LiveChat (Now Text) vs Zendesk: Chat That Sells or a Ticket Desk

The short answer: LiveChat now sells to new customers as Text, a newer product from the same company. For six people answering website chat with about 100 AI answers a month, Text Essential comes to $249 a month and Zendesk Suite Team, the cheapest Zendesk plan with live chat, to $554 (monthly billing, checked on 26 October 2026 on the LiveChat pricing page and the Zendesk pricing page). Choose Text when the chat is where the sale happens. Choose Zendesk when chat is one queue among email, phone and a help centre, and every request has to become a routed ticket.

Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.

Run these numbers before a sales call:

1. Six seats and 100 AI answers, priced both ways. For example, Text Essential is 6 x $25 = $150, plus two packs of 50 extra AI resolutions for the 90 above the 10 included, 2 x $49.50 = $99, so $249. Zendesk Suite Team is 6 x $69 = $414 a month, with 5 automated resolutions per agent included, 6 x 5 = 30, and the other 70 at $2.00 each, so $414 + $140 = $554. Rates from the Text pricing FAQ and the Zendesk plan comparison.
2. The inbox you already run. A LiveChat customer keeps its plan and login and can trial Text beside it (pricing FAQ). Zendesk's trial starts by connecting Gmail, Exchange or a forwarding address (trial setup), so it runs on your own mail.
3. The number you will read in a month. On Shopify, Text's AI Agent Sales report counts orders placed during an AI-handled chat or up to 30 days after it (AI Agents article); Zendesk counts verified resolutions (resolution tiers). Count last month's by hand first.

The two entry plans, line by line

Read on 26 October 2026 from the LiveChat pricing page, the AI Agents article and the Zendesk pricing page with its plan comparison.

Where they part ways

The minute before the order, or the week after it

Text is built for the moment a visitor hesitates: who is browsing, which pages they open, a live cart inside the chat, campaigns that open the conversation (homepage). Essential tracks 50 live visitors and runs 3 proactive campaigns; Growth raises that to 400 and 30 (pricing page). Zendesk is built for after the order: Suite Team adds omnichannel routing, live chat, a knowledge base and telephony to email ticketing (Zendesk pricing). A shop losing sales in the chat window needs the first; a team buried in parcel emails, the second.

Who owns the AI allowance

Text gives it to the account: 10 resolutions on Essential, 200 on Growth, however many people log in. Zendesk gives it to the seat: 5 a month per agent on Suite Team, 10 on Suite Professional, capped at 10,000 a year (plan comparison). Headcount works for Zendesk and against Text. Zendesk bills only resolutions a language model has verified, leaving assisted escalations off (resolution tiers). Each vendor wrote its own meter, so read twenty billed conversations before trusting either invoice.

The wall at Suite Professional

SLAs, business hours, a help centre in 40+ languages and up to 100 light agents for colleagues who only read start on Suite Professional, at $115 per agent on yearly billing or $149 monthly (plan comparison). Suite Team's help centre has one language. For a Dutch shop answering in Dutch and English, that row moves the Zendesk seat from $69 to $149.

Prices on 26 October 2026

Text, per user a month in US dollars (LiveChat pricing page): Essential $25 billed monthly, or $228 for a year upfront; Growth $99, or $948 a year, with 200 AI resolutions; Enterprise quoted. Zendesk, per agent a month (Zendesk pricing page): Support Team $25 monthly or $19 yearly, email ticketing without chat; Suite Team $69 or $55; Suite Professional $149 or $115; Suite Enterprise through sales; Copilot $50 extra on yearly billing. Zendesk also bills in euros, pounds and reais, at figures its page does not show.

One agent step: a returns policy turned into a procedure

In Zendesk's AI agents workspace, open Content, then Use cases, pick the returns use case and set it to reply with a procedure. Write the policy as you would brief a new colleague: look up the order date, send the returns link inside the window, pass anything older or damaged to a person. Click Generate procedure and Zendesk draws a procedure map beside a plain summary of its logic (generative procedures). The human check: whoever owns the returns policy reads that map node by node before Publish, because a published procedure runs the conversation on its own. Both agents talk to customers, so Article 50 of the EU AI Act applies; the store support use case sets out what the greeting must say.

Choose LiveChat (Text) if your job is

• Turning website visitors into orders or booked calls with a small team.
• Seeing the page, the cart and the returning visitor while the chat is open.
• AI answers inside the seat price, with WhatsApp, Messenger and SMS in the same inbox.

Choose Zendesk if your job is

• Running every request as a ticket across email, chat, phone and a help centre.
• Routing by skill and holding SLAs, which start on Suite Professional.
• Staffing a large team, where an allowance counted per agent grows with every seat.

The LiveChat entry covers the switch to Text. Zendesk has no entry here; its own site is zendesk.com.

Two free fortnights, in the right order

Neither trial asks for a card. Text's runs 14 days and never charges by itself when it ends; Zendesk's runs 14 days (LiveChat pricing FAQ, Zendesk homepage). Start with Text on one product page, its agent answering from that page alone, then open Zendesk with your support address forwarded so real tickets arrive. With last month's numbers beside them, that settles most cases without a sales call.

Zendesk's trial opens every new account on Suite Professional with Copilot already switched on (pricing FAQ). On yearly billing that seat is $115 + $50 = $165, three times the $55 Suite Team seat you came to price, so the routines your team builds in those two weeks are the ones the first quote assumes. Before day 14, check every feature you used against the Suite Team column.

If the trials show three tools answering one customer, the question is the stack rather than the vendor; the Startup Fixer, a one-week review I sell, maps who owns what before the next contract.

FAQ

Does Zendesk's cheapest plan include live chat?

No. Support Team, $19 per agent on yearly billing or $25 monthly, covers email ticketing, routing and automations; messaging and live chat start on Suite Team (Zendesk plan comparison).

When does Zendesk treat an AI conversation as finished?

Email ends 72 hours after the first message, messaging 2 hours after it by default, a call at hang-up; the check that decides the bill runs after that (resolution tiers).

Will my existing LiveChat account change?

No. Existing customers keep their account, plan and price, and Text features are not added to LiveChat plans, legacy ones included (LiveChat pricing FAQ). Moving is your call.