Salesforce Essentials vs Zendesk comparison

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Salesforce Essentials

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Zendesk and Salesforce Essentials compete in the customer support and CRM software category. Zendesk seems to have the upper hand due to its ease of setup, customization options, and effective integration capabilities.

Features: Users value Zendesk for its ease of setup, customizable ticketing system, and effective integration with JIRA for task management. It offers a Help Center and multi-brand features that enhance customer support. Salesforce Essentials is recognized for its AI capabilities, Sales Cloud, and Service Cloud, which provide robust CRM features essential for managing customer relations and business integration.

Room for Improvement: Zendesk users seek better auto-assignment of tickets, improved reporting, and a more intuitive admin console. They also request enhanced customization and integration options. Salesforce Essentials users desire more pricing flexibility and usability improvements, straightforward testing, and report extraction. Its complex user interface is highlighted as needing enhancement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zendesk supports private, public, and hybrid cloud deployments, offering significant flexibility. It provides 24/7 technical support for enterprise customers, although some users mention a reliance on documentation over interactive support. Salesforce Essentials is available via public and on-premises deployments, with infrequent customer service interactions, suggesting a need for more proactive support.

Pricing and ROI: Zendesk's pricing is considered expensive, with enterprise licenses costing up to $200 per agent per month, yet it offers positive ROI through cost savings in negotiations. Salesforce Essentials is seen as moderately pricey with extra costs for professional services. Both products allow for pricing negotiation and demand understanding specific needs to judge ROI effectively.

To learn more, read our detailed Salesforce Essentials vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: December 2025).

Salesforce Essentials vs. Zendesk

December 2025

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Helped 881,114 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

8.0

Salesforce Essentials offers good ROI with easy implementation, accelerating sales and benefits realized in about three years.

Sentiment score

6.0

Zendesk provides significant ROI with cost savings, productivity boosts, and improved efficiency through better ticket management and supportive sales team.

The ROI was always in a positive direction.

For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report

Growth Adviser at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Time saved is definitely a benefit because it puts all of our tickets in one spot.

reviewer2795478

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.

Filipe Abreu

Junior system analyst at Wevt clous

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.3

Salesforce Essentials offers responsive service with minimal issues; users praise its reliability and effective customer support.

Sentiment score

6.2

Zendesk support is praised for responsiveness and availability but criticized for slow responses and lack of personal interaction.

Their service and uptime is phenomenal.

Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG

Salesforce Essentials has excellent customer service.

Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

I would evaluate their support and customer service with Salesforce Essentials as pretty decent, diligent, and to the point.

For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report

Growth Adviser 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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Their support team from Zendesk is excellent, similar to what you have in Freshdesk.

Anita Orioma

Customer Success Manager at Mimshackworks Endeavors

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.9

Salesforce Essentials is highly scalable, supporting diverse teams from small to large, and is praised for easy user addition.

Sentiment score

7.2

Zendesk is adaptable and scalable for diverse organizations, handling growth well but posing challenges in cost and customization.

It is one of the most scalable systems available.

For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report

Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG

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.

Dimitri Cooper

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Salesforce Essentials is highly stable and available, with few bugs or downtimes, though occasional automation delays occur.

Sentiment score

7.8

Zendesk is reliable and stable, with minor issues and rare outages, communicated promptly via Twitter, ideal for small businesses.

Salesforce Essentials has proven stable, with no downtime that affects my work.

For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report

Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 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.

Dimitri Cooper

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

The stability has been quite reliable.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Room For Improvement

Salesforce Essentials struggles with integration, UI, and pricing, needing improvements in analytics, mobile interface, and automation features.

Zendesk users seek enhancements like efficient ticket merging, advanced reporting, better integrations, improved usability, and AI features.

Instead of requiring users to think about system navigation and clicking procedures, they can simply follow a workflow that guides them through the process.

Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG

There are other competitors, like Zoho CRM, that offer similar features at a lower cost.

Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

Salesforce Essentials operates in a table format where the entire user interface is based on tables, more specifically pivot tables.

For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report

Growth Adviser at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

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.

Filipe Abreu

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

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.

Dimitri Cooper

Project Manager III at City of Union City Government

Setup Cost

Salesforce Essentials licensing is costly but valued for flexibility and add-ons, with some finding additional professional expenses burdensome.

Zendesk's pricing is high but flexible, justified by its value in saving time and enhancing customer experience.

The cost of running Salesforce Essentials is significant.

Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG

The costs associated with Salesforce Essentials are substantial, which is a drawback compared to competitors who offer similar services for less.

For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report

Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Valuable Features

Salesforce Essentials offers robust features and user-friendly design but may be costly for some businesses.

Zendesk enhances productivity with customizable ticket management, CRM integrations, automation, and multi-channel support for improved customer satisfaction.

Their reporting and analytics features have a very significant impact on my company's operational efficiency.

Growth Adviser at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Salesforce Essentials is excellent because it is one of the most flexible CRMs available.

Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

It is very customizable to specific needs.

For more quotes and insights, download the Salesforce Essentials report

Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG

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.

Filipe Abreu

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Categories and Ranking

Salesforce Essentials

Ranking in CRM

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zendesk

Ranking in CRM

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (4th), Help Desk Software (4th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (6th), Sales Force Automation (4th), Reporting (10th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), Community Platforms (1st), AI Customer Support (7th), AI IT Support (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Salesforce Essentials is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 1.2%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CRM Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zendesk	1.2%
Salesforce Essentials	0.6%
Other	98.2%

CRM

Featured Reviews

Has provided a reliable service with responsive support and offers valuable features, though pricing could be more affordable

Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG

We are a large organization with 14,000 people. As a user, Salesforce Essentials is extremely easy to use. The complete rollout from minimum viable product to final acceptable product took two years for our global deployment. The business operations for our 14,000 people are managed by approximately 10 people on the business side. These business admins are responsible for sales operations, troubleshooting, training, and driving features and requirements from the sales and marketing organizations. Additionally, we work with product owners on the IT side and a team of programmers. Daily operations require about five people for IT work, security programming, system connections, and development execution. For day-to-day user support, we need eight to ten people in the business. We operate on Microsoft Azure private cloud infrastructure. On a scale of 1 to 10, I rate Salesforce Essentials a 9 out of 10.

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Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

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.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Salesforce Essentials?

Salesforce provides the best they have with the current version. Most of the features we need are already there, and it's very easy to use.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Essentials?

Salesforce Essentials is very expensive, but it delivers exceptional value. It is a good platform to have if you can afford it because it has numerous add-ons and modules. Anything that Salesforce ...

What needs improvement with Salesforce Essentials?

The mobile access can be improved in several ways. Salesforce Essentials operates in a table format where the entire user interface is based on tables, more specifically pivot tables. This is not v...

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?

From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more o...

What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?

I wish there was a more easily dynamic tool. Currently, it is quite difficult because not all the tools are labeled. A feature that would be beneficial is if hovering over an icon would tell you wh...

JIRA Service Management vs Zendesk

Comparisons

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Product Reports

Download Salesforce Essentials product report

Salesforce Essentials

January 2026

Download Zendesk product report

January 2026

Also Known As

No data available

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

Salesforce Essentials is a cloud-based CRM tool for businesses seeking flexible, scalable, and customizable solutions to enhance sales and customer support processes.

Designed for seamless integration across multiple channels, Salesforce Essentials includes Sales and Service Cloud to simplify sales tasks and customer management. It enhances finance, credit, and quality processes with user-friendly AI capabilities and predictive analytics. Despite its strengths, there is room for improvement in SAP integration, interface simplicity, and report generation. Cost-effectiveness and support for diverse languages are also potential upgrade areas. Businesses use this CRM solution for lead management, opportunity tracking, and automating sales workflows, transitioning from paper-based methods to digital efficiency.

What are the essential features of Salesforce Essentials?

Scalability and Flexibility: Accommodates growth and customization needs.
Multiple Channel Integration: Enhances finance and quality processes.
User-Friendly: Easy navigation with AI capabilities.
Cloud Deployment: Includes Sales and Service Cloud features.
Predictive Analytics: Improves productivity and tracking.
Mobile App Support: Facilitates on-the-go access and management.

What benefits or ROI can users expect from Salesforce Essentials?

Improved Productivity: Automation features save time and streamline tasks.
Enhanced Customer Management: Centralizes interaction and data handling.
Ease of Transition: From manual to automated workflows.
Performance Monitoring: Standardizes processes for better oversight.

In the retail industry, businesses employ Salesforce Essentials for customer data management and transparency in order processing. Healthcare providers use it for patient engagement and streamlined communication. Financial services utilize it for billing management and compliance, harnessing automation tools for efficient data handling.

Salesforce

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

Information Not Available

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