Welcome to Zendesk for Startups. You have 180 days to build a support experience that grows with your business—and we’re here to help you make the most of it.

Start with the essentials, launch quickly, and improve as you learn. This checklist walks you through Suite Professional, Copilot, and the setup that helps a lean team support customers with confidence.

Want the quick version?

Watch the agent Copilot demo before you begin. It’s optional, and the checklist below is your fastest path to launch.

Before you begin

  • After you're approved, sign in to your account to begin your 180-day extended trial
  • Your trial includes Suite Professional and Copilot. No promo code or separate activation step is required.
  • Don’t downgrade during the trial. Changing your plan can affect your startup-program access.
  • Use the full 180-day trial to build, test, and launch your support experience .
  • You can add agent seats as your team grows. Check your program terms for the current seat limit.
  • Voice (formerly Talk), usage-based services, paid add-ons, and integrations may not be covered. Confirm coverage before you make a channel part of your launch plan.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Step 1: Bring your team together

You don’t need a perfect org chart to get started. Set up the structure you need today, then adjust it as your team grows.

  1. Choose an account owner and a small implementation team
  2. Create groups that match the way you work, such as Support, Billing, Technical Support, or VIP
  3. Add agents and give each person the access they need. Keep admin access limited as your team grows.
  4. Decide which customer and company details will help your agents personalize support. Create only the fields you’ll use for views, routing, reporting, or AI.
  5. Add customers one at a time, import them by CSV, or use the API. If you’re moving from another support tool, plan your migration before you import production data.

Step 2: Connect with your customers

Start with the channels your customers use most, then give your team one place to work.

  1. Activate the Agent Workspace. Confirm that agents can create, assign, update, and solve tickets.
  2. Set up your support email address . If you’re sending from your own domain, work with your IT or domain administrator on SPF, DKIM, and DNS requirements.
  3. Choose the channels you’re ready to support. Consider messaging, help center, social messaging, and API-based intake. Voice isn’t included in the startup trial unless your program contact confirms coverage.
  4. When you use more than one channel, define one intake and escalation experience for customers and agents.
  5. When your groups, agent statuses, and capacity are ready, try omnichannel routing . Start with a simple queue model, then add skills or priority routing when you have a clear use case.

Step 3: Give AI a strong foundation

AI works best when it has clear, useful knowledge to work from. Build a helpful help center, then use AI to give your team a head start.

  1. Create or migrate the help center articles customers need most, including getting started, common issues, billing, troubleshooting, and account management.
  2. Use clear titles and headings, and answer one question per article . Make sure the content you want AI to use is available to the right audience .
  3. Connect your help center and any approved external knowledge sources to your AI agent.
  4. Choose what your AI agent can handle, when it should hand off, and how it should sound. Test with real customer questions before you publish .
  5. Turn on Copilot for agents. Start with writing assistance, ticket summaries, and intelligent triage. Remind agents to review AI output before they send it to customers.
  6. Monitor Copilot usage in Admin Center. Suite Professional includes selected Copilot capabilities, while the full Copilot add-on may provide additional features and unlimited usage 1, 2]. Check your startup-program documentation for the Copilot entitlement on your account.

Step 4: Make support flow

Avoid building a maze of rules. Start with the workflow your team needs now, then add complexity only when it saves time.

  1. Define a small set of ticket statuses and custom statuses that match your customer journey.
  2. Create the fewest ticket fields and forms you need to classify, route, and report on requests.
  3. Create focused views for unassigned work, urgent work, tickets waiting on the customer, and tickets approaching an SLA.
  4. Create a small macro library for repeatable responses and actions. Add an owner and review date for every macro.
  5. Configure triggers and automations with care. Review the default rules before you change them, duplicate rules when possible, and test every change.
  6. Document escalation paths, ownership, business hours, and response and resolution goals

Step 5: Test, learn, and launch

Your first launch doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to help customers and show you what to improve next.

  1. Test every launch channel from start to finish: submit a request, route it, respond, add an internal note, change the status, and solve it
  2. Test AI-agent handoff, Copilot output review, email threading, notifications, forms, routing, and permissions
  3. Build a baseline report with metrics such as first reply time, resolution time, reopen rate, backlog, CSAT, and AI-agent containment or escalation.
  4. Launch with a small pilot group. Collect feedback, then fix the highest-impact issues before you invite the full team.
  5. Schedule a 30-day review. Remove unused fields, views, macros, and apps, and improve your knowledge content based on real customer questions.

Step 6: Add what helps you grow

Every integration should make work easier for your team or your customers . If it doesn’t, you can skip it for now.

  1. List the customer or agent context you’re missing in Zendesk.
  2. Search the Zendesk Marketplace for an app or integration that provides it.
  3. Confirm ownership, data access, cost, and support responsibility before you install it.
  4. Start with the smallest set of integrations that supports your launch . Add more when they create a clear benefit.

Keep going

You don’t have to figure everything out on your own. Use these resources when you’re ready for the next step.

Getting familiar with the program

  • Program overview and eligibility
  • Getting started with the Zendesk for Startups Program
  • Startup Digital Hub
  • Partner perks

Product setup

  • Zendesk Suite product launch guide
  • Getting started with AI agents
  • Managing Copilot AI features and usage allowance
  • Zendesk Academy
  • Watch the agent Copilot demo

Other Zendesk resources

  • App Marketplace
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