HEAD TO HEAD · RATED SEPTEMBER 2026
Last reviewed 27 September 2026 · Service Desk Compare reviewers
A tie on the business-teams weights: monday service leads on automation and AI assistance and time to value, Zendesk on integrations.
Totals and ranks on this page use the business-teams weights (five criteria at 20% each; ITIL and CMDB shown for information only). For ITIL and CMDB weighted scores, see the full ITSM ranking.
monday service
8.3 / 10
Rank 1= of 9 on the business-teams ranking
Full ITSM ranking: rank 7= at 7.0
$31 per seat per month (Standard, annual; 3-seat minimum)
Read the monday service reviewZendesk
8.3 / 10
Rank 1= of 9 on the business-teams ranking
Full ITSM ranking: rank 7= at 7.0
$29 per agent per month (Suite Team, annual)
Read the Zendesk for IT (Employee Service) reviewScroll for more
| Criterion | Weight | monday service | Zendesk | Higher score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ITIL practice coverageWhy these scoresmonday service: Request intake, incident handling, SLA monitoring and a knowledge base are documented; problem and change management are not documented on the pages we read. Zendesk: Service catalog, SLAs, approvals and IT asset management from Suite Growth, but change and problem management are not listed. | Info only | 4 | 4 | Tie |
Automation and AI assistanceWhy these scoresmonday service: Named IT agents (IT Help, Device, Access) plus triage, knowledge and SLA monitoring agents, and AI Ticket Triage on every plan including Standard. Zendesk: AI agents on every Employee Service plan, intent and tone detection, and Intelligent Triage and Auto Assist on Enterprise. | 20% | 9 | 8.5 | monday service |
Time to valueWhy these scoresmonday service: Published plans from three seats, a 14-day trial and board-based setup that does not require an ITIL process design up front. Zendesk: Published plans and a help desk interface many IT teams already know from customer service. | 20% | 8.5 | 8 | monday service |
Configuration management (CMDB)Why these scoresmonday service: No CMDB or IT asset management is documented on the pages we read, the lowest score in this set. Zendesk: IT asset management from Suite Growth, but no CMDB or relationship mapping is documented. | Info only | 2 | 3 | Zendesk |
Usability for non-IT requestersWhy these scoresmonday service: A customer portal on every plan (10 users on Standard, 100 on Pro, unlimited on Enterprise) and intake through email and WorkForms. Zendesk: A self-service employee portal and knowledge base, with AI agents answering first. | 20% | 8.5 | 8.5 | Tie |
IntegrationsWhy these scoresmonday service: PagerDuty, Active Directory, Jira, Slack and Teams are named, plus '200+ more via API, MCP & native connectors'. Zendesk: AI agents that take action across business systems and omnichannel routing on the suite. | 20% | 7.5 | 8.5 | Zendesk |
Pricing transparencyWhy these scoresmonday service: Standard and Pro are priced publicly; Enterprise is quoted and portal user caps vary by plan. Zendesk: Team, Growth and Professional are priced publicly; Enterprise + Copilot is quoted. | 20% | 8 | 8 | Tie |
monday service scores higher on 2 criteria, Zendesk on 1, and 2 are tied among the five scored criteria.
| Plan | Price | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $31 per seat/month | Billed annually, 3-seat minimum. AI Ticket Triage for 1 ticket board; ticket intake via email and WorkForms; customer portal for up to 10 users; unlimited tickets. |
| Pro | $45 per seat/month | Billed annually. AI Ticket Triage for 3 boards; portal for up to 100 users; dynamic auto-responses for any channel. |
| Enterprise | Not published (contact sales) | AI Ticket Triage for unlimited boards; unlimited portal users; 250K automation and integration actions per month; HIPAA compliance. |
| Trial | 14 days |
Source: monday service pricing
| Plan | Price | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Suite Team | $29 per agent/month | Paid yearly. AI agents, knowledge base, action builder. |
| Suite Growth | $59 per agent/month | Adds IT asset management, service catalog, self-service employee portal, tasks and approvals, SLAs. |
| Suite Professional | $99 per agent/month | Adds skills-based routing, admin copilot, app builder. |
| Suite Enterprise + Copilot | Not published (contact sales) | Adds Intelligent Triage, Auto Assist, approval workflows, sandbox. |
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| Stage | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Logged | Documented | Intake through email, WorkForms and the portal Source |
| 02 Categorised | Documented | Automatic categorization and summarization of cross-channel requests Source |
| 03 Routed | Documented | Skill-based and load-balanced routing Source |
| 04 Resolved | Documented | Intake & Triage Agent auto-resolves common requests Source |
| 05 Closed | Not documented | |
| 06 Reviewed | Documented | Knowledge Agent flags stale articles and learns from resolved tickets Source |
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| Stage | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Logged | Documented | AI agents work on any channel Source |
| 02 Categorised | Documented | Detects intent and tone Source |
| 03 Routed | Documented | Omnichannel routing assigns tickets to qualified agents Source |
| 04 Resolved | Documented | AI agents resolve multi-step workflows Source |
| 05 Closed | Not documented | |
| 06 Reviewed | Documented | AI monitoring across 100% of interactions Source |
What each vendor's public pages document for each stage, as read on 27 Sep 2026. 'Not documented' means we did not find it on the pages we read, not that the product cannot do it.
Choose monday service if automation and AI assistance and time to value matter most to your team. It scores 9 and 8.5 there, against Zendesk's 8.5 and 8. Named IT agents (IT Help, Device, Access) plus triage, knowledge and SLA monitoring agents, and AI Ticket Triage on every plan including Standard. We list it as best for: mid-size IT teams that want AI triage and agents on every plan and serve requesters outside IT. Read the monday service review
Choose Zendesk if integrations matters most to your team. It scores 8.5 there against monday service's 7.5; it ties on usability for non-IT requesters and pricing transparency. AI agents that take action across business systems and omnichannel routing on the suite. We list it as best for: teams already running Zendesk for customers that want an internal IT desk on the same platform. Read the Zendesk for IT (Employee Service) review
They tie at 8.3 on the business-teams weights, sharing rank 1= on the business-teams ranking. monday service leads on 2 criteria and Zendesk on 1, with 2 tied.
monday service lists $31 per seat per month (Standard, annual; 3-seat minimum); Zendesk lists $29 per agent per month (Suite Team, annual). Pricing units differ (per agent, per seat or per technician), so compare the plan that includes the practices you need. On pricing transparency monday service scores 8 and Zendesk 8. The calculator prices both for your agent count.
On ITIL practice coverage monday service scores 4 and Zendesk 4; on configuration management (CMDB) monday service scores 2 and Zendesk 3. IT asset management from Suite Growth, but no CMDB or relationship mapping is documented.