LiveChat, now sold to new customers as Text plans, puts live chat on its cheapest plan. Zendesk does not. Text Essential costs $19 per user per month billed annually, or $25 billed monthly, and bundles live chat, a shared inbox, tickets and an AI Agent. Zendesk's Support Team has no live chat; it starts on Suite Team at $55 per agent per month billed annually, or $69 billed monthly[1]. The verdict is simple. Text is the cheaper live-chat seat; Zendesk Suite is the broader service desk, with native voice and a public help center that Text plans do not include.
Where live chat starts, and what each seat buys
Text sells three plans priced per user per month: Essential at $19 billed annually or $25 billed monthly, Growth at $79 billed annually or $99 billed monthly, and Enterprise on a custom quote billed annually only[2]. Every user who answers chats or tickets needs a seat, with no minimum team size. Existing LiveChat customers keep their current plan and price, which our LiveChat pricing guide explains. Everything below describes what a new buyer gets.
Zendesk's pricing page lists Suite Team at $55 per agent per month billed annually or $69 billed monthly, Suite Professional at $115 billed annually or $149 billed monthly, and Suite Enterprise on a quote only. Every agent, admin and suspended agent takes a paid seat. Support Team covers email ticketing plus public social channels, without live chat or a help center. The old Zendesk Chat product is closed to new customers and deprecated on 31 January 2028.
| Plan | Live chat | AI resolutions included | Public help center | Native voice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text Essential | Yes | 10 per account a month | No | No |
| Text Growth | Yes | 200 per account a month | No | No |
| Zendesk Support Team | No | 5 per agent a month | No | No |
| Zendesk Suite Team | Yes | 5 per agent a month | One, in one language | Yes, usage billed per number and minute |
| Zendesk Suite Professional | Yes | 10 per agent a month | Up to 5, in 40+ languages | Yes, usage billed per number and minute |
The cheapest live-chat seats are not equals. Essential keeps conversation and file history for 60 days, holds one AI Agent and five default tags, and leaves out chat routing rules, working hours, supervision and chat summaries, which arrive on Growth. Suite Team adds omnichannel routing, five included WhatsApp numbers, voice and one help center. Same chat window, different depth. For routing and supervision, the fair match is Text Growth against Suite Team or Suite Professional.
What five and ten seats cost each month
Prices shown are what LiveChat lists for visitors in the United States, in US dollars. Your price can differ by country, currency and local taxes such as VAT.
Billed annually, five users on Text Essential come to $95 a month and five on Text Growth to $395, by our arithmetic. Five agents on Zendesk Suite Team come to $275 a month and five on Suite Professional to $575. At ten seats every figure doubles: $190 and $790 for Text Essential and Growth, against $550 and $1,150 for Zendesk Suite Team and Suite Professional. Monthly billing raises all of them.
Growth spends its higher seat price on 200 AI resolutions per account a month, unlimited history, multilingual agent groups and agent performance reports. Suite Team spends its lower price on channels: voice, WhatsApp, a help center. Suite Professional adds SLA policies, skills-based routing, multiple ticket forms, custom reports, community forums, up to 100 light agents without a paid seat, and Admin Copilot. Pick by the job. The sticker misleads.
At about 200 AI resolutions a month on annual billing, Text Growth costs less than Zendesk Suite Team up to nine seats with committed resolutions, by our arithmetic. Above that, Suite Team's lower seat price wins.
Zendesk does not allow seat reductions or downgrades during a subscription term, and renewal needs written notice at least 30 days before the term ends to change.
AI agents: a per-account pool against a per-agent allowance
Text counts AI resolutions per account a month: 10 on Essential and 200 on Growth, reset monthly with no carry-over. Extra packs cost $49.50 per 50 resolutions, or $0.99 each, and recur every cycle until you reduce them at renewal. Zendesk counts automated resolutions per agent a month: 5 on Suite Team and 10 on Suite Professional, up to 10,000 a year, then $1.50 each committed ahead or $2.00 each pay-as-you-go. At Zendesk's limit, admins choose between overage and pausing the AI agent.
The two meters cross at a measurable point. By our arithmetic, at 200 AI resolutions a month on annual billing, Text Growth costs less than Zendesk Suite Team with committed resolutions for teams of up to nine; from ten seats Suite Team wins, $775 against $790 a month. With pay-as-you-go resolutions, Text Growth stays cheaper up to eleven seats. Ten seats handling 300 resolutions a month cost $889 on Text Growth and $925 on Zendesk Suite Team with committed resolutions. Volume decides it.
Agent-side AI widens the gap. Text Copilot is on every Text plan with no separate license and never sends anything without an agent's approval; reply suggestions are metered at 5 per user a month on Essential and 50 on Growth. Zendesk sells Copilot as an add-on at $50 per agent per month, paid yearly, on Suite Professional and above, for every agent seat or none. Without it, Suite Professional gets capped writing tools and summaries: 5 uses per agent a month, pooled, up to 500 per account.
Channels, help center and compliance
WhatsApp is native on both sides. Text added it in June 2026 on every plan, with unlimited numbers that are each free from Text and a Meta Business Portfolio required. Zendesk includes five WhatsApp numbers from Suite Team, and since 1 October 2026 Meta charges per message for non-template replies and utility templates inside the 24-hour window, separately from Zendesk's fees. Messenger and Instagram are native in Text, and its AI Agent answers on website chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and SMS.
Voice is the clearest split. Zendesk includes telephony from Suite Team, billed per number and per minute on top of the seat; in the US a number costs $1 a month and inbound calls $0.016 a minute. Text says it is not a phone system, and its SMS runs through your own Twilio account. The help center splits the same way: Suite Team includes one in one language, Suite Professional up to five. Text's Knowledge hub only feeds the AI, and KnowledgeBase is a separate product.
Regulated teams should read this twice. Zendesk stores health data only under a signed Business Associate Agreement with the account configured for HIPAA. Text lists HIPAA compliance with a BAA as coming soon on Enterprise, so no ePHI goes into Text without a separately signed BAA. Audit logs sit on the top tier of both, Text Enterprise and Zendesk Suite Enterprise, and custom SSO with SAML 2.0 is Enterprise-only on Text. Text says it is SOC 2 Type 2 audited.
Text says it is not a phone system, and SMS runs through your own Twilio account. Teams that take support calls need Zendesk Suite Team or higher, where voice is billed per number and per minute.
Trials, contracts and switching
Neither has a free plan. Both offer a 14-day trial without a card. Text's trial runs on Essential or Growth, never charges automatically, and keeps the workspace, history and settings when you buy. Most Zendesk trials start on Suite Professional for up to five people including you, and its Free Trial Terms say trial data is lost unless you buy or export. Zendesk renews at then-current rates unless notice arrives 30 days before the term ends, and seats cannot be cut mid-term.
On Text, downgrades and removed users take effect at renewal with no credit, and cancellation goes through support. Leaving Zendesk takes three moves. Text documents API-based ticket import from other providers. A Zendesk WhatsApp number moves to Text without changing, but past conversations stay behind and the cutover can cause brief unavailability[3]. Scripts that read Zendesk through API tokens need OAuth: every Support API token stops working on 30 April 2027.
Read the review platforms with their subjects in mind. Most G2 and Capterra reviews for LiveChat describe the older LiveChat product rather than Text, and the app-store ratings rate the renamed mobile app. Zendesk's Trustpilot page is full of end customers of companies that use Zendesk, plus spam sent through Zendesk accounts. It maps complaint themes. It does not measure product quality.
Already running LiveChat with Zendesk?
Existing LiveChat customers keep their plan, and the LiveChat app connects to Zendesk through a Marketplace app. Agents create Zendesk tickets during a chat or from archived chats, as simple tickets with the transcript or advanced ones with subject, group, assignee and priority. The app shows the last five Zendesk tickets for the customer's email and forwards offline form messages automatically, though not asynchronous messages[4].
LiveChat's help also describes an optional sign-in setup that logs agents into Zendesk with an API token. Zendesk has let no account create new API tokens since 27 October 2026, and every Support API token stops working on 30 April 2027, so that setup works only with a token you already hold, and only until then. Text features, including the AI Agent, inbox and ticketing, are not part of LiveChat plans; Text is a separate workspace, and opening one moves neither your plan nor your history. Teams weighing a wider switch can compare the options in our Zendesk alternatives guide.
Both trials last 14 days without a card. Zendesk trial data is lost unless you buy or export, so export anything you build there before it ends.
Frequently asked questions
Do Zendesk light agents need a paid seat?+
No. Light agents take no paid seat; Suite Professional includes up to 100 and Suite Enterprise up to 1,000, while Support Team and Suite Team get them only through an add-on with no published price.
Where is my data hosted?+
Text says it hosts on Google Cloud in the US (Texas, Iowa) and the EU (Frankfurt), but it does not publish which region a new Text account uses. Zendesk offers US, EEA, UK and APAC hosting through its Data Center Location add-on, free on Suite Professional and above on request; without it Zendesk may move account data between regions.
Does either vendor train AI on my data?+
Text says it does not use client data to train general-purpose or third-party models, OpenAI included, but may use it to maintain and improve its own services, including its own AI models. Zendesk says third-party LLM providers never train on customer data, while its own generic models are trained on aggregated, sanitized service data.
Can existing LiveChat customers keep their plan?+
Yes. Existing LiveChat customers keep their LiveChat account, plan and price; Text is a separate workspace that new sign-ups start on.
The bottom line
Choose Text when live chat, WhatsApp and an AI Agent carry your support and the team is small. Essential is the entry live-chat seat, and at about 200 AI resolutions a month on annual billing Growth costs less than Zendesk Suite Team below ten seats. Choose Zendesk Suite when you need phone support, a public help center, SLA policies or HIPAA under a signed Business Associate Agreement today. Larger teams with light AI volume usually pay less per agent on Suite Team than per user on Text Growth, though Text Essential is cheaper still without Growth's routing and supervision. Run both trials side by side.
- [1] Zendesk Pricing Plans (2026-11) https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/
- [2] Text Live Chat Pricing: Plans from $19/User (2026-11) https://www.livechat.com/pricing/
- [3] Migrating an existing WhatsApp number to Text (2026-11) https://www.text.com/help/whatsapp-migrate/
- [4] Zendesk integration tutorial (2026-11) https://www.livechat.com/help/zendesk-integration-tutorial/