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Vitally vs ChurnZero vs Planhat: Which CSP is Best?

Vitally Team

Oct 21, 2025

Customer Success is a key piece in your growth and retention strategy, so you need to make sure your team is equipped with the right tools.

Whether you’re taping Google Sheets together or trying to squeeze as much functionality out of your CRM as possible, sooner or later, your team will need a dedicated Customer Success Platform (CSP). And it doesn’t take long to explore the CSP ecosystem and encounter three major players: Vitally, ChurnZero, and Planhat.

So how do you choose? In this guide, we’ll compare Vitally, ChurnZero, and Planhat across functionality, flexibility, integrations, and more to help you find the best fit for your team.

Vitally

Vitally is a leading CSP, with an emphasis on flexibility, ease of use, and data integration for innovative CS teams.

Unlike other CSPs that take a rigidly prescriptive approach, Vitally gives your team control to build processes from the ground up. That doesn’t mean you necessarily need to spend hours building absolutely everything from scratch; Vitally is quick to set up and has one of the fastest implementations of any CSP on the market (2-4 weeks on average).

With its flexible design, advanced collaboration tools, built-in AI features, and automation capabilities, Vitally stands out as a leading CSP among the three in this article.

Vitally earns rave reviews from CS teams for its user-friendly interface and seamless integration capabilities, offering a variety of automated actions and extensive API support. Vitally’s Hubs allow you to organize customer data and views, giving your team access to information when they need it most. Vitally also includes native tools for customer collaboration and real-time data, giving your reps a comprehensive tool for managing Customer Success from top to bottom.

One customer says it best in a recent G2 review:

“Vitally makes it really easy to get a complete view of customer health in one place. The platform is intuitive, gives us actionable insights, and helps our team prioritize accounts that need attention. The automation and integrations save a ton of time, and the dashboards make it simple to track progress across different segments.”

It’s no wonder Vitally earns high marks with over 4 stars on G2!

Top Features

Hubs for better organization
Playbooks for automation
Purpose-built AI features
Note taking
Conversation sync
Health scores
Surveys (NPS and custom)
Dashboards and reporting
Goal tracking
NPS tracking

ChurnZero

ChurnZero is a legacy CSP with several features to empower CSMs, along with AI-powered capabilities to automate tasks.

ChurnZero particularly excels with branching automation thanks to its “Plays” feature, allowing CS teams to create workflows that save hours each week. ChurnZero also offers in-app engagement tools (WalkThroughs and Success Centers), allowing teams to meet customers wherever they are in the product.

At the same time, ChurnZero’s reporting functionality is a bit rigid, and users report that its UI is clunky compared to more intuitive tools like Vitally. Where Vitally offers flexibility through Hubs, ChurnZero is a one-size-fits-all solution, making it harder to find key data when you need it most. Here’s what one recent reviewer had to say:

“ChurnZero can feel overwhelming at first because of the wide range of features, and it takes time to configure everything to match your workflows. Some reporting functions could be more intuitive, and there’s a bit of a learning curve for new users.”

Like Vitally, ChurnZero is well-rated on G2 with over 4 stars.

Top Features

Account segmentation and management
Health score tracking
Automation and Plays
Dashboards and reporting
NPS tracking

Pros & Cons

While ChurnZero is a popular option for scaling CS teams, it is not without its drawbacks.

Users love ChurnZero for its:

Customer support and onboarding process
Automation and workflow features
Comprehensive view of customers
Strong integration ecosystem for extensibility

But they find the following to be limiting:

Complex UI with a steep learning curve.
While the implementation team has good reviews, the onboarding process is slow (6-8 weeks).
Despite a comprehensive view of the customer lifecycle, advanced reporting is limited to data exports.
Customization options do exist, but they are limited and may constrain you as you grow.

Planhat

Planhat earns top marks in the industry for its flexibility and extensibility with your other tools. Planhat users regularly cite both flexibility and robust data modeling and management as the platform’s top perks.

With powerful automation features, insights, and data collection capabilities, it’s not hard to see why Planhat is a leading CSP. But with great power also comes great complexity. Users report feeling overwhelmed by Planhat’s blank canvas, which can lead to a steep learning curve for your team. Here’s what one reviewer on G2 has to say:

“The extensive customization options can make onboarding feel overwhelming at first. There is definitely a learning curve, and our team is unable to access many views until administrators have set them up.”

That said, the same user shares that “[Planhat’s] potential seems limitless,” so it’s a question of how much time you want to spend configuring the platform to your needs.

For some users, Planhat may be a fantastic choice for a CSP. Still, some features may be more cumbersome when compared to more intuitive counterparts like Vitally.

For example, unlike Vitally Playbooks, which offers seven different triggers, 14 actions, and powerful branching logic, Planhat’s automation is limited to six different actions in a more technical interface. And while Planhat can bring all your data under one roof, it lacks native tools for surveying beyond NPS. In contrast, Vitally allows you to build custom surveys to uncover insights and gather feedback.

Like the others on this list, Planhat is a best-in-class CSP; whether it is the right choice for your team will depend on your appetite for complexity and your budget.

Like Vitally, Planhat is well-rated on G2 with over 4 stars.

Top Features

Account segmentation and management
AI powered by GPT, Gemini, and Claude
Data warehouse syncing
Health score tracking
Automation
Dashboards and reporting

Pros & Cons

Like ChurnZero, Planhat has its pros and cons.

Users praise Planhat for its:

Flexibility and customizability
Robust set of integrations
Bi-directional sync with leading data warehouses
Automation features

But at the same time, they also find the following sticking points:

Steep learning curve, which can slow implementation down
“Blank page” syndrome when building and customizing workflows
Tacked-on approach to AI compared to purpose-built platforms like Vitally

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Vitally vs ChurnZero vs Planhat: A Side-by-Side Comparison

To make things simple, here’s a quick side-by-side comparison of Vitally, ChurnZero, and Planhat to help you make the right decision for your team:

	Vitally	ChurnZero	Planhat
User experience	Intuitive, modern interface with customizable Hubs and clean navigation	Feature-rich, but the interface can be complex and harder to navigate	A clean and modern design, though advanced features may have a learning curve
Data integration	Deep native integrations with data warehouse support (Redshift, Postgres, BigQuery); bi-directional sync. Built-in product analytics with custom event tracking. Built-in product analytics with custom event tracking.	Numerous native integrations, including broader CRM options (Pipedrive, Copper)	Numerous integrations with industry-leading platforms, including data warehouses (Snowflake and BigQuery), Product analysis (Pendo and Segment), Customer Experience software, CRMs, and more.
Automation	Flexible Vitally Playbooks with multiple triggers and actions, while still being easy to use	ChurnZero Plays with branching logic; it is powerful, but it can be complex to set up	Workflow automations with triggers, connections, and flows; template-based and custom automation options available, though some users note complexity for advanced workflows
Collaboration	Vitally Docs for real-time collaboration with customers; internal notes and @mentions. You can also connect all your conversation tools to consolidate and share customer interactions.	Success Centers for customer engagement (less collaborative).	Collaborate internally and externally with customers.
AI Capabilities	Purpose-built Vitally AI is embedded across the platform for Customer Success to turn all of your data into insights by summarizing customer interactions, generating tasks, and answering questions	Customer Success AI™ (CS AI) with embedded agents integrated with the platform to flag accounts, summarize data, and more	AI-powered features (leveraging OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic), including Writing Assistant to generate text and Conversation Summary to summarize conversations
Health Scoring	Customizable health scores with flexible configuration	Dynamic health and relationship scores powered by CS AI	Customizable health scores with flexible Health Profiles
Reporting and Analytics	Custom dashboards built on-the-fly; real-time insights	Dashboards and reporting (some users note less flexibility vs competitors)	Customizable dashboards and Pages for creating reports; pre-built reports available with flexible widgets and visualization options
Implementation Timeline	2-4 weeks typical; fastest time-to-value per G2 reviews	6-8 weeks typical (3+ months for complex implementations)	2-4 weeks typical implementation, though it can range from a week to several months depending on complexity
API and Extensibility	Offers a flexible API with bi-directional sync for integrations	Broader integration catalog, but some require dev resources to modify	Offers a REST API with bi-directional data transfer
Best for…	B2B SaaS companies prioritizing speed-to-value, modern UX, and ease of use	Established teams wanting a comprehensive feature set and broad integrations	Mid-market to enterprise SaaS companies with complex data configurations

Between Vitally, ChurnZero, and Planhat, you’ve got three solid options for a CSP.

When you factor in power, flexibility, and ease of use, we’d suggest that innovative teams seeking a purpose-built CSP should consider Vitally as their top choice.

Why Customer Success Teams Love Vitally

Earning G2's ”Best Results” award in the CSP category for four straight quarters (and counting!), Vitally offers several competitive advantages over Planhat and ChurnZero.

Let’s take a more detailed look at these key competitive edges.

Purpose-built AI for Customer Success
Customization
User experience and collaboration
Automation to power your team
Integrations and flexibility
Scalability and pricing

Purpose-Built AI With Customer Success in Mind

Vitally brings AI-powered features to provide you with a smart copilot for Customer Success.

Unlike other platforms that tack on AI features to their products, Vitally provides a purpose-built solution for AI, embedded within the platform and your data. With Vitally AI, you can transform all your customer data into actionable insights, delivering a best-in-class customer experience. Vitally takes all of your:

Notes
Meeting transcripts (and AI recordings)
Tickets
Docs
Conversations
NPS and survey data

And turns those into insights, like:

Rich AI summaries to pinpoint sentiment, churn risks, and more.
AI-generated Plays to give your team detailed to-dos, action items, and next steps for every account.
Instant answers to team questions about every customer.
Meeting recordings that capture real-time insights for your team.

Only Vitally can bring all your data under one roof and turn that unstructured data into actionable insights for your reps.

Customization & Flexibility

Your customers and processes are unique, so you need a CSP that gives you the flexibility to build a Customer Success process from the ground up.

Vitally provides customizable Hubs that allow you to create tailored workspaces for different needs, such as team roles, lifecycle stages, or customer segments. Tools like ChurnZero and Planhat may offer configuration options, but they can be more complex and have more limitations compared to Vitally.

As one customer puts it on G2:

“Vitally is super customizable. You can create workflows that are specific to your customer journey and the specific use cases that your team needs… and surface specific data to CSMs to automate outreach.”

User Experience & Collaboration

With customer relationships on the line, does your team really have the time to sift through endless tabs to find a conversation or meeting summary?

Vitally’s intuitive user interface makes it easy to navigate and find key information compared to more complex tools like ChurnZero and Planhat. This ease of use gives Vitally one of the shortest implementation timeframes on the market.

It’s also easy to integrate your tools and collaborate with your team. For example, Vitally Docs allows you to share success plans and collaborate directly in the platform, something that other CSPs lack entirely.

Automation

For scaled Customer Success, time-saving automation is especially key to helping your team service a large number of accounts while providing top-notch service.

Automation is where Vitally excels; Vitally’s plug-and-play automation builder supports branching logic and multi-step flows, allowing your team to automate tasks and streamline your process. You can create Playbooks to automate many day-to-day activities like creating tasks, sending emails, and more. In comparison, ChurnZero and Planhat’s automation features can be more complex to use.

Integrations & Flexibility

Both Vitally and Planhat lead the pack when it comes to bringing all your data under one roof.

The ability to collect, sync, and gather insights from your data is critical for Customer Success teams. For starters, to service your customers, you need product usage data, health score insights, behavioral insights, and a conversation history.

Vitally brings all your data under one roof with a wide range of integrations along with an extensive API, giving your CS team every datapoint they’ll need to make better decisions. Vitally also offers a bi-directional sync with Salesforce, allowing you to seamlessly transfer data between the two platforms.

Scalability & Pricing

If you’re already investing in a CRM and marketing suite, a dedicated CSP can present a financial burden — especially for earlier-stage startups.

ChurnZero and Planhat can be pricey options, but Vitally’s pricing model is transparent and scalable, accommodating a wide range of business sizes and growth stages. CSMs need a CSP, not a CRM, to manage customer relationships effectively, and Vitally aims to make it scalable and affordable for businesses of various sizes.

Looking For a User-Friendly, Flexible, and Scalable CSP? Look No Further Than Vitally

Vitally, ChurnZero, and Planhat are all strong CSP options. All three offer essential features: data integration, automation, and health score tracking, to name a few.

But only Vitally packages these features with advanced customization options, a speedy implementation timeline, competitive pricing, and a user-friendly interface that helps you move faster when you need it most. With powerful automation features, seamless integrations, and a flexible API, Vitally is the top choice for innovative Customer Success teams looking to build a CS process that fits the unique needs of their customers.

To see how top-performing companies build a winning Customer Success org, schedule a demo of Vitally or explore our free platform tour today!