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ATON Desk vs Zendesk
A young Canadian desk beside a large suite.
Zendesk does more than we do, including a phone channel we have not built. We are priced in Canadian dollars, include AI conversations in the plan, and do one channel well. Both sets of prices below come from their own page.
Coming soon
You cannot buy it today
ATON Desk is not open to customers yet. It runs for Atheron's own support, on our own sites, which is how we find the rough edges before you do. The prices below are the prices it will be sold at, in Canadian dollars. Ask us to tell you when signup opens and we will, once.
Ask to be told when it opensWhat each one is
ATON Desk
ATON Desk is a Canadian live chat for websites where an AI agent answers first and a person takes over in one click, sold per seat in Canadian dollars.
Zendesk
A long-established American service suite, sold per agent, with ticketing, chat and a phone channel in one product.
Prices, as published
Our prices are the prices ATON Desk will be sold at, in Canadian dollars. Theirs are the figures their own pricing page printed on the day we read it, with the page linked so you can check today's.
ATON Desk, per seat a month
- Free$0
- Starter$19 annually, $25 monthly
- Team$45 annually, $55 monthly
- Business$75 annually, $89 monthly
- Enterprisefrom $115 annually
Zendesk: Their plans
per agent a month, paid yearly
- Support TeamUS$19 ($27), US$25 monthly
- Suite TeamUS$55 ($78), US$69 monthly
- Suite ProfessionalUS$115 ($164), US$149 monthly
- Suite Enterprise + CopilotPrice on request
Charged by use
- US$1.50 ($2.14) per committed automated resolution past those included
- US$2 ($2.85) per automated resolution paid as you go
- US$50 ($71) per agent a month for Copilot, paid yearly
Their page says a 14-day trial of Suite Professional, with Copilot on during it.
zendesk.com/pricing/US dollars converted at 1.4246 USD/CAD, the Bank of Canada daily average for October 2, 2026. They bill in US dollars, so a Canadian card pays whatever the rate and the card's fee are on the day. Our conversion, not their price.
Feature by feature
A chat widget for your website
ATON Desk
Yes
Zendesk
Yes
Prices published in Canadian dollars
ATON Desk
Yes
Canadian dollars only. Sales tax is added where it applies.
Zendesk
No
Published in US dollars on the page we read.
A free plan, not a trial
ATON Desk
Coming soon
Priced at no charge for 2 seats, 1 website and 20 AI conversations a month, and not open yet. Signup opens after the waitlist.
Zendesk
No
A 14-day trial.
Priced per seat
ATON Desk
Yes
Per seat a month, annually or monthly.
Zendesk
Yes
Per agent a month.
A monthly price printed beside the annual one
ATON Desk
Yes
Both periods on the pricing page.
Zendesk
Yes
Both periods on the page.
AI answers inside the plan price
ATON Desk
Yes
20 to 1,500 AI conversations a month by plan, then packs or capped overage.
Zendesk
Yes
5 automated resolutions per agent a month, 10 on Suite Professional, then charged.
A monthly cap you set before overage is charged
ATON Desk
Yes
Overage is off until you turn it on, and never passes your cap.
Zendesk
Not stated
The pages we read do not say.
A phone channel
ATON Desk
No
No phone channel, and no plan to add one this year. The website chat is the one channel at launch.
Zendesk
Yes
Their voice page describes routing, a queue with callbacks, recording and phone numbers.
A marketplace of ready-made connectors
ATON Desk
No
An API and webhooks, with API Plus for higher limits. No marketplace.
Zendesk
Not stated
The pages we read do not say.
Seats capped on the lower plans
ATON Desk
No
No seat cap on any plan. Enterprise has a 10-seat minimum.
Zendesk
Not stated
The pages we read do not say.
Your data stored in Canada
ATON Desk
Priced as an add-on
An add-on, and in Enterprise. AI answers are written outside Canada, in the United States.
Zendesk
Not stated
The pages we read do not say.
Channels today
What ATON Desk can actually answer on right now. The rest are built and switched off, and we would rather say so here than let you find out after you have paid.
- Website chatYes
- Text messages (SMS)Coming soon
- TelegramComing soon
- DiscordComing soon
- WhatsAppComing soon
- MessengerComing soon
- InstagramComing soon
What Zendesk does better
- A phone channel is part of the product. Their voice page describes call routing, a queue with callbacks, call recording and monitoring, toll-free and international numbers, voicemail and extensions. ATON Desk has no phone channel at all, and no plan to add one this year.
- Automated resolutions are included per agent and the price of more is published, so a month with twice the volume is easy to work out before it happens.
- Their plans run from a support-only desk up to a full suite inside one product, so a team can start narrow and widen without moving tools.
Who should pick which
Pick them if: Zendesk
Pick Zendesk if you answer the phone, you need one tool to cover support, sales and internal requests, or you are replacing a desk that already works the way theirs does.
Pick us if: ATON Desk
Pick ATON Desk if your customers reach you through the chat on your website, you want the AI answering first without a per-answer charge, and you would rather be billed in Canadian dollars by a Canadian company.
How we checked
- Every figure and every claim about another product comes from a page that company publishes, and each page is linked above.
- The date beside each price is the day we read their page. Prices change, and ours is not the copy to trust about theirs.
- Where their page does not say something, we say that their page does not say it. We do not fill the gap from a review site, and we do not guess a number.
- Their names are used to compare, nothing more. We are not affiliated with any of them, and their product names belong to them.
- zendesk.com/pricing/
- zendesk.com/service/voice/ their phone channel and what it includes
- bankofcanada.ca/valet/observations/FXUSDCAD/json USD/CAD
Be told when it opens
ATON Desk is not open to customers yet. Leave us a line and we will tell you when it is.