“We were making six API calls just to do one thing. The integration was gnarly, the interface felt dated, and common actions, like editing messages in Slack, just weren’t possible in Zendesk.”
Peter Hofstee
Global Director, Support Engineering
Sanity
Structured content platform that enables teams to treat content as data.
Industry
SaaS
Support team
10
Monthly Volume
1000
website
www.sanity.io
Sanity replaced Zendesk and a custom Slack integration with Plain — unifying Slack, MS Teams, and email support while eliminating engineering maintenance overhead.
The challenge
Slack has always been a core part of Sanity’s support. Slack is a very accessible channel where you can have real proximity to your customers, which was key for Sanity.
Initially Sanity had built an in-house solution, but as their needs evolved and the customer base grew, the overhead of maintaining an in-house platform became unsustainable. They moved to Zendesk with a custom Slack integration, but there was a lot of friction. Their team spent engineering time maintaining an integration that still fell short on core usability.
It wasn’t just about engineering overhead - the friction started to affect the satisfaction of the team. They needed something that was built for their workflows, especially as they operated across multiple channels and frequently needed to pull other people in.
Why Plain?
Sanity chose Plain after realizing they needed a platform that felt native to their work style: collaborative, fast-moving, and highly technical. Key reasons for choosing Plain:
Native integrations for Slack and MS Teams
Developer-first, API-centric architecture
Modern and intuitive interface
Streamlined collaboration across solutions, product and engineering teams via Discussions
Integration with Linear to easily escalate bugs and feature requests
“We were looking for a powerful engine that we didn’t have to build ourselves. Plain gives us the flexibility we want without the friction.”
Peter Hofstee
Global Director, Support Engineering
The solution
Powerful orchestration across tools and channels
What once required constant engineering maintenance is now plug-and-play. Unifying Slack and MS Teams channels into one inbox took minutes, not weeks. And because everything runs through Plain’s API, the team can customize their workflows without workarounds.
Improved team sentiment
Plain’s friendly interface was a huge improvement on Zendesk and dramatically boosted Sanity’s team satisfaction. During the Plain trial, Sanity saw a 120% increase in team satisfaction. As Peter shares, “It was night and day. Support engineers were visibly happier using Plain even in the pilot phase.”
Enabling MS Teams support
Sanity’s team was nervous about starting to support customers in MS Teams, but many of their customers relied on it. With Plain’s single inbox, the Sanity team could work out of Plain and support customers in MS Team if this was their channel of choice.
Velocity of support
Sanity has always aimed for high support velocity, but legacy platforms introduced friction that didn’t scale with their ambitions. Plain removed the friction the team had elsewhere enabling the team to move fast today, and confidently plan for 10x tomorrow.
Better prioritization and SLA tracking
With Plain, Sanity can triage their queue based on customer data they pull into Plain, like urgency, enterprise plan level, customer size, and lifecycle stage (e.g. onboarding vs. active users). Plain’s built-in SLA alerts and timers for First Response help maintain rhythm in their follow-up responses.
A true partnership, not just a platform
The Plain team has consistently listened, responded, and even anticipated what Sanity needed. It’s a rare, collaborative relationship that feels more like a true partnership than a typical vendor connection.
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