Happy Valley

Stonly vs Zoho Desk

Stonly and Zoho Desk are both customer support tools aimed at small businesses and enterprise. Both have a free plan.

Stonly

Interactive guides and AI knowledge base for customer support teams

Zoho Desk

Multichannel help desk with the Zia AI assistant from Zoho

PricingFreemiumFreemium · $7
Starting priceNot published$7/mo
Free planYesYes
Free trial14 days15 days
Built forSmall businesses, EnterpriseSmall businesses, Enterprise
Platformswebweb, ios, android
CountryFR · 2018IN
Rating——

Choose Stonly if

Customer support teams that handle complex, multi-step issues and want guided self-service plus consistent agent troubleshooting.

  • Decision trees handle complex troubleshooting better than flat articles
  • Same content serves customers, agents and AI answers
  • Help desk integrations bring guides into the agent workspace

Look elsewhere if: Product teams primarily optimizing in-app onboarding and feature adoption metrics (Userpilot, Appcues, Pendo).

Choose Zoho Desk if

Small and mid-sized support teams, especially Zoho CRM users, that want a full-featured help desk at a lower per-agent price than Zendesk.

  • Much lower per-agent cost than Zendesk at comparable tiers
  • Free plan for up to three agents
  • Tight integration with Zoho CRM and the wider Zoho suite

Look elsewhere if: Teams that need the largest third-party app ecosystem or a very simple shared inbox (Zendesk, Help Scout).

Stonly vs Zoho Desk pricing

Stonly

  • Basic$0400 guide views/mo, 5 published guides, 1 team member
  • Small BusinessQuoteUnder 100 staff; 4,000 guide views, 5 seats, 1 knowledge base
  • EnterpriseCustomAI Agents, SSO, surveys, auto-translation, white label

Zoho Desk

  • Free$0Up to 3 agents, email ticketing basics
  • Express$7/agent/moBilled annually; AI agents with BYOK or Zoho LLM
  • Standard$14/agent/moBilled annually; live chat, knowledge base, answer bot
  • Professional$23/agent/moBilled annually; Zia AI, Blueprints, telephony
  • Enterprise$40/agent/moBilled annually; multi-brand, skill routing, sandbox

Stonly · Key features

  • Interactive step-by-step guides and branching decision trees
  • Embeddable widget for in-app guides and product tours
  • Knowledge base with versioning, review flows and scheduled publishing
  • AI Answers and a conversational bot built on your guide content
  • AI Agent Assist that summarizes tickets and drafts replies
  • Knowledge Agents and Business Process Agents for automated support flows

Cons

  • Paid prices are not published and require a sales call
  • Guide-view limits can force plan upgrades as traffic grows
  • Help desk integrations, AI Agents and SSO are Enterprise-only

Zoho Desk · Key features

  • Unified ticket queue for email, chat, phone, social and messaging
  • Round-robin and skill-based assignment with SLAs and escalations
  • Blueprints to enforce step-by-step support processes
  • Multilingual help center with knowledge base and community forum
  • AI agents on Express with bring-your-own-key or Zoho LLM
  • Zia assistant for sentiment, reply suggestions and anomaly detection

Cons

  • Interface feels dense and dated in places
  • Blueprints, telephony and full Zia require Professional or higher
  • Monthly billing is significantly pricier than annual

Stonly vs Zoho Desk: FAQ

Do Stonly and Zoho Desk have a free plan?

Yes, both Stonly and Zoho Desk have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.

Not sure yet?

Stonly vs Zoho Desk (2026): Pricing and Features