Pega CRM vs Zendesk comparison

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Pega CRM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Pega CRM and Zendesk both compete in the customer relationship management sector. Pega CRM is noted for its pricing and customer support advantages, while Zendesk is recognized for its extensive feature set, making it a compelling choice.

Features: Pega CRM is known for its strong automation capabilities, seamless integration options, and detailed analytics, allowing companies to streamline their operations efficiently. In contrast, Zendesk stands out with its versatile ticketing system, extensive support portals, and dynamic help desk functionalities, enhancing the management of customer support interactions.

Room for Improvement: Pega CRM requires a more straightforward deployment method, offers complex processes that can be cumbersome for users, and needs a more timely customer service response. Zendesk could enhance its ROI potential through more intensive features, address customization limitations, and improve on more detailed analytics to match the depth offered by Pega CRM.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pega CRM involves a complex deployment process, often demanding significant customization, with a solid yet slower customer service response. Conversely, Zendesk provides a simple, fast cloud-based setup with comprehensive resources, offering swift, far-reaching customer support that attends efficiently to client requests.

Pricing and ROI: Pega CRM typically incurs higher initial setup costs, justifying it with an eventual high ROI due to improved operational workflows. On the other hand, Zendesk is more budget-friendly in initial setup costs but presents potentially lower ROI because of fewer intensive features. Pega CRM emphasizes long-term gains from its automation, whereas Zendesk offers an economical approach with moderate return potential.

To learn more, read our detailed Pega CRM vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: June 2025).

Pega CRM vs. Zendesk

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Helped 859,957 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

Pega CRM

Ranking in CRM Customer Engagement Centers

5th

Ranking in CRM

17th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zendesk

Ranking in CRM Customer Engagement Centers

7th

Ranking in CRM

21st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (9th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (9th), Sales Force Automation (9th), Reporting (16th), Knowledge Management Software (4th), Community Platforms (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the CRM Customer Engagement Centers category, the mindshare of Pega CRM is 8.8%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 7.3%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CRM Customer Engagement Centers

Featured Reviews

Srinivas Ganisetti

AVP/Sr Analyst Apps at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Case management feature is valuable but the pricing is expensive

I would like to suggest the solution but it really depends on your specific requirements, your business use cases and future plans. There is a significant investment involved in this solution and therefore it is very crucial to reevaluate your future necessity including automation potential and modernization plans. I would suggest that you select any kind of solution and explore alternatives of similar functionalities at a lower cost. This might help you to achieve more with less. In my experience, I would rate it between seven to eight because it offers robust capabilities. But please be aware that other BPM tools are emerging with similar features at a lower cost. Pega CRM is perceived as bulk care compared to order tools, as many of its capabilities are potentially underutilized. I would rate it 7 out of 10.

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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 ( /products/klaviyo-reviews ), 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

"The solution is very easy to use."

"The product's deployment phase was easy."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to pull information about the customer on-the-fly so they feel the interaction is more personal."

"Pega offers a clear parent-child case relationship that's easily created and maintained. Dependencies can be configured, where reaching a specific stage in a parent case automatically triggers a child task in a child case, while the parent case remains on hold until a certain condition is met before moving forward. This configuration allows multiple users to work on cases in parallel. Many of these settings are readily available within Pega case settings. Overall, Pega's case management is unparalleled compared to other options."

"One of the most valuable features of Pega CRM for our team's productivity is its ease of setup, thanks to its configuration-driven approach."

"Great flexibility and its locking mechanism enable multiple users to work on the same case seamlessly."

"The case management feature is really valuable."

"It also reduces the duration per call, and it ensures a first time resolution of the issue."

More Pega CRM pros

"I love how the tickets would auto-populate very quickly in Zendesk, especially when a call comes in."

"It's very convenient to use."

"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."

"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 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."

"Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls."

"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use. If you take the standalone product, it is so easy to use, but if you want a tailor-made Zendesk Guide, you can't do it yourself. However, you can use a template that already exists—they have a lot, and they're very cheap, around 300-400 euros—and use it on all your brands. It's a very easy product to use."

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

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"The disadvantage of the tool stems from the fact that it does not allow users to make database-level modifications."

"The solution has room for improvement around decisional and real-time data analysis."

"Price is always a concern for many organizations. They often think Pega is expensive, and sometimes they don't fully understand the pricing model."

"The UI is lagging and needs to be improved."

"There has been a common acknowledgment among customers that this solution is an expensive tool and they often opt for cheaper tools like Comodo"

"It would be beneficial to enhance the pricing and support implementation options as they are currently quite expensive."

"The UI should be improved."

"They should enable the data-driven streaming feature inside it."

More Pega CRM cons

"There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier."

"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."

"It needs to improve in terms of its flexibility, price, and installation."

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

"There is always a network issue with Zendesk. But we don’t know whether it is managed. The network issue is that when I call, it does not let us."

"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's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."

"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."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is on the higher side."

"It is expensive."

"We have numerous uses of the solution in our organisation. Almost 72 applications are integrated with Pega CRM, and some of them are shutting down for various reasons including the high licensing costs. There is a strong focus in the market and offices on cost reduction."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"The price is very competitive."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

24%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pega CRM?

The product's deployment phase was easy.

What needs improvement with Pega CRM?

The disadvantage of the tool stems from the fact that it does not allow users to make database-level modifications. In Siebel CRM, you have complete control over your database, you can do any datab...

What is your primary use case for Pega CRM?

Pega CRM uses a layer cake architecture. Basically, the tool is a convenient application to use even if you are not a technical person, like a business analyst. I use the solution for the CRM modul...

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?

There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier ( /products/zapier-reviews ). However, easier integration could enhance the usability. Multilingual ...

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Product Reports

Pega CRM

Download Pega CRM product report

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Also Known As

Chordiant

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

Pega BPM streamlines your operations so you can reduce costs and improve business agility. Pega is recognized by leading analyst firms as the most comprehensive and unified BPM platform.

Pega

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

The State of Maine, Aegis, Aegon, AIG Japan, ING

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

Pega CRM vs. Zendesk