Question
How do I remove unused agent seats from my subscription, or downgrade the number of agent seats I'm paying for?
Answer
If you have an unused agent seat on your account that you no longer use, you can remove it from your subscription. You must be the account owner to make these changes. To view the number of active seats on your account, visit the Team members page.
Warning: Before removing agent seats from your account, make sure the seats are empty so you do not lose tickets or other data. For more information, see the article: Best practices for removing agents.
Customers with Zendesk sales-assisted (managed) accounts may need to contact their account representative to make this change.
For self-service customers to make this change
- Follow the instructions to purchase agent seats.
- Update the number of agent seats you need by editing the Seats field.
Reduce the number of seats as well as add them.
These changes will not go into effect until your next billing cycle. For more information, see the article: Why did my subscription change not go into effect immediately?
23 Comments
We did the above steps but the subscription was not update. Our account executive told us that we had to give 30 days notice! It is an abusive rule!!!
In my case I cannot even decrease the number. It is telling me to contact support and when I do so they refer me to their finance team. It is like scum. You can increase and pay but not decrease.
Same here; we cannot reduce and the contact support team hasn't replied in 26 days! Meanwhile we keep paying for unused seats.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention and I thank you for your patience on the matter. It looks like your AE responded to your ticket about 30 minutes ago and is actively working to get this issue resolved.
Feel free to respond to that ticket if you have any additional questions or concerns.
Cheers!
This needs be available via the Manage Subscription section - we can increase the seats but not decrease them without going through one of your support reps, smells very fishy to me.
Fishy for sure Tom Shaddock, I've been busy trying to downgrade our seats since March... As you can see above, I only get general replies that 'someone is probably working on it'.
I assure you there are no ulterior motives when it comes to downgrading your plan ore removing agent seats from your account. Typically the wait times come down to the volume of tickets our Customer Care or Account Executives are dealing with.
If either of you are trying to get adjustments made to your account right now but haven't heard back I'm happy to look into it for you to see if we can get your request expedited.
Let me know!
Understand that when you go to adjust the number of seats you are asked to contact support, it doesn't appear to something that the owner does without the assistance of support. This should NOT be this difficult.
It does appear that your account is sales-assisted, so as the article above states, you would need to contact your account representative in order to change the number of seats (unlike self-service accounts). There are generally reasons why an account is set to sales-assisted, and your account representative can explain your situation if you contact them.
Hello,
We have been informed by our Zendesk Account Manager that we are not allowed to reduce number of seats in our yearly subscription. Our current annual subscription has 16 sell and 9 support seats but our requirement has reduce to 0 sell and 13 support. We have contacted Zendesk Account Manager but we have outrightly been told that change in subscription is not possible unless we inform Zendesk 30 days prior to subscription expiry date. If this is Zendesk policy, it definitely does not cater to customer demand.
We were also planning to upgrade Enterprise plan from the current Professional plan however we were told that even in this case the plan can be upgraded with additional financial impact whether the number of agents are reduced, increased or kept the same. Is this the Zendesk policy that we cannot reduce the number licenses or change combination of sell/support licenses based on our requirements unless this is communicated with Zendesk one month before subscription expiry for our yearly contract?
We have a pressing need to adjust the number of licenses based on various Zendesk services but it is not being allowed to us.
Unfortunately this isn't something that we can help with here in the community so I would recommend following up with your account manager in the ticket you have open with them. It looks like they did respond to you in that ticket so if you just want to reply back to that email they should be able to answer any additional questions you may have.
Apologies for not being able provide more assistance here.
We are being forced to continue with our current licenses without any flexibility on Zendesk's end to change the number of agents as per our requirements. With such arrangements and inflexibility, we are seriously considered to not continue with Zendesk in future beyond this current contract.
Same here; we cannot reduce! Contacted customer support in August 2022 and they did nothing. We contacted again on November 3, 2022, and still nothing, the ticket is open.
At first, agent Derek Grejczyk put it as solved, so when I asked them why he apologized and said it was a mistake and returned it to open.
Smells very fishy to me.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention! I've double checked the ticket you have open and it looks like the team is actively working on getting your account adjusted as requested. They will follow up with you soon with more information :) Appreciate your patience and let me know if you have any other questions for me!
cannot reduce seats!
my ticket 11107462 is opened about 2 weeks and no any reactions from zendesk.
Brett Bowser
I didn't get any answer, the ticket is still open. 30 days have passed since your reply here. Last activity is changed in the ticket, but without a reply.
Lana, I've bumped the priority of your ticket and reached out to your rep to see if we can get a response back soon.
Thanks again for your patience!
I am also having this problem.
I have had 5 different tickets to try and reduce my seats. I have been trying to reduce our MONTHLY subscription since November. I have talked with account representatives, chat agents, and regular tickets. Everybody says something will happen and nothing ever does. I have already been overcharged for December (I gave more than 30 days' notice on this reduction) and it looks like I am about to be overcharged for January.
Reading all the other comments on this thread, all having the same issue, I am also having to agree that this does "seem fishy".
It looks like you have a ticket open with us and they are now working on getting your account adjusted. Appreciate you bringing this to our attention and apologies for any frustration this has caused you.
Let us know if there's anything else I can help with in the meantime!
The UI now states that to reduce agent licenses I need to contact support, so this article would appear to be out of date.
Issue Still Here: Unfair Cancellation Rule for Yearly Plan
Hey everyone, we're on a yearly plan that ends in [October 2023], and on 6 April 2023, we accidentally bought two more license seats than we need. We just want to cancel and get a refund.
Zendesk's account manager informed us of the current policy, which requires canceling 30 days before the plan ends. However, this doesn't seem fair for us yearly subscribers, as it makes us lose over 6 months of fees. We're asking Zendesk to cancel the extra seats and give us a refund. Any help or advice from the community and company reps would be great. Thanks!
Don't waste your time. Mine has been "pending" account manager response for more than a year, and I've been following up regularly with screenshots. It seems they are purposely avoiding any reductions or cancellations. Just cancel your credit card to stop this.
I've gone ahead and created a ticket on your behalf as well so we can look into this further.
Appreciate you bringing this to our attention!
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