No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

HubSpot CRM vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
HubSpot CRM boosts ROI through improved lead generation, revenue enhancement, and process efficiency, making it valuable for many companies.
Sentiment score
6.0
Zendesk provides significant ROI with cost savings, efficient features, and streamlined operations despite challenges in measuring returns exactly.
I can tell you that we probably saved at least three employees full-time with the ticket management and the automation and the macros and the user follow-up being built in.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Time saved is definitely a benefit because it puts all of our tickets in one spot.
Technical Solutions Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I feel that Zendesk helped us set up our platform for providing support way faster than other platforms due to its easy configuration.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
HubSpot CRM's customer service is highly rated for responsiveness, but live agent availability and technical issues need improvement.
Sentiment score
6.0
Zendesk's customer service is reputable for quick, courteous support but inconsistent ticket handling and knowledge base completeness frustrates some users.
HubSpot's customer service is excellent and fast.
Customer Success Manager Latam at ElectroNeek
Many users give it only a couple of minutes before moving on, so there should be ways for quick, direct access and follow-up, which is currently somewhat challenging.
President at iCIO, Inc
There is always an account rep that's available, and there is a technical account rep that is available for every account.
Sr Director of Global Inside Sales at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
There appears to be a lack of connection between the bot and the agents, making it feel scripted rather than helpful.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The technical support provided by Zendesk has been very satisfactory.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Their support team from Zendesk is excellent, similar to what you have in Freshdesk.
Customer Success Manager at Mimshackworks Endeavors
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
HubSpot CRM is adaptable for different team sizes, integrates well, but some report scalability limitations in CRM features.
Sentiment score
7.0
Zendesk is praised for scalability and customization, despite occasional data migration challenges and pricing considerations.
Handling around 100 to 150 users is fine.
Director at Big Billion Ventures Pvt Ltd
There are a lot of enterprises using it, however, even as a GTM for HubSpot, their target market is predominantly SMB.
Sr Director of Global Inside Sales at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
HubSpot CRM is a scalable solution.
Founder at a marketing services firm with 1-10 employees
We have not hit a peak or a turn yet that Zendesk has not been able to go with us or been able to grow with us in the process, change or pivot that the company is making.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
Zendesk can scale from very small companies to very large ones.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Zendesk's scalability is excellent.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
HubSpot CRM is highly stable and reliable with minimal downtime and seamless integration, praised by users for performance.
Sentiment score
7.8
Zendesk is stable with minor outages and bugs, effectively managing high volumes, maintaining efficiency appreciated by most companies.
Downtime is very rare.
Campaign Specialist at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
They are always informing us with a status update and an ETA, and the turnaround time is usually within the same day with no extended downtime that would cause a detriment to our company.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
Zendesk is quite stable; we experience major outages only once or twice a year, making it very reliable.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
I did not face any slowdown issue in Zendesk; it smoothly handles a lot of tickets.
Senior Software Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

HubSpot CRM needs better integration, customization, pricing, interface scalability, support, and enhanced analytics, email, and mobile app features.
Zendesk requires improvements in customization, integration, interface usability, pricing, mobile functionality, and incorporating AI for better user experience.
HubSpot should establish some pre-deployable packages that, when contracted, offer basic functionality.
President at iCIO, Inc
A better CRM can be achieved by providing more customization features.
Director at Big Billion Ventures Pvt Ltd
The response time is slow.
Founder | Technology Head at janusmaad.com
Zendesk could actually support HTML on the tickets so we could format our text better than the current options such as size, bold, italic, or underscored, because the text processing is too simple.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
Zendesk is missing an AI aspect that could help provide quick answers based on the knowledge housed within the platform.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Zendesk is amazing, and because they are always working on a new upgrade or a new integration, they are very forward-thinking from an engineering perspective.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
 

Setup Cost

HubSpot CRM offers free and enterprise options, but its pricing is higher than competitors despite customization benefits.
Zendesk pricing is flexible but can become expensive, necessitating careful evaluation of needs to choose a cost-effective plan.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk shows that pricing is really affordable compared to other customer management software.
Dental Virtual Assistant at getreach.co
It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
 

Valuable Features

HubSpot CRM offers ease of use, lead tracking, marketing automation, and seamless integration, supporting businesses with customizable and user-friendly tools.
Zendesk offers intuitive interfaces, rich integrations, and strong automation, streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity for diverse teams.
HubSpot stands out for its ease of use, especially with sequence creation compared to other CRM solutions.
Customer Success Manager Latam at ElectroNeek
The main benefit that HubSpot CRM provides for me is that I can complete a campaign and rather than sending metrics to my sales team manually, I can customize them ad hoc based on the requirement.
Campaign Specialist at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable feature for me is when I encounter a company or a person, I can drop in their URL, and it pre-populates various details like address information and other contacts they might have.
President at iCIO, Inc
It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Zendesk is way cheaper than other ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, providing a good platform at a lower price so we could offer good support with a low budget for the license.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
Being able to put response counters on certain tickets and have certain ones that are high priority and have a tighter SLA than lower priority items, being able to categorize them as a question versus an urgent request, and being able to bucket them as feature requests or product enhancements.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
 

Categories and Ranking

HubSpot CRM
Ranking in CRM
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zendesk
Ranking in CRM
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (3rd), Help Desk Software (3rd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th), Reporting (7th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (9th), AI IT Support (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of HubSpot CRM is 1.3%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 1.4%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zendesk1.4%
HubSpot CRM1.3%
Other97.3%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Sadiq H - PeerSpot reviewer
Campaign Specialist at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Automation and integrated analytics have transformed how my team manages campaigns and deals
There are a couple of things which I would improve in HubSpot CRM. There are limitations with user limitations. I would want a feature where certain users do not need to export data and I want to be notified if anyone is exporting. That feature exists for a certain number of users, but it should also apply to lower-level users who should be notified as well. Second, the analysis and insights need to be provided on a weekly basis. For example, I would want to see that in this week we sent an email to a certain number of prospects, information about which was my highest open rate email campaign and which was my lowest engagement campaign, and insights from HubSpot AI that can be utilized. I would want to know which subject lines we gathered that received more attention as a form of data analytics information. Additionally, if I have one hundred contacts today and a couple of them are not active, for example, if eighty contacts are active and twenty contacts have never opened my email, I would want to trash them because they are not engaging. That kind of information would be very useful.
AmandaSanchez - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams
The ability to communicate on the Zendesk ticket through the actual user software, so TOPs, would have been helpful. Somehow seeing a user's ticket history within our app would have been beneficial. That is the only thing that I do not think existed at the time that might have been helpful. Some people struggled with Zendesk, but it was always easy enough to show them how to use it and what they were missing. The only times we really had people report concerns about it was when they did not understand that it could do that or how to use it in that way.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CRM solutions are best for your needs.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HubSpot CRM?
The cost is about the same price, currently charged monthly.
What is your primary use case for HubSpot CRM?
I would describe my main use case as evaluating a couple of tools and CRMs. We found HubSpot CRM very useful in terms of ease of use, automation, setting up the user journey, and database managemen...
What advice do you have for others considering HubSpot CRM?
HubSpot CRM is only available on cloud. HubSpot CRM doesn't support on-premises or hybrid deployment. On a scale of 1-10, this solution is rated as 7.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
I actually have no idea about pricing, setup costs, and licensing. That was provided by our client, so they handled those kinds of things. We were only using the application, so I have no idea abou...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
The time saved or how quickly we resolve tickets now compared to before depends on the situation we are handling. If a customer is facing issues that need some testing in the backend, it takes time...
What is your primary use case for Zendesk Support?
My main use case for Zendesk is for ticketing purposes. I was replying to customers over Zendesk, and I was also using Zendesk for live chat purposes. As a specific example, suppose a customer is f...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

digimind, easyrecrue, software2, subaru, suzuki
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about HubSpot CRM vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.