Alternatives to Zendesk — what to evaluate

One client record carries pipeline, agreements, tickets, time, invoices, and renewal context — no integration mapping.

Ask: “Show me one client record. Does pipeline, ticket history, and billing all live in the same record, or are they linked across modules?”

Live revenue minus loaded labor cost per client, surfaced on the client record — no quarterly spreadsheet.

Ask: “How long does it take to see gross margin per client? Is it in the platform or a CSV export?”

Billable vs available hours per tech and per team, calculated continuously from native time entry.

Ask: “Where is capacity utilization shown? Is it a live metric or a monthly report?”

Tuesday AI scans every client overnight and surfaces at-risk accounts before they churn — ticket-volume slips, response-time drift, communication gaps.

Ask: “What does the platform proactively flag every morning? Or do I have to know to look?”

One-keystroke 3-bullet summary of any ticket conversation, trained for MSP terminology.

Ask: “Can a tech pick up a ticket and get an AI-written summary of the conversation so far?”

Auto-categorize and route inbound tickets by what the customer actually wants — password reset vs outage vs billing.

Ask: “How are inbound tickets routed today — rules, manual triage, or intent-based AI?”

Shared inbox auto-ingests as tickets with sender as contact, body as description, attachments preserved.

Ask: “What's the path from a customer's email to a ticket — direct ingestion, or a forwarding rule?”

Per-priority SLA timers, automatic pause/resume on customer waits, P50 and P95 surfaced in reporting.

Ask: “Does the platform measure SLA P95 or just averages?”

Tech starts a timer with one click, time accrues against the ticket and rolls into invoicing without re-entry.

Ask: “How many clicks from 'I'm starting work' to 'time is logged against this client'?”

Recurring invoices, card-on-file, ACH, dunning, and payout reconciliation all happen inside Orbit via the Stripe integration.

Ask: “Is invoicing native to the PSA or does it export to a separate billing tool?”

Recurring invoices auto-generated from agreement terms; time-and-materials lines drop in from the timesheet.

Ask: “How are recurring invoices generated — from the agreement automatically, or via a monthly billing run?”

0-30 / 31-60 / 61-90 / 90+ buckets surfaced on the client record alongside ticket and project context.

Ask: “Where is AR aging surfaced — on the client record, or only in a separate AR report?”

Sales pipeline and delivery operations share the same client record — closing a deal doesn't require copy/paste into the PSA.

Ask: “How does a closed deal become an active client in the PSA? Manual, automated, or magic?”

Upcoming renewals with 60-day-early warning, surfaced on the owner dashboard the morning they enter the window.

Ask: “Does the platform proactively surface upcoming renewals, or do I rely on a monthly report?”

SAML SSO via Okta, Entra ID, or Google Workspace, with SCIM 2.0 provisioning on the Scale tier.

Ask: “What does SCIM provisioning cost — included or paid add-on?”

Article 28 DPA available on request, sub-processor disclosure with 30-day notice, user-rights process documented.

Ask: “Can you send a pre-signed DPA and the current sub-processor list?”

Architecture-ready today; formal audit attestation Q1 2027. Honest disclosure on /security.

Ask: “What's the current SOC 2 attestation status — current report, in audit, or not started?”

Growth tier covers full platform — no per-ticket, per-client, per-automation, or per-integration fees.

Ask: “Beyond per-seat pricing, what else is metered? Tickets, automations, integrations, support hours?”

Migration from ConnectWise, Autotask, HaloPSA, Kaseya BMS, or NinjaOne PSA handled by Orbit engineering — included on every plan.

Ask: “Is migration assistance included in the standard contract, or a separate professional-services line?”