Kayako vs Zoho Desk vs Jitbit

Kayako

Kayako puts everything into one plan: a shared inbox, Kayako Messenger with live chat, public and private help centers, SLA policies, CSAT ratings, collision detection and reporting. There are no feature tiers to work through, and Kay, the AI agent, can resolve tickets on its own for $1 per resolution. The customer timeline that shows every conversation across channels is a real strength for teams with repeat customers.

The problem is cost. Kayako One is quote-only, and at the reported $79 per agent per month a 5-agent team pays about $14,200 over 3 years, more than ten times Zoho Desk. You also get a smaller integration list, JWT-only SSO and no self-hosted option.

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is one of the best-value help desks around. The Professional plan comes to about $1,200 over 3 years for 5 agents and includes multi-channel ticketing, a knowledge base, SLAs, blueprints for process automation and solid reporting. If your company already uses Zoho CRM or Zoho One, the integration is tight and the per-seat cost barely registers.

The trade-off is tier gating: Zia AI, multi-department setups and some advanced automation need the Enterprise plan, and phone support needs a separate Zoho Voice subscription. Even with those upgrades, Zoho Desk is far cheaper than Kayako, and unless the Kay AI agent is the main reason you're shopping, it's hard to justify the difference.

Detailed feature comparison

	Kayako	Zoho Desk	Jitbit
	Veteran help desk rebuilt around an AI agent	Good helpdesk app that tightly integrates with Zoho ecosystem	Help Desk Software built for email. Trusted by thousands of companies across 50+ countries.
Pricing: 3 years / 5 agents	$14220	$1200	$3897
Pricing: 3 years / 10 agents	$28440	$2400	$8367
Active Directory	❌	❌	✅ Integration via a script for your server or ADFS and SAML
Activity Dashboard	✅ Real-time dashboards for team workload and SLA status	✅ Displays some performance metrics. Not customizable.	✅ Live overview dashboard
Asset Management	❌	❌	✅ A complete asset management module tightly integrated into the rest of the app
Canned Responses	✅ Macros that insert replies and update ticket properties	✅ It is called Macros and works the same way as canned responses.	✅ You can also assign canned responses to specific ticket categories if you need to
Community Forums	❌	❌	✅ Ideas Forum comes out of the box
Custom Fields	✅ Custom fields for conversations, users and organizations	❌	✅ Many custom field types, including dependant fields. Various privacy options.
Custom Statuses	❌	❌	✅ Add custom statuses, customize how your customers see them and assign different colors to them
Customer satisfaction survey	✅ Built-in satisfaction ratings after conversations are completed	❌	✅ Optional CSATs in email notifications and a report
Design Customization	✅ Help center and Messenger branding; the agent interface is not customizable	✅ Allows you to use custom colors and logos	✅ Unlimited customization options. Change colors with a live preview, add custom CSS and JS
Email Notification Templates	✅ Customizable email templates	✅ You can customize the email content of each event	✅ You are able to completely change a template for any notification type
Escalation	✅ Escalation via SLA breach triggers and monitors	✅ Includes an ability to create automated SLAs and escalation	✅ Possible to set up various escalation scenarios via automation
Exchange Integration	❌	❌	✅ Native EWS support instead of IMAP. oAuth support for Office 365
Import and Export	✅ Migration from other help desks via the API or Kayako's onboarding team; no self-service CSV export	✅ Only export to CSV files	✅ Import and Export tickets via CSV files
Internationalization	✅ Multilingual help center and localized customer-facing content	❌	✅ Available in 16 different languages
ITIL Compliance	❌	✅ Comes with ITIL workflows	✅ Support for most ITIL processes
Knowledge Base	✅ Public and private help centers	✅ Multi-brand customizable knowledge base	✅ Customizable Knowledge Base optimized for search engines
Live Chat	✅ Included in Kayako Messenger	❌	✅ A free live chat component in the web widget
Mobile Apps	❌	✅ Offers apps for iOS and Android	✅ iOS and Android
Multi-channel support	✅ Email, live chat, Facebook and X (Twitter) in one shared inbox	✅ Includes email, social media, live chat, etc.	✅ Possible to add unlimited channels via integrations and API
On-premise Version	❌	❌	✅ A full on-premises version that runs on Windows Server
Reports and Analytics	✅ Pre-built and custom reports; some users find custom reports hard to build	✅ Allows creation of custom reports	✅ 13 reports with an ability to build your own and to export everything to Excel
REST API	✅ REST API covering conversations, users and organizations	✅ Fully featured API on all plans	✅ API covers all the app features
Single-Sign-On	✅ JWT-based SSO only. No SAML or Active Directory support in the current version	✅ Most standard SSO options are available	✅ SAML, Google login, Windows-integrated etc.
SLA Management	✅ SLA policies with targets per priority and automated breach triggers	✅ Full SLA management with escalation rules	✅ Full SLA automation via actions/triggers
Support Widget	✅ Kayako Messenger widget with chat and help center search	❌	✅ Two different versions of a web widget
Third-party Integrations	✅ Salesforce, Shopify, Slack, Stripe and others; no large app marketplace	✅ Many integrations, especially with the other Zoho apps	✅ 30 native integrations and 500 more via Zapier
Ticket Collaboration	✅ Private notes, @mentions and collision detection	✅ Light agents, side conversations and CCs and followers	✅ See when other techs are viewing tickets in real-time, assign multiple people to a ticket
Workflow Automation	✅ Triggers, monitors and macros, plus AI actions via the Kay agent	✅ A lot of automation options with a great editor	✅ Automation Rules are very powerful and can go beyond simple if-this-then-that logic

Looking for help desk software? Check out Jitbit. We offer a fully-featured app at a very affordable price. It comes with all the must have features like knowledge base, two-way email integration (including native Exchange and Office 365 support), automation, hundreds of integrations with third-party apps and much more. Available both as a hosted "SaaS" version and an on-premises version you can install on your own server.