Zoho Desk alternative

Your help desk, inside your CRM.

Tickets, support email, website chat, an AI bot and a help center in the same app as your customers, deals, calls and invoices. Less to set up, unlimited users.

Start free

Free plan, no card. Bring your customers and help articles in an afternoon.

QuillstackConversationsAI botHelp centerCustomersA software company's support team

Zoho Desk and Alori, side by side.

Zoho DeskAlori

Price for a team of 5$70 to $200 a month in agents, billed yearlyFrom $99 a month, everyone included

Help desk aloneCheaper per agentCosts more if support is all you need

AIZia on Professional and upNora on every plan, on your credits

Tickets with response timesYesYes, per team and per priority

Customer portal and departmentsYes, a strengthNot yet

SetupDepartments, layouts, blueprints, rulesForward support@, turn on the chat

CRM, phone and invoicesSeparate Zoho productsBuilt in, one customer list

Help center languagesManyEnglish and French

From a support email to a renewed client.

A forwarded email becomes a ticket, the team fixes it, and the account manager sees it before the renewal call.

1A support email opens a conversation
2Late tickets turn red
3Sales sees it before the renewal

A support email opens a conversation

What changes on Monday.

01
BeforeA week of departments, layouts and rules before the first answer
With AloriForward support@, turn on the chat, and you're answering
02
BeforeZia only on Professional and up
With AloriNora answers on every plan
03
BeforeDesk, CRM and phone are three Zoho apps with three customer lists
With AloriOne customer record for tickets, deals, calls and invoices

Response times that show who waits.

Each team sets a response time per priority. A customer's ticket past its time turns red and counts on the menu, and Front desk shows how long customers wait on chat and support email.

Teams with their own steps, cycles and ticket prefix.
Sub-tickets and links: blocks, related, duplicate.
The customer gets an email as the ticket moves.

Nora on every plan.

Nora answers website chats and support email from your help center, Company memory and price list. She hands off what needs a person, with the reason, and learns from your team's answer.

Pick who answers: Nora first, you first with Nora as backup, or only you with Nora suggesting.
Try her in test mode before she talks to anyone.
She runs on your plan's credits.

Change it by asking.

Your app isn’t frozen on day one. Write what you need, the way you’d text it. Alori makes the change and shows you before anything goes live.

Show me tickets past their response time
Which clients opened the most tickets this month?
Have Nora answer support email first
Write a help article on setting up webhooks

The full guide

Everything above, in detail: how it works, what it replaces and what it does not.

Short answer: Alori is a Zoho Desk alternative for small software companies and agencies that want support in the same app as their customers, deals, calls and invoices, without wiring several Zoho apps together. Tickets, support email, website chat, an AI support bot and a help center come with unlimited users on every plan. Switching is four steps: forward your support email, bring your customers and help articles, and turn on the chat.

Why teams leave Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a capable help desk at a low price per agent. Small teams leave it for the setup and the sprawl:

Departments, layouts, blueprints, assignment rules and channels take time before the first answer, for a team of three.
Zia, Zoho's AI, comes on Professional ($23 per agent a month billed yearly) and up; Standard gets an answer bot that replies from your articles.
The CRM, the phone, the books and the chat are separate Zoho products, each with its own seats and settings.

What you pay

Zoho Desk, as listed on its pricing page in November 2026 (US dollars):

Team of 5	Zoho Desk	Alori
Agents, billed yearly	$70 a month on Standard, $115 on Professional, $200 on Enterprise	Unlimited users on every plan
Agents, billed monthly	$100 a month on Standard, $175 on Professional, $250 on Enterprise	Unlimited users on every plan
Free plan	Up to 3 agents	No card, no limit on users
CRM, phone and invoices	Separate Zoho products	Free to start, Solo from $99 a month, Business from $249, all included

For a help desk alone, Zoho Desk costs less per agent. Alori is worth it when it also replaces your CRM, phone and invoicing. See pricing.

What Alori replaces

Tickets: file a ticket from a customer's conversation in one click. Each team has its own steps, priorities and response times, and a customer's ticket past its time turns red. The customer gets an email as the ticket moves.
Forward support@ to Alori. Each email opens a conversation, and Nora answers by email or leaves it to your team.
Conversations keep email, website chat, calls, texts, Messenger and Instagram in one thread per customer, with internal notes, saved replies and tags.
Website chat: turn it on in Front desk for your Alori website, or paste one line into any other site or web app. Visitors search your help articles right in the chat.
An AI support bot on every plan. Nora answers first and hands off when she needs a person, backs you up after 2 minutes, or only suggests answers. She learns from your help center, Company memory and price list, and from each answer your team gives.
Help center: articles with pictures and videos, sorted into sections, in English and French, at your own address on the Business plan.
Automations you write in plain words, like "when a ticket is filed, post it in Team chat".
Customers, deals, calls, quotes and invoices in the same app, with one customer list.

What Alori doesn't do yet

A customer portal where people sign in to follow their tickets, departments with their own brands, Zoho's Blueprint step-by-step processes, a help center in more than English and French, and the wider Zoho suite of apps. If your company already runs on Zoho One, stay on Zoho Desk.

How to switch

Start free. Describe your business. Alori builds your app with customers, Conversations, Tickets and Front desk.
Bring your customers. Export your contacts from Zoho Desk as a CSV, open Ask Sam and paste them after "Add these customers:". Alori adds them, with an Undo button.
Bring your help articles. In Chat, give Alori the links to your Zoho Desk knowledge base articles. Each one comes over with its text, links and pictures, and Nora learns from it right away.
Forward your support email and turn on the chat. Copy your Support email address in Front desk and forward support@ to it. Then turn on On your website, or copy the line under Install for another site.

There is no one-click Zoho Desk import yet: past tickets stay in Zoho Desk, so keep it open read-only for a few weeks.

Questions

Another question? Ask it when you start.

Yes for small teams that want tickets, chat, an AI bot and a help center in the same app as their CRM, deals and phones, with less to set up. For large support teams with departments, a customer portal and Zoho's other apps, Zoho Desk fits better.

Not for a help desk alone: Zoho Desk Standard is $70 a month for 5 agents billed yearly, and Alori Solo is $99. Alori costs less once you count the CRM, phone and invoicing tools it also replaces, and every plan has unlimited users and an AI bot.

Alori has a free plan, no card needed, with credits to try your AI team and no limit on users.

Your customers, from a CSV you paste into Ask Sam, and your help articles, one link each. Past tickets don't come over yet.

Small software companies and agencies, usually under 50 people.

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Your turn.

Describe your business in a sentence. Alori builds the app.