AI Customer Support Pricing Index 2026: 30 Tools Compared by Model

AI support vendors do not sell the same unit. Intercom bills an outcome, Zendesk an automated resolution, Tidio a Lyro conversation, Freshdesk a session, Chatbase a message credit and PepoChat an AI reply, so two quotes for the same month of support can differ a hundredfold without either vendor being unreasonable. A price index is only useful if it puts those units side by side and says which one each vendor uses.

The index is for whoever signs off on the bill: a store owner, a SaaS founder or a support lead comparing quotes. It lists 29 competitors and PepoChat in one table grouped by pricing model, then works out the monthly cost at 500, 2,000 and 10,000 AI conversations for 17 of them, using the same stated assumptions for every vendor.

Every price below was read from the vendor's own pricing page or help center on 19 October 2026, at monthly-billing rates with the annual rate in brackets. The one pricing page we could not open, Dante AI's, keeps the value we verified on 3 October 2026 and shows that date. PepoChat is our product; it appears as one row with the same columns and assumptions as everyone else.

What are the four ways AI support tools charge?

AI customer support tools bill the AI in one of four ways, and the model predicts how your invoice moves when volume grows better than the headline price does. Each vendor in the index is assigned the one model that sets its AI line, even when a seat fee sits underneath.

• Per resolution or outcome pricing bills the AI for each conversation the vendor counts as resolved by the AI, usually on top of seat or ticket fees.
• Per conversation or credit pricing bills every AI conversation, message or credit, resolved or not, with no per-seat fee underneath, and a credit often costs more per reply on a stronger AI model.
• Per seat plus AI add-on pricing charges for each human agent or operator and sells the AI on top, as session packs, credits, conversation packs or a pricier seat tier.
• Flat plan with an AI allowance pricing charges one monthly price per workspace that includes a fixed number of AI replies, conversations or queries, with a published overage rate or a hard stop past it.

Per-resolution bills grow with the AI's success, credit bills grow with message count and model choice, seat bills grow with headcount, and flat bills move in known steps. Of the 30 tools in the index, 15 sell AI by the conversation or credit, 6 by the resolution, 4 by the seat with an AI add-on and 5 as a flat plan. Our AI chatbot cost guide explains each model at length; this post is the dated price list behind it.

The AI customer support pricing index (October 2026)

The index lists 30 AI customer support tools grouped by pricing model, with the cheapest paid plan, the AI price, the overage rule, the free tier and the date each row was read. Entry paid price is the monthly-billing price of the cheapest paid plan on which the AI answers customers in a website chat, with the annual-billing price in brackets where the vendor offers one.

Drift is not in the index: Salesloft is retiring it on 31 January 2027 and its product page now points buyers to 1mind, so there is no price to list, as our Drift alternative page explains.

Last verified 19 October 2026, except Dante AI (3 October 2026) and the HubSpot, Intercom and Freshdesk rows, re-checked on 23 October 2026. Prices are in US dollars per month unless marked, read on each vendor's own pricing page or help center, including Fin's pricing page, the HubSpot Credits page, the Tidio pricing page and the Chatbase pricing page. Ada and Voiceflow publish no plan prices, so their rows say "Not published" rather than carry an estimate. Every competitor has a comparison page with its source links in our alternatives hub.

Intercom's pricing page now shows new customers a lower Essential price: on 22 and 23 October 2026 it listed $19 a seat on annual billing and $29 monthly, with the $29 and $39 list prices struck through, where on 19 October only some visitors saw it. The totals below use the $39 list price, in line with the no-discount assumption.

Which AI support tools charge per resolution?

Six tools in the index charge per resolution: Intercom, Zendesk, HubSpot, Help Scout, Gorgias and LiveChat's Text AI Agent, at $0.50 to $2.00 per resolved conversation. The rule that decides when a conversation counts as resolved differs as much as the price does.

Last verified 19 October 2026 on each vendor's pricing page and help center.

Intercom Fin and Zendesk show how far per-resolution prices spread. For 2,000 resolved conversations, Fin costs $1,980 on top of one $39 seat, while Zendesk's pay-as-you-go rate comes to $3,990 after the 5 included resolutions, on top of a $69 seat; a Zendesk team that commits to a volume through sales pays $1.50 instead. Our Intercom vs Zendesk comparison covers the rest of the two suites, and the Fin pricing breakdown explains outcomes in detail. The Crisp vs Intercom comparison sets Fin's per-outcome price against Crisp's flat plans and Hugo usage.

Tidio's Lyro is not on that list, because Tidio bills every conversation in which Lyro replies at least once, resolved or not. On monthly billing that is $39 for 50 conversations up to $700 for 1,000, or $0.70 to $0.78 a conversation. Fin's $0.99 applies only to outcomes, so at a resolution rate of about 70% to 80% the two cost about the same per conversation handled, before Intercom's seat; below that rate, Fin is the cheaper AI line. Our Lyro vs Fin vs Zendesk AI agents comparison sets the three billing rules side by side.

What do 500, 2,000 and 10,000 AI conversations a month cost?

On published October 2026 prices, 500 AI conversations a month cost from $25 to $1,059, 2,000 cost from $25 to $4,059, and 10,000 cost from $25 to $20,059, and the pricing model explains most of that spread. The totals below apply the same assumptions to 17 vendors across all four models.

• Billing: monthly list prices before tax, with no annual, startup or volume discounts.
• Seats: one seat, unless the plan includes more or the AI needs a particular seat tier.
• Units: every AI conversation counts as one billable unit under the vendor's own definition: one outcome at Intercom, one automated resolution at Zendesk, one session at Freshdesk. For per-resolution tools this is the ceiling; if the AI resolves half your conversations, halve their AI line.
• Replies: two AI replies per conversation, an answer and one follow-up. Credit tools are priced at their documented credits per reply on the default model, or on the cheapest model where no default is documented.
• Plans: the cheapest published plan that covers the volume, plus published overage or packs. Where a vendor sends that volume to sales, the cell says so.

PepoChat bills AI replies, not conversations, so its row depends on the two-replies assumption. Two is the figure our cost posts use because a typical support chat is one question and one follow-up; PepoChat publishes no average of its own. At three replies per conversation, 2,000 conversations become 6,000 replies, which is $49 plus $40 of overage, or $89 on Starter.

Last verified 19 October 2026. Totals are estimates from published list prices under the assumptions above, not quotes.

Per-resolution tools are the most expensive rows when every conversation resolves and much cheaper when few do. At 2,000 conversations the ceiling runs from $1,020 at HubSpot to $4,059 at Zendesk, and at a 50% resolution rate Intercom falls from $2,019 to $1,029. The per-resolution price also buys an incentive, since a better knowledge base raises the bill, which is why our chatbot ROI guide puts the cost next to the savings.

Credit tools are cheap until the model changes. Chatbase covers 2,000 conversations on its $150 Standard plan at 1 credit a reply, but its most expensive model, Claude 5.5 Opus, costs 5 credits a reply. tawk.to's model credits article says new agents default to an Auto model at 3 credits a reply, while Claude Haiku 4.5 and two other models cost 1, which cuts tawk.to's 2,000-conversation bill from $309 to $99.

The cheapest rows come with conditions. Zoho SalesIQ's $25 is one Enterprise operator seat, and Zoho publishes no AI usage fee beyond a 200,000 bot-session cap. Jotform's $49 Silver plan is single-user and pauses the AI at 2,500 conversations until the month resets or you upgrade, and Kommunicate's totals assume extra conversations are prorated. PepoChat comes to $69 for 2,000 conversations and $229 for 10,000, where Starter plus overage costs $20 less than Growth's $249, although Growth adds 10 members and removes the PepoChat badge.

What changed between our 3 October and 19 October checks?

Fifteen of the 29 competitors differed from our 3 October 2026 records on at least one price or plan rule when we re-read their pages on 19 October. Some are vendor changes, and some are prices our records lacked or mislabelled.

• LiveChat now sells Text plans on its pricing page: Essential at $25 a user includes the AI agent and 10 resolutions, and the old LiveChat plans moved to a page for existing customers.
• tawk.to gives new AI agents an Auto model at 3 credits a reply, where our records said one credit a message.
• Gorgias now states $1.50 for each AI interaction past a plan's bundle.
• HubSpot offers the customer agent on any Professional hub, so Smart CRM Professional at $50 a seat is the cheapest route, with no onboarding fee shown, where Service Hub Professional carries a $1,500 one.
• Botpress Free now lists 100 conversations, up from 25 in our records, and SiteGPT add-ons cost $59 a month on monthly billing.
• Intercom lists its Pro add-on at $100 a month, up from $99, and Landbot replaced its €400 Business price with custom pricing.
• Monthly prices our records lacked or mislabelled: Help Scout is $30 a user, not $25, on monthly billing; Freshdesk Omni Growth is $35 an agent; Tidio's Lyro is $39, not $32.50, for 50 conversations.

Which hidden multipliers change the bill?

Five rules on pricing pages move the bill more than the headline price: seat requirements, the definition of a resolution, credit multipliers, one-time allowances and hard stops, and fees outside the monthly price.

Seat minimums and required tiers

The AI often needs a particular plan. HubSpot's customer agent requires a Professional edition, which is paid monthly only on an annual commitment; Zoho SalesIQ's generative Answer Bot is on Enterprise only; Zendesk's chat AI needs messaging, which starts at Suite Team ($69), not Support Team ($25); Freshdesk's website chat agent needs Freshdesk Omni ($35) rather than Freshdesk ($23); and Help Scout's Pro plan has a 10-user minimum.

What counts as a resolution

A resolution is whatever the vendor's help center says it is, and silence usually counts as success. Intercom treats a customer who goes quiet for 24 hours after Fin's answer as resolved; HubSpot sets the status 72 hours after the last visitor message if no visitor asked for a person; Gorgias counts an interaction when no human agent is needed within 72 hours. Zendesk's allowance rules let the AI keep answering at the overage rate by default, with a setting that pauses it at the allowance instead.

Credit multipliers

Credit pricing hides the model inside the multiplier. DocsBot's credits run from 1x to 50x by model, Chatling's from 0.5 to 25 credits a reply and Chatbase's from 1 to 5, and SiteGPT counts one GPT-4.1 message as 10 GPT-4.1 mini messages. Choose the model before comparing plans: DocsBot's Personal plan covers 5,000 messages on its default 1x model and 100 on its 50x model.

One-time allowances and hard stops

Several free allowances come once, not monthly: Tidio's 50 free Lyro conversations are for the life of the account, Freshdesk's 500 AI sessions come once per account, and Voiceflow's free credit grant does not renew. When a paid allowance runs out, Chatbase, Chatling, DocsBot, Wonderchat and CustomGPT.ai stop answering, Jotform waits for the next month, and Crisp, Chatwoot, Freshdesk and HubSpot (without a purchased credit pack) send new conversations to people. PepoChat's Free plan hands new conversations to the team inbox, the shared inbox where your team answers chats, once it reaches 200 replies; paid plans keep answering and bill $10 per 1,000 replies.

Fees outside the monthly price

Some costs sit beside the plan price. HubSpot's Service Hub Professional carries a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee, AI drafting for human agents costs extra (Copilot is $35 an agent a month on Intercom's monthly billing and $50 on Zendesk's yearly billing, from Suite Professional up), and branding removal is $99 a month on Chatbase, $39 on tawk.to and $59 on SiteGPT, while Smartsupp does not offer it on any plan. Gorgias also counts every AI interaction as a helpdesk ticket, so its ticket line grows with its AI line.

Which pricing model fits your business?

Flat and per-conversation plans fit most stores and small software teams, while per-resolution AI fits low volumes and teams already running that vendor's helpdesk. How your volume moves, and who answers the hard questions, matters more than the cheapest row in a table.

A store owner with 1 to 10 people

An ecommerce store's volume is seasonal, and the same "where is my order" question arrives hundreds of times in November. A per-resolution bill peaks exactly then, so a store owner usually does best with a flat or per-conversation plan that includes an order lookup, and moves to a helpdesk such as Gorgias once several people work tickets across email and social. The Shopify chatbot comparison prices eight store tools on the jobs that matter.

A bootstrapped SaaS founder

A small software team answers how-to questions from its docs, usually a few hundred to a few thousand conversations a month, and wants a bill it can predict. Fin running on another helpdesk has a $49 base that includes 50 resolutions, which is competitive at very low volume; past that, a flat plan or a real free tier costs less. Our free AI chatbot comparison checks which free tiers include AI every month.

A support lead with 3 to 15 agents on a helpdesk

A support lead already pays for seats, so the question is the AI line on top. Five Zendesk Suite Team agents include 25 automated resolutions a month, and each one after that is $2.00 pay-as-you-go; five Freshdesk Omni agents pay $49 per 100 sessions after a one-time 500. The alternative to price is a standalone AI support agent, a chatbot that answers from your own content and files a ticket in the helpdesk when it cannot help, as our Zendesk AI agent comparison explains.

How do you read an AI support pricing page in five minutes?

Five questions get you from a pricing page to a number you can budget, and each one has a place to look.

1. Name the unit. Find the word the AI is billed in: outcome, automated resolution, conversation, session, credit, query or reply. If the page shows only seat prices, the AI is sold elsewhere, usually as an add-on or a credit pack.
2. Read the definition in the help center. The pricing page gives the price; the help center gives the rule that decides your count, such as how long a silent customer must stay silent before a chat counts as resolved.
3. Switch the toggle to monthly. Most of the pages in this index open on annual billing, and some AI add-ons are cheaper only on a yearly contract.
4. Find the overage rule and the stop. Write down the price past the allowance and what happens when it runs out: the AI keeps answering and bills you, waits for next month, or hands chats to people.
5. List the minimums. Seat minimums, required tiers, annual commitments and onboarding fees belong in the total, not in the small print.

Then write the date next to each number. Half the competitors in this index differed from our own records after 16 days, so a quote older than a quarter is a lead to re-check, not a budget line.

What to do next

Estimate your monthly AI conversations from last quarter's chats and tickets, using our guide to how many chatbot conversations a month to expect, then find your row in the totals table and run the same numbers through the two or three vendors that fit your model. To test the flat-plan route, PepoChat's pricing page and billing docs list every allowance, and you can create a free workspace with 200 AI replies a month and every feature on the free plan.