Comparing Loris and Zendesk QA? Both are Contact Center & CCaaS and QA & Conversation Analytics tools in the directory, which is why buyers put them on the same shortlist. Below is a side-by-side look at how they price, what they integrate with, and when each is the better fit, so you can pick on the facts rather than either vendor's own sales page.
| Attribute | Loris | Zendesk QA |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Paid · Custom | Paid · $50/agent/mo (with WFM) |
| Founded | 2018 | 2018 |
| Categories | Contact Center & CCaaS QA & Conversation Analytics | Contact Center & CCaaS QA & Conversation Analytics |
| Integrations | Zendesk Salesforce Kustomer Gladly LivePerson Twilio | Zendesk Salesforce Service Cloud Intercom Genesys Aircall Kustomer Help Scout |
Loris is a conversation intelligence platform that turns customer service interactions into structured data. It ingests voice calls, chats, and emails, then uses a mix of proprietary models and large language models to detect intent, sentiment, and quality signals across 100 percent of conversations rather than a sampled slice. That powers three jobs: insight into why customers contact you and how sentiment shifts, automated QA scoring of policy adherence and resolution, and analytics on AI agents, tracking containment, transfers, and abandonment so automation does not quietly degrade the experience.
Loris grew out of Crisis Text Line, the nonprofit text hotline, on the theory that empathetic language patterns learned there could improve commercial support. The New York company raised a $12 million Series A in April 2022 led by Bow Capital with ServiceNow Ventures, Floodgate, and Vertex participating, roughly $19 million total, under CEO Etie Hertz. Gartner named it a Cool Vendor, Harvard Business School wrote a case study on it, and pizza marketplace Slice credited it with a 36 percent drop in credits issued. In July 2025 Contentsquare agreed to acquire Loris, and the deal closed on October 23, 2025.
Loris never published pricing and still does not. Everything is quote based, and the product is now sold as the Conversation Intelligence module of the Contentsquare experience analytics platform, so expect an enterprise sales conversation rather than a credit card signup, likely alongside a broader Contentsquare pitch.
Choose Loris if you want conversation data connected to digital experience analytics, which the Contentsquare pairing makes genuinely distinctive, or if oversight of AI agents matters as much as human QA. Be aware that loris.ai now redirects to Contentsquare and the standalone brand is being absorbed, so buyers who want an independent, single purpose QA vendor with its own roadmap should look at MaestroQA or EvaluAgent instead.
Read the full Loris listing → · See Loris alternatives →
Zendesk QA is the quality assurance layer of Zendesk's workforce engagement suite. Its AutoQA engine scores every customer conversation automatically, not the small sample a human reviewer can reach, grading criteria like empathy, tone, and solution quality across email, chat, and voice, including BPO teams. Spotlight surfaces risky interactions such as churn signals and escalations, real-time QA catches issues while conversations are still live, and a coaching module turns findings into 1:1 sessions. It also evaluates AI agents, comparing bot and human performance side by side.
The product began life as Klaus, founded in Tallinn, Estonia in 2018 by Martin Koiva, Kair Kasper, and Egon Sale, complete with a cartoon dog mascot and a devoted following among support leaders. Zendesk signed a definitive agreement to acquire Klaus in January 2024 and completed the deal on February 12, 2024, folding it into its workforce engagement portfolio alongside the Tymeshift WFM product. Zendesk cites QA customers including Audacy, Kahoot, and Liberty, with results like a 150 percent increase in ticket review volume.
Klaus is no longer sold standalone: Zendesk QA is an add-on to a Zendesk Support or Suite plan. Zendesk's own pricing page lists the Workforce Engagement Bundle, QA plus workforce management, at $50 per agent per month billed annually, while multiple independent pricing breakdowns consistently peg the QA add-on alone at $35 per agent per month. There is no free tier, and final numbers still route through sales.
Choose Zendesk QA if you already run support on Zendesk and want mature automated QA with zero integration friction, or if you need to hold AI agents to the same standard as people. It still connects to outside platforms like Salesforce, Intercom, Genesys, and Aircall, but the center of gravity is now firmly Zendesk. If you want a vendor-neutral QA partner with published a la carte pricing, look at EvaluAgent or MaestroQA instead.
Read the full Zendesk QA listing → · See Zendesk QA alternatives →
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