Twilio vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Twilio
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Twilio offers a CPaaS and CCaaS solution, with the combination of its programmable Voice, Video, and Messaging APIs, as well as the Twilio Flex cloud contact center. Additional capabilities include Twilio's Elastic SIP Trunking, as well as API for WhatsApp.
$0
per min per participant
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
The Zendesk Support suite is a cloud-based customer support software built for better customer relationships. Designed to improve customer satisfaction and to support customers on any channel: text SMS, web, mobile app, phone, email, social media. The vendor states more than 200,000 companies such as Uber, Groupon, Box, Airbnb, and Slack are using Zendesk to lower their support costs, raise productivity, and increase customer satisfaction. Zendesk offers a full suite of products to meet customer…
$55
per month agent
Pricing
TwilioZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
Programmable Video
$0.0015
per min per participant
WhatsApp Business API
$0.0042
Per WhatsApp Template message sent
WhatsApp Business API
$0.005
Per WhatsApp session message
Elastic SIP Trunking
$0.007
Per min for termination
Programmable Messaging
$0.0075
per message sent or received
Programmable Voice
$0.0085
per minute to receive a call
Programmable Voice
$0.013
per min to make a call
Elastic SIP Trunking
$0.045
Per min for origination
Twilio Conversations
$0.05
per active user per month
Twilio Authy
$0.09
per authentication
Programmable Wireless
$0.1
per MB
Twilio Flex (Contact Center)
$1
per active user hour (5000 hours free)
Programmable Wireless
$2.00
per SIM card
Twilio SendGrid Email API
$14.95
per month up to 100k emails. (Up to 40k emails free for 30 days)
Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns
$15
per month for 5,000 contacts and 15,000 emails. Your first 2,000 contacts are free
Twilio Flex (Contact Center)
$150
per named user per month (5000 hours free)
Support Team (Foundational Support Only)
$19
per month agent
Suite Team
$55
per month agent
Support Professional
$55
per month agent
Suite Growth
$89
per month agent
Suite Professional
$115
per month agent
Support Enterprise
$115
per month agent
Suite Enterprise
$169
per month agent
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
TwilioZendesk Suite
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional Details1. Pay-as-you-go pricing: Simple usage-based pricing means you don’t get locked into big contracts. 2. Volume discounts: Discounts trigger as your usage grows, so you always get a fair price. 3. Start building today with free trial credit and full API access.
More Pricing Information
Features
TwilioZendesk Suite
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Twilio
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.2
112 Ratings
4% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings8.5111 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings7.270 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings7.676 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings8.171 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.2112 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings8.9111 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Twilio
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.0
99 Ratings
3% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings7.995 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.189 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Twilio
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.0
110 Ratings
4% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings7.786 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings7.835 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings7.366 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings8.6108 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.679 Ratings
Best Alternatives
TwilioZendesk Suite
Small Businesses
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Score 10.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Conversica
Conversica
Score 9.5 out of 10
SAP Service Cloud
SAP Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
TwilioZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
6.6
(70 ratings)
8.3
(150 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(5 ratings)
10.0
(40 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(10 ratings)
7.4
(23 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(13 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(15 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
5.7
(16 ratings)
9.0
(29 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.5
(2 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
TwilioZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
Twilio
Twilio excels in customer service applications, enabling automated SMS updates or voice calls for order confirmations and support. It's ideal for implementing two-factor authentication, enhancing security for online services. However, it's less suitable for businesses needing in-depth, custom telephony infrastructure, as it primarily offers standard, API-driven solutions, or for regions with limited internet connectivity, where cloud-based services may be unreliable.
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Zendesk
1. A lottery winner has a question about claiming their prize that involves tax implications. You can easily loop in a tax specialist from your finance department within the ticket itself for a collaborative resolution. 2. Lottery players frequently ask about specific drawing times or eligibility rules. You can set up automated responses within Zendesk to answer these common questions, saving time for your team.
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Pros
Twilio
  • Easy to see my team in one place, when they log in and out and what call status they are in.
  • Twilio is a simple, user friendly way to log in and out of work activities.
  • Excellent services and support.
  • The omnichannel feature which allows agents to get request from all channels.
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Zendesk
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Ease of Agent Training and Use
  • Able to add multiple brands with related custom reports and dashboards
  • Adding a new brand and basic help center is easy to do without the need of an expert or web team
  • Ability of agents and supervisors to see customer history across multiple channels
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Cons
Twilio
  • In my opinion, online support is extremely subpar for clients.
  • In my experience, no way to talk with anyone without a $1,500 investment monthly in their service.
  • In my experience, be prepared to wait at least 2-4 days to receive even one response from their support.
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Zendesk
  • I think the Graphical User Interface could use a facelift. It not the most aesthetically pleasing platform in my experience.
  • Particular things like where the default is when you click on each and every dropdown menu.
  • The macro integration could be a little more simplified.
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Likelihood to Renew
Twilio
We have standardized our processes surrounding Twilio. The entire process just works! There is no significant gap that we need to fill. Instead of thinking about Twilio's replacement, we'd rather focus on our customers with Twilio. It meets all our uses-cases currently. We haven't even explored the entire suite of applications to determine what other use cases we may potentially use.
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Zendesk
Zendesk is super easy to use and navigate. I really enjoy the sleek layout, the ability to tailor tickets, the macro option, and the quick key guide they have to make your use of time even more effective. My whole team loves working with Zendesk and rarely ever has problems.
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Usability
Twilio
Overall the product API is extremely well documented so it is very easy to build a product with their technology. The website is a little bit cumbersome to use as they have greatly expanded the number of products that they have over the years, but the dashboard UI has not been improved much since.
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Zendesk
As an agent it's very simple to use. As an admin it's also easy to use, but sometimes lacks some functionality that would be nice to have such as expanded native 2 way sync functionality for many major apps that are commonly used today like HubSpot and Salesforce. The ability to add followers to tickets to they get updates and are in the know without the customer seeing this agent cc'd is a nice touch. This ensures additional visibility and easily following the communication without having to appear as a CC to the customer, who could accidentally remove that person in a response, thus breaking the visibility
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Reliability and Availability
Twilio
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
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Performance
Twilio
The problem tends to be us, the user, rather than Twilio. We don't reach out to support fast enough (spend time struggling), but when we have, they've solved our issue immediately. We are rural, so there are signal issues to accommodate, however, we find that a few staff on a few cellular networks can triangulate where we all have signal to put up a sign.
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Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
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Support Rating
Twilio
I've never had to contact Authy's support. Of course, that's because Authy is so simple and easy to use that there hasn't been any need to. Authy correctly implements the time-based one-time password (TOTP) protocol, and becomes it conforms to the standard, it easily replaces Google Authenticator for your needs.
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Zendesk
Every time I contacted them they were not only very responsive and knowledgable, but always seemed to have a positive upbeat attitude. It probably helps that we did not have significant service outages or sev 1 level issues, but even my lower severity issues were quickly answered. And the positive and upbeat attitude really made things feel comfortable.
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Online Training
Twilio
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
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Implementation Rating
Twilio
The developer APIs and SDKs are super easy to follow.
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Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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Alternatives Considered
Twilio
Twilio was referred to me by a business colleague, and I can't be more thankful! Twilio has helped my Facebook page by leaps and bounds, and I haven't even considered trying another chat option for my page. It is easy to set up, and customer service is quick to answer any and all questions you may have. I highly recommend it!
Read full review
Zendesk
If spoken honestly Intercom is a level-par with any nearest competitor, Tools like Zendesk has to catchup with them in speed. However, there is an advantage to Zendesk with its simple and easy-to-get software which falls in every mid and small-size business pocket wherein Intercom is way too expensive and needs a tech admin to customize the product. The kick-starting feature with negligible configuration made Zendesk the ideal choice of our organization + the budget fell under our expenses.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Twilio
Being in South Africa, direct local currency support would be nice
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Zendesk
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Twilio
  • Adding in phone numbers onto our onboarding sequence has increased our user activity by about 30%. We believe due to the users being more invested in the application now.
  • On top of that, our first SMS has increased our week 1 retention by about 15%. Pushing users to go on the app more than 2-3 times has been a struggle and SMS seems to be a solid driver in retention.
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Zendesk
  • The positives weigh more than the negatives here, as it gives us a one-stop portal where we can tend to customer needs using one web app
  • It has also helped us identify areas of improvement based on the reporting feature
  • The value it provides outweighs any missing or lacking features that I'm sure will be available in the future
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ScreenShots

Twilio Screenshots

Screenshot of To access any of the products in Console, head over to the “Explore Products” section and start building.Screenshot of Whether you prefer to build with a drag-and-drop visual editor or with code, Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns helps you engage your customers through email.Screenshot of Flex is a programmable Contact Center that puts you in control.

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations