Loading…
Loading…
Zendesk is a multi-channel support platform for large teams. For teams that need email-based ticket management, SLA tracking, and CSAT — without $55-$115/agent/month — Archiet generates a production-ready helpdesk you own completely.
Zendesk is a mature support platform with 15+ years of investment. Email, chat, phone, social media — all unified in one inbox with AI-powered routing and response suggestions. For support teams handling 1,000+ tickets/month across multiple channels, Zendesk's automation and reporting are genuinely hard to replicate.
The Archiet marketplace helpdesk covers the core: ticket creation (web form + email intake), queue management, SLA tracking, agent assignment, resolution workflow, and CSAT surveys. It does not include live chat, phone support, or AI chatbot — these require specialised infrastructure that a generated codebase cannot provide.
The value proposition is ownership: your ticket data lives in your database, your SLA logic is in your code, and your per-agent cost is zero after the one-time purchase. For teams where email-based support is the primary channel and multi-channel is not required, this is dramatically more cost-effective than Zendesk.
Zendesk charges per agent, per month. At $55/agent (Suite Team), a 10-agent team pays $6,600/year. At $115/agent (Suite Professional, which adds SLA and CSAT), it is $13,800/year. Over 3 years: $19,800-$41,400. And that is before add-ons for AI, phone, and advanced analytics.
The Archiet helpdesk is $997 once. Hosting on any cloud provider adds $50-$100/month. Over 3 years: $997 + $2,700 hosting = $3,697 total for unlimited agents. The math is straightforward — if you need the core helpdesk without Zendesk's multi-channel platform, the savings are 80-90%.
Keep Zendesk when: you need multi-channel support (chat + phone + social + email in one inbox). You handle 1,000+ tickets/month and need AI-powered routing and automation. Your support team is customer-facing and needs Zendesk's polished agent experience. You rely on Zendesk's marketplace of 1,000+ integrations.
Choose Archiet when: email and web-form tickets are your primary channel. You want to embed support into your product (not redirect to a Zendesk subdomain). You need the helpdesk data in your own database for compliance or analytics. Your agent count is growing and per-agent pricing is becoming unsustainable.
Drag the sliders to see how costs compare for your team.
Zendesk
$25K
$7K – $43K
Archiet (one-time + hosting)
$4K
$997 + $3K hosting
You save
$3K – $40K
Estimates based on published pricing. Zendesk pricing may vary by edition, region, and negotiation. Archiet pricing is at list price — no hidden fees.
Not out of the box. The generated solution handles email and web-form tickets. Live chat can be added using open source tools like Chatwoot or Tawk.to, which integrate with any web application. The codebase provides the webhook infrastructure to connect external chat services to the ticket system.
Zendesk supports data export via their Incremental Export API and bulk CSV export (Admin → Data → Export). Ticket data (subject, description, status, assignee, comments) can be migrated to the generated solution's PostgreSQL database. Custom fields and automation rules require manual recreation.
Yes. The generated helpdesk includes post-resolution CSAT surveys (thumbs up/down + optional comment), aggregated satisfaction scores per agent and per time period, and exportable reports.
Yes. SLA policies are configurable (response time, resolution time per priority level). When an SLA is about to breach, the system can send email notifications to the assigned agent and their manager. Escalation rules are customisable in the code.