables organizations to make data-driven decisions and drive business performance.

Workday

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber