Zendesk Sell Is Shutting Down. What That Really Signals For Your Stack 

The writing’s on the wall in bright neon letters: Zendesk Sell is shutting down. 

I help companies untangle messy go-to-market systems for a living. This Zendesk Sell news is a flashing red light for anyone running a multi-tool stack held together by goodwill and duct tape. 

What actually happened 

Zendesk announced it will retire Zendesk Sell on August 31, 2027, and is pointing customers toward Pipedrive. Their guidance is to export data to CSV; some objects won’t fully export (e.g., email activity, call logs, docs). Zendesk says Pipedrive has built migration tooling, and there’s a native Zendesk–Pipedrive integration to keep Service and Sales loosely connected.

Context that matters 

• Zendesk went private in 2022 after a rocky year of rejected deals and investor pressure. They turned down a ~$16–17B PE offer in February 2022, failed to win shareholder approval to buy SurveyMonkey’s parent company, and ultimately sold to a Hellman & Friedman / Permira consortium for $10.2B later that year. 

• HubSpot passed Zendesk in revenue before the take-private: HubSpot reported $1.73B in 2022 revenue; Zendesk’s public filings showed a ~$1.58B TTM run-rate in 2022 before it left the public markets. 

• Zendesk’s cost mix shows where the focus was: in its last 10-K, Sales & Marketing spend ($680M) significantly exceeded R&D ($352M) for 2021. That’s a strategic choice that often shows up later in product velocity.

• Post-take-private, Zendesk has done select layoffs while emphasizing AI and core service investments. 

My take: this is a forced moment of truth 

If I’m a Zendesk Sell customer, I’m frustrated. I now have to re-platform CRM with a CSV migration path and a suggested move to Pipedrive. And if I’m a Zendesk Service customer, I’m asking harder questions. Is this a tight focus on core service, or belt-tightening that reduces the company’s appetite for multi-hub ambition? 

Either way, this pushes you to choose: 

1. A piecemeal stack 
   Zendesk for service + Pipedrive for sales + “something” for marketing. That is three systems, three data models, and three sources of cost, governance, and drift. 

1. A connected platform 
   Where service, sales, and marketing data share a single schema and automation layer. Cough cough – HubSpot is the answer.  

I’ve led a lot of Pipedrive → HubSpot migrations. I can’t recall a client moving from HubSpot to Pipedrive. That’s not a dunk on Pipedrive. It’s a note on outcomes: teams want fewer seams, faster change velocity, and simpler analytics. 

Where Zendesk’s execution lands flat 

Zendesk has named a destination and states that Pipedrive has built migration tooling. But the export matrix excludes key histories and still puts the heavy lifting on you to map, clean, and reconcile data you’ve been compounding for years. That’s not a modernization strategy; it’s a handoff.

What I’d recommend if this is you 

1) Decide what game you’re playing. 
If service is your operational heartbeat, pick a platform that keeps service, sales, and marketing in one data model. Single source of truth. That’s how you get clean attribution, proactive CS, and AI that actually lands. 

2) Treat this as a consolidation event, not a lift-and-shift. 
You’ll never have a better moment to collapse tools, standardize objects, clean up your data, and reset lifecycle stages. A straight CSV port just drags your old problems into a new UI. 

3) Plan the migration like a program, not a project. 

• Inventory objects and gaps (what won’t export cleanly) 

• Archive or merge redundant fields and picklists 

• Define your core object model and associations 

• Rebuild automations you actually need, not the ones you happened to have 

• Stand-up dashboards that leadership will use on day one 

4) If you’re considering HubSpot: 
Start with Service Hub + Sales Hub in the same portal. Use one pipeline language, one ticket taxonomy, one identity graph. You’ll feel the compounding gains in weeks, not quarters. 

 
Why HubSpot Service Hub Outshines Zendesk 

I’ve used Zendesk for service in a past role. Honestly? I never understood the hype. 

HubSpot Service Hub does everything Zendesk does, and then some. The kicker is that it’s all powered by AI and connected to marketing + sales data on one unified platform. 

That means scalable support, smarter retention, and proactive growth. 

What Service Hub Brings to the Table 

• Conversational Intelligence → Learn from every customer interaction with AI-powered call analytics. 

• AI-Powered Self-Service → Handle queries with bots, fill knowledge base gaps, and resolve issues faster. 

• Omnichannel Communication → Deliver support across email, chat, phone, and social,all in one workspace. 

• Integrated CRM → Every customer interaction, deal stage, and marketing touchpoint is instantly accessible. 

• Customer Success Tools → Health scores, feedback management, and retention insights built in. 

• Proven ROI → Customers report a 28% increase in ticket close rates within 6 months of using Service Hub. 

 
HubSpot Service Hub can replace Zendesk while giving you a fully connected growth engine. 

 
Shameless plug: At Flawless Inbound, we’ve been in business for over 10 years and have led hundreds of CRM migrations to HubSpot (including from Zendesk and Pipedrive). Every migration is a custom plan tailored to your business. We clean your data, map your ideal processes, set up a modern HubSpot system, and get you to measurable results and ROI faster.