Smooch

This review covers what Sunshine Conversations is used for, its key features, how Sunshine Conversations pricing works, where it shines and falls short, and how it compares with other messaging tools. Smooch was a Montreal company whose API let businesses connect dozens of messaging channels to bots and help desks. Zendesk acquired it in May 2019 and relaunched the platform as Zendesk Sunshine Conversations in October 2019. The old smooch.io address now redirects to Zendesk, and the developer docs still live on docs.smooch.io. Today Sunshine Conversations is the messaging engine under Zendesk's own chat products: the Web Widget, the mobile SDKs and the messaging channels in Agent Workspace all run on it.

Smooch is now Zendesk Sunshine Conversations

If you are looking for Smooch, you are looking for Sunshine Conversations. Zendesk bought Smooch Technologies for about $72 million in cash, according to its 2019 annual report, and announced Sunshine Conversations on 3 October 2019 as "an API-based platform" built on the acquired technology. The product is no longer sold as a standalone Smooch subscription. New customers get it as part of Zendesk Suite Professional or higher, or as a licensed add-on for larger messaging volumes. Zendesk publishes its API libraries under the Sunshine Conversations name.

What is Sunshine Conversations used for?

Sunshine Conversations is used by development teams that want one API for every messaging channel. Instead of building against WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, LINE, WeChat, Telegram, Viber, SMS and a web widget one by one, you connect each channel once in Sunshine Conversations and use a single way to create conversations, send messages and receive replies.

Typical uses:

• Customer support on messaging apps, routed into Zendesk tickets.
• Connecting a third-party or custom chatbot to Zendesk messaging, with a clean handover to a human agent.
• Building a custom chat experience inside your own web or mobile app with the Zendesk messaging SDKs.
• Sending notifications, such as order updates or appointment reminders, over WhatsApp or SMS.
• Syncing conversations with a CRM, an order system or another backend or external service.

Key features

• Messaging channels: Web Messenger, iOS and Android SDKs, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct, Apple Messages for Business, LINE, WeChat, Telegram, Viber, Twitter/X DM, and SMS via Twilio or MessageBird (Zendesk help).
• Conversations API: a REST API that accepts JSON, with official API libraries and authentication through an API key with basic authentication or JSON Web Tokens (JWTs).
• Switchboard: decides which integration controls a conversation at any time, a bot, an agent workspace or a custom app, and passes control between them so only one responder answers the customer.
• Webhooks: real-time events for new messages, delivery receipts and conversation changes, sent to your server.
• Integrations: built-in connectors for channels and business systems, plus custom integrations for your own services.
• Data regions: hosting in the US or the EU.

Sunshine Conversations pricing

Sunshine Conversations is priced by monthly active users (MAU): the number of end users who send or receive at least one message or event through your integration in a calendar month (Zendesk help).

• Included in Zendesk Suite: Suite Professional, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus include a low-volume, self-service version with 1,000 MAU and 1,000 outbound notifications a month, API access through Admin Center and limited chat support.
• Add-on packs: more usage is sold in packs of 2,500 MAU and 25,000 notifications, through Zendesk sales.
• Full license: adds support tiers with response times, a customer success manager, sandbox environments, multi-party conversations, private-label SDKs and a choice of US or EU hosting (Zendesk help).

Zendesk does not publish list prices for the add-on packs or the full license; you get a quote. The cost surprise to check is the MAU count: every customer who messages you counts, bots included, so a busy WhatsApp or web chat channel passes 1,000 MAU quickly. Legacy Sunshine Conversations plans started at 500 MAU and are no longer sold.

How the switchboard works

A Sunshine Conversations account holds one or more apps. Each app has integrations, which are either channels (WhatsApp, the Web Widget) or services that respond (a bot, Zendesk Agent Workspace, your own backend or external service). When a customer writes, the message lands in one conversation, whatever the channel. The switchboard then sends it to the integration that currently has control. A bot can answer first and pass control to an agent when it cannot help, and the agent can pass it back. That is how teams manage conversations across a bot and a human team without two responders answering at once.

Sunshine Conversations API: hosts, authentication and versioning

The Sunshine Conversations API is a REST API that accepts JSON and returns standard HTTP status codes. Licensed Zendesk customers send API requests to their own API host, https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/sc; legacy Sunshine Conversations customers keep separate base URLs. Always use https.

There are two authentication methods, both built on an API key made of a key id and a secret:

• Basic authentication: the key id is the username and the secret the password, for server to server calls.
• JSON Web Tokens: JWTs signed with the API key and sent in the HTTP authorization header with the "Bearer" prefix, useful when you do not want to send the API key directly.

On API versioning, the current version is v2; version 1.1 is still supported, but Zendesk recommends upgrading. Zendesk maintains official API libraries for Java and Python that wrap the API calls (sunshine-conversations-python). List calls are paginated, and the API sets request size limits, so bulk jobs should page through records instead of loading everything at once. For development or testing purposes you can use a sandbox app on the full license.

Where Sunshine Conversations shines — and where it falls short

Strengths:

• One API for more than a dozen messaging channels, including WhatsApp and Apple Messages for Business.
• Clean bot-to-agent handover through the switchboard.
• Native to Zendesk: conversations become tickets in Agent Workspace without extra glue.
• Included at low volume in Zendesk Suite Professional and higher.

Trade-offs:

• It is a developer platform: there is no visual flow builder, so you need engineers to use the API.
• Pricing for higher volumes is quote-based and counted in MAU.
• Outside Zendesk it has less value; the product is built around Zendesk's help desk.
• The Smooch name, docs domain and product names have changed, so older tutorials can be confusing.

How Sunshine Conversations compares

• Twilio: a lower-level communications API for SMS, voice and WhatsApp, without a help desk.
• Intercom: a full customer service suite with its own messenger and AI agent.
• Crisp: an all-in-one chat inbox for smaller teams, with less API depth.
• Landbot and Chatfuel: no-code chatbot builders for WhatsApp and web chat.
• ChatBot: a no-code chatbot builder from the LiveChat family.

Is Sunshine Conversations worth it?

Sunshine Conversations is worth it for teams on Zendesk that want to connect messaging channels, custom bots or their own app to Zendesk messaging through one API. If you already pay for Suite Professional, the included 1,000 MAU is enough to build and test an integration. It is less of a fit for teams without developers, for companies not on Zendesk, or for simple use cases that a no-code chatbot builder covers. If you need help building on the Sunshine Conversations API or connecting a bot to Zendesk, the low-code agencies and developers on LowCodeDevs can take it on.

Sources

• What is Sunshine Conversations and how does it work?, Zendesk help: channels and how the platform works.
• About monthly active users for Sunshine Conversations, Zendesk help: MAU definition and add-on packs.
• About Sunshine Conversations platform access and support, Zendesk help: self-service version and full license.
• Sunshine Conversations docs: apps, integrations, switchboard and webhooks.
• sunshine-conversations-python, GitHub: official library, API hosts, authentication and API version.
• Messaging and Sunshine Conversations, Internal Note: how Sunshine Conversations sits under Zendesk messaging.
• Zendesk acquires Smooch, VentureBeat: the 2019 acquisition.