Acquire vs Smooch (Sunshine Conversations)

Acquire starts at $500/month base plus $25/agent for visual engagement tools like co-browsing, video calling, and screen sharing, while Smooch — now rebranded as Zendesk Sunshine Conversations — is only available bundled with Zendesk Suite Professional at $115/agent/month as a messaging API layer. The two products solve different problems: Acquire equips human agents with visual tools for technical support, while Sunshine Conversations provides developers a multi-channel conversation API to build custom messaging experiences.

Acquire (rated 4.2/5 on G2 from 43 reviews, per G2, 2026) serves teams in regulated verticals — financial services, healthcare, insurance — where guiding customers through forms or applications over text would be slow. Sunshine Conversations serves existing Zendesk customers with engineering resources who need API-level control over conversations across WhatsApp, LINE, WeChat, Apple Messages for Business, Viber, and Telegram. One deadline matters for anyone still running a standalone Smooch account: Zendesk announced in April 2026 that legacy Sunshine Conversations subscriptions will either be migrated into Zendesk Admin Center or permanently shut down on February 1, 2027 — after that date, legacy dashboard access and all integrations running from those accounts stop working.

Acquire wins on visual engagement; Sunshine Conversations wins on channel breadth and developer control. Acquire's defining features are co-browsing (agents view and interact with a customer's browser session without downloads), 1-way and 2-way video calling, and screen sharing — all accessible inside a single chat conversation. Sunshine Conversations' defining feature is its Conversations API with switchboard orchestration, documented at docs.smooch.io.

Channel coverage is where the two diverge most sharply. Acquire supports website chat, video, and SMS, with email and SMS available only on the $2,000/month Integrated Solution tier. WhatsApp routes through Twilio as a third-party BSP rather than via direct Meta Cloud API integration, and Acquire's own help center carries reliability warnings on several social integrations. There is no native support for Telegram, Discord, Instagram, or Zalo. Sunshine Conversations covers 15+ channels through a single API: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Apple Messages for Business, LINE, WeChat, Telegram, Viber, X (Twitter) DM, SMS (via Twilio or MessageBird), plus Web Messenger and native iOS/Android SDKs.

What both platforms lack: native Discord and Zalo support. Discord powers gaming, crypto, and developer communities; Zalo dominates Vietnam with over 70 million monthly active users. Neither Acquire nor Sunshine Conversations offers a ready-made integration for either.

Implementation differs significantly. Acquire is a ready-to-use agent workspace — log in, connect channels, your team handles conversations. Sunshine Conversations is middleware that requires Zendesk Suite Professional as a prerequisite plus developer time to build channel integrations, bot logic, and switchboard handoffs. Per Zendesk's platform documentation (updated May 2026), Sunshine Conversations cannot be purchased standalone — it ships exclusively bundled with Zendesk Suite Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus. Note that the standalone Sunshine Conversations dashboard only exists on legacy (pre-April 2023) plans; current subscribers manage everything through Zendesk Admin Center, and those legacy accounts are being migrated or shut down by February 1, 2027.

Acquire starts at $500/month base plus $25/agent (annual billing required); Sunshine Conversations costs $115/agent/month because it requires Zendesk Suite Professional as the entry point. Neither product offers month-to-month pricing at advertised rates, and both gate key capabilities behind higher tiers.

Real-world cost scenarios:

• 5-agent team on Acquire Self-Service: $500 + (5 × $25) = $625/month ($7,500/year). No email, no SMS, no data export at this tier.
• 5-agent team on Acquire Integrated Solution: $2,000 + (5 × $45) = $2,225/month ($26,700/year). Adds email, SMS, and import/export.
• 5-agent team on Zendesk Suite Professional (Sunshine Conversations included): 5 × $115 = $575/month ($6,900/year). Includes 1,000 MAUs and 1,000 outbound notifications per month.
• 10-agent team on Suite Professional: $1,150/month. Adding the Advanced AI add-on at $50/agent/month pushes this to $1,650/month. Month-to-month billing raises the per-agent rate from $115 to $149 — $1,490/month for the same 10 agents.
• MAU overages on Sunshine Conversations: $50 per pack of 2,500 additional MAUs above the 1,000 baseline. Outbound notification overages: $50 per 25,000. A 10-agent team needing 10,000 MAUs pays $1,150 + (4 × $50) = $1,350/month before any add-ons.

Acquire requires contacting sales — there is no self-serve signup with transparent pricing. Sunshine Conversations is inseparable from Zendesk Suite, so the messaging API cost is bundled into the ticketing platform cost. Switching from Acquire's Self-Service to a tier with email and SMS is a $1,500/month base-fee jump.

Choose Acquire if your support workflow depends on co-browsing, 1-way or 2-way video calling, or screen sharing to resolve issues. The platform fits regulated industries needing HIPAA, SOC2, or PCI-DSS-compliant visual engagement built into the agent workspace rather than bolted on through external tools like Zoom or Loom.

Choose Smooch (Sunshine Conversations) if you already run Zendesk Suite Professional or Enterprise and need API-level control over multi-channel conversations. The switchboard orchestration lets multiple bots and human agents hand off within a single thread, and the channel breadth — including Asian-market channels like LINE, WeChat, and Viber — covers ground few competitors do.

Acquire and Sunshine Conversations target opposite ends of the support spectrum: Acquire sells a ready-to-use visual engagement workspace at $500/month base plus per-agent fees, while Sunshine Conversations sells messaging API middleware that requires a $115/agent/month Zendesk Suite Professional subscription plus engineering time to implement. Neither is a fit for small or mid-size teams who want a working unified inbox across their channels without sales calls, annual contracts, or developer projects.

For teams that need messaging-first support across WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, and Zalo, Converge offers all channels at $49/month flat for up to 15 agents — removing the per-seat cost calculations that make both Acquire and Sunshine Conversations expensive as teams grow.