Sanity is a developer-focused content platform used by some of the most demanding engineering teams. Sanity has a lean and technical support team of just 15 (soon expanding to 18+) that operates across multiple time zones and deals with highly technical questions.

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,” Peter said. “Plain gives us the flexibility we want without the friction.”

The solution

Migrating to Plain gave Sanity the ability to build a more efficient, scalable support system that aligned with their technical team’s workflows. Key improvements included:

• One user-friendly inbox for all channels: All support requests, whether from Slack, MS Teams or email, are routed to Plain. 

• Native integrations, zero maintenance required: Plain’s native integrations with Slack and MS Teams ensure that there is very little engineering work to set or maintain a unified support inbox.

• Stronger collaboration across the company: Customer solutions, engineering and product teams could now collaborate more easily via Discussions in Plain.

• Integrations with modern tools: Plain’s integrations with tools used by technical teams like Linear and Incident.io make it significantly easier to escalate bugs, feature requests and coordinate during incidents.

Customer 360 dashboard

One of the most impactful improvements since moving to Plain has been Sanity’s custom-built 360 dashboard, which gives their team a complete, real-time view of each customer - all thanks to Plain’s API first approach.

Peter Hofstee said, “It’s one of the parts we’re most excited about, because it’s where we used to struggle the most.” Built using Plain’s open APIs, the dashboard pulls in support data alongside Salesforce, Linear, and other internal systems to give Sanity a unified intelligence layer across their stack.

The 360 dashboard has become a vital internal tool, helping support engineers, account teams, and product managers align quickly on customer context. As the company scales, Sanity plans to push enriched insights back into Plain ensuring every teammate, regardless of tool, has access to the right information at the right time.

The impact

Since switching to Plain, Sanity has seen measurable improvements across their support function:

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.

“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.

“One of the most impactful parts of the transition,” Peter notes, “has been the relationship with Plain’s team. Plain stands out even among great vendors. From leadership to product to support, they’ve been incredibly close to us.”