By Alpit Patel and the aibrevo team · October 22, 2026 · 6 min read
Zendesk Sell Shutdown: Retirement Date August 31, 2027, Export Window and What to Do
Zendesk will retire Zendesk Sell and the Sell mobile app on August 31, 2027, according to its own announcement page (last updated October 21, 2026). Existing customers keep full access until then, Zendesk recommends Pipedrive, and any data not exported is deleted when the subscription ends or on that date, whichever comes first.
Key takeaways
- Zendesk's announcement page says it will retire Zendesk Sell and the Sell mobile app on August 31, 2027. From October 22, 2026 that is 313 days away. Existing Sell customers keep full access until then.
- Sell data is deleted under Zendesk's data deletion policy when the Sell subscription ends or on August 31, 2027, whichever comes first, and the deletion is permanent. Cancelling early therefore moves your own deadline forward.
- The built-in export is one CSV account export from Settings > Data > Export. It covers leads, contacts, deals, notes, tasks and smart lists. It does not include activity history, appointments, emails, call logs or documents.
- Zendesk names Pipedrive as its recommended replacement and says Pipedrive offers migration tools and a Zendesk integration. The page does not say whether new customers can still buy Sell.
- Nothing in Zendesk's announcement forces a Pipedrive move. HubSpot, Zoho, Salesforce, Freshsales, Close and monday CRM are all open options, and the real deadline for most teams is the export, because the email and call history in Sell cannot be exported with the built-in tool.
Zendesk Sell stops on August 31, 2027. Zendesk’s own announcement page says so, and it says that anything you have not exported by then (or by the day your subscription ends, if that comes first) is deleted for good. As of October 22, 2026 that leaves 313 days. The part that catches teams out is not the date but the export: the built-in CSV leaves out emails, call logs, activity history, appointments and documents.
Source: Zendesk Help Center, “Announcing the retiring of Zendesk Sell” (updated October 21, 2026) and “Exporting data from Zendesk Sell” (updated July 7, 2026), checked Oct 22, 2026. Days counted by aibrevo.
When is Zendesk Sell shutting down?
August 31, 2027. The announcement page lists September 9, 2025 as the announcement date and quotes the decision plainly: “we’ve made the decision to retire Zendesk Sell on August 31, 2027.” It also says Sell customers keep “full access to the product as usual until August 31, 2027.” Zendesk gives its reason as a refocus on customer service, employee service and AI.
One thing the page does not say is whether new customers can still buy Sell. It speaks only to existing customers, so a Zendesk Sell sunset or end of life search lands on a notice with no end-of-sale date. If a vendor or reseller is selling you a new Sell contract, get the terms in writing.
| Date | What happens | Source |
|---|---|---|
| September 9, 2025 | Zendesk announces the retirement | Zendesk announcement page |
| Until August 31, 2027 | Existing customers keep full access to Sell and the mobile app | Zendesk announcement page |
| Subscription end date, if earlier | Deletion of Sell data begins when the subscription ends | Zendesk announcement page |
| August 31, 2027 | Sell and the Sell mobile app are retired; deletion begins if not already started | Zendesk announcement page |
| Typically 90 days after cancellation | General Zendesk policy: deletion generally begins 90 days after an account is cancelled or terminated | Zendesk Service Data Deletion Policy (updated August 19, 2026) |
Checked Oct 22, 2026. The last row is Zendesk’s general policy for all products; the Sell page says deletion begins at subscription end or August 31, 2027, whichever is first. Treat the earlier reading as your deadline.
What happens to my data when Zendesk Sell is retired?
It is deleted, permanently. Zendesk states that all Sell data will be deleted under its Service Data Deletion Policy, beginning when the Sell subscription ends or on August 31, 2027, whichever comes first. The policy page describes different retention periods for backups (90 days), logs (365 days) and structured data such as emails and documents (40 days once deletion starts), and it says Zendesk does not offer expedited deletion. None of that gives you a way to get data back after the date, so the working rule is simple: export first, cancel second.
The practical risk is in the order of events. If you cancel a Sell subscription early to stop paying for it, your deletion clock starts then, not on August 31, 2027. Keep the subscription active until the new CRM is live and checked.
How do I export data from Zendesk Sell?
Open Settings in the Sell sidebar, go to Data > Export, and press Export under Account Export. Zendesk emails a link, and the file is a CSV. Admins can always export; anyone else needs an admin to enable export for them in Export Options. The Export panel lists the exports from the last 30 days, so you can download one again without re-running it.
Two details in the export article matter for a migration:
- If a Company ID value differs from the contact person’s value, the Company ID is left out of the export.
- Parent Company and Parent Company ID are not in a full account export by default. Export a smart list to get them.
Zendesk’s field-by-field mapping is not part of the announcement, so the step-by-step migration guide builds the mapping from the Sell API field names and each destination CRM’s import rules.
What does the Zendesk Sell export leave out?
Five things: activity history, appointments, emails, call logs and documents. Zendesk’s export article says “you cannot export” them. The export does cover leads, contacts, deals, notes, tasks, your full account and smart lists.
| Included in the CSV export | Not included |
|---|---|
| Leads | Activity history |
| Contacts | Appointments |
| Deals | Emails |
| Notes | Call logs |
| Tasks | Documents |
| Smart lists (separate smart list export) |
Source: Zendesk Help Center, “Exporting data from Zendesk Sell”, updated July 7, 2026, checked Oct 22, 2026.
If your reps wrote follow-up detail into emails and call logs rather than notes, that history is the part at risk. The announcement gives no alternative export route for those, and this page cannot name one that Zendesk supports. The Sell API has endpoints for the same objects, so a developer can pull them while your subscription is active, but check Zendesk’s current API terms before you plan around it. See our guide to exporting data from 8 CRMs for what other vendors export.
What does Zendesk recommend instead of Sell?
Pipedrive. The announcement says Zendesk has partnered with Pipedrive, calling it a “market-leading sales CRM solution with a well-established Zendesk integration.” Its instructions to customers are three: explore Pipedrive or another sales CRM, export your data from Sell, and contact your Success Manager or Zendesk Customer Support with questions.
Pipedrive’s own Zendesk Sell landing page offers a 14-day free trial with no card, an onboarding specialist and migration support, and says “no hidden fees, no limits” for migration. It lists no prices and no list of which data types are imported. Pipedrive’s migration article maps Sell leads to Leads, contacts to Persons, companies to Organizations, deals to Deals, tasks to Activities and tags to Labels, and recommends importing in the order Organizations, Persons, Deals, Leads, Activities, then Notes.
A recommendation from the vendor that is shutting your tool is a reasonable start, not a verdict. Our CRM pricing comparison and HubSpot vs Pipedrive page show how the main options differ, and the Zendesk Sell alternatives page lists seven with prices checked the same day as this one.
What this means for you
- This quarter: run a full account export and one smart list export, store both outside Zendesk, and list which email and call history you cannot lose.
- Before you cancel anything: keep Sell active until the new CRM has passed a test import, because cancelling starts deletion.
- If your data is small and clean: a CSV import into the new CRM is usually enough. Check the destination’s row limits on our CRM import limits page.
- If Sell is wired to Zendesk Support, forms or an email tool: list every integration now, since each one has to be rebuilt in the new CRM.
When to get help
If you have more than a few thousand records, custom fields on every object, or integrations to rebuild, a mapped and tested migration is faster than a trial-and-error import. aibrevo implements Pipedrive, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Salesforce, monday.com and GoHighLevel, and moving a team off a retiring CRM is a common request. Book a short call and bring your export, or read about the Pipedrive service and the HubSpot service.
Sources
All checked Oct 22, 2026.
- Zendesk Help Center, Announcing the retiring of Zendesk Sell (updated October 21, 2026): retirement date, full access until then, Pipedrive partnership, export and deletion statements.
- Zendesk Help Center, Exporting data from Zendesk Sell (updated July 7, 2026): export steps, permissions, included and excluded data.
- Zendesk Help Center, Zendesk Service Data Deletion Policy (updated August 19, 2026): deletion timing and retention periods.
- Pipedrive, Zendesk Sell to Pipedrive: trial and migration support offered.
- Pipedrive Knowledge Base, Zendesk Sell migration to Pipedrive: object mapping and import order.