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Per resolution, per conversation, per seat, or a monthly amount: how AI agent pricing actually bills you
Every AI agent vendor charges for one of four things: an outcome, a conversation, a person on your team, or a period of time. The unit decides what a bad month costs you. Here is each model with a named vendor and the number they publish, one month of traffic worked through all of them, and the questions that make any vendor's page give a straight answer.
The unit is the whole argument
Chatbot pricing pages look different from each other because they are counting different things. Once you know the unit, the rest of the page is arithmetic. There are four units in the market today: a resolution, which is a conversation the vendor decides went well; a conversation or a credit, which is any conversation, however it went; a seat, which is a person on your team; and a monthly amount, which is a period of time with a ceiling on it. Most vendors combine two. The combinations are where the surprises live.
Per resolution: you pay when the vendor says it worked
Intercom's Fin is the clearest case, because it publishes the number: $0.99 per outcome, with a resolution defined on the pricing page as "No further help is requested after Fin's last answer." Read that definition twice. A customer who gave up and closed the tab has, by that wording, requested no further help. Fin also bills $9.99 when it qualifies a lead, applies a 50-outcome monthly minimum on external helpdesks, and sits on Intercom seats that are priced separately. There is no ceiling: a busy month is a bigger bill.
Zendesk sells the same idea without the number. Its pricing page says AI agents are included in every plan with pricing based on the successful outcomes they deliver, on top of seats at $55 or $115 an agent a month paid yearly. The per-resolution price is not on Zendesk's site. Third-party trackers report $1.50 a resolution on a commitment and $2.00 pay as you go, with a small allowance of resolutions per seat; those are the trackers' figures, not Zendesk's, and we label them so. Ada does not publish prices either; its pricing page books a consultation. Third parties report Ada contracts averaging around $70,000 a year, historically billed at roughly $1 to $3.50 a resolution and moving toward per-conversation pricing, again not Ada's own words. Sierra describes its pricing as outcome-based and publishes no figure at all; its pricing URL is a 404.
Tidio adds a footnote to the model: its Premium tier, from 3,000 Lyro conversations a month, moves to pay-per-resolution billing with a guaranteed 50% resolution rate, on a contact-sales price.
Per conversation, per credit, per seat, per visitor: you pay either way
Botpress counts conversations. Its Plus plan is $150 a month billed annually for 250 conversations, and when you reach 95% of the quota a pack of 100 more is added for $65 and, in the pricing page's own words, cannot be disabled, because pausing conversations means pausing the product entirely. Team is $750 a month, billed annually, for 1,500. Every conversation counts, including the one where the visitor typed 'hello' and left. Tidio's Lyro is metered the same way at the low end: a Lyro conversation from $0.50, on top of the plan you are on, which starts at $24.17 a month. Freshchat meters sessions rather than conversations, at EUR 45 per 100 sessions for its Freddy AI agent, on top of seats from EUR 19 an agent.
Chatbase counts credits, and a credit is roughly a message rather than a conversation, weighted by the model that answered it. The tiers are free for 50 credits, $40 a month for 700, $150 for 4,000 and $500 for 15,000, with extra credits at $40 per 1,000. Chatbase does not publish how many credits a typical conversation uses, which matters, because the answer decides which tier you are really on.
Seats are the helpdesk inheritance. Zendesk and Freshchat both price the people on your team first and the AI second, so the bill has two meters, one that moves with headcount and one that moves with traffic. Docket takes the opposite view for its inbound sales agent and prices neither: Growth starts at $3,000 a month billed annually for up to 20,000 monthly visitors, Scale at $4,000 for up to 100,000, no seat fees and no conversation caps, and no trial. The unit is your traffic, whether or not anyone talks to the agent.
One month, worked through every model
Take a site that has 1,000 conversations with its agent in a month, of which 600 actually helped someone and 400 went nowhere: a greeting, a wrong site, a question the agent could not answer. Every row below assumes the same 1,000 and 600. The assumptions that had to be made are stated in the row, because each model needs at least one, and the assumption is usually where the bill moves.
| Model | The month's bill | Assumptions |
|---|---|---|
| Fin, per resolution | $594 in outcomes, plus Intercom seats | Every useful conversation is a resolution and none of the 400 is. Fin's own definition would likely count some of the 400 too. |
| Zendesk, per resolution plus seats | $900 to $1,200 in resolutions before the seat allowance, plus $55 to $115 a seat | Third-party rate of $1.50 to $2.00; Zendesk publishes none. 600 resolutions. |
| Ada, per resolution | $600 to $2,100 by the third-party rate; the reported contract average is about $5,800 a month | Third-party figures throughout. Ada sells annual contracts, so the per-resolution arithmetic is not the bill. |
| Sierra, outcome-based | Cannot be computed | No published number. |
| Chatbase, per credit | $150 at four credits a conversation; $190 at five | All 1,000 conversations consume credits. Chatbase does not publish credits per conversation; four and five are our assumption. |
| Botpress, per conversation | $670 on Plus, or $750 on Team | All 1,000 count. Plus includes 250; the other 750 arrive as eight packs of 100 at $65. Annual billing. |
| Tidio Lyro, per conversation | $500 in Lyro conversations, plus the plan from $24.17 | All 1,000 count at $0.50. The site says from $0.50; the rate at this volume is not published. |
| Freshchat, per session plus seats | EUR 450 in sessions, plus EUR 19 a seat on Growth | One conversation is one session. Prices as printed on the euro page. |
| Docket, per visitor | $3,000 | Under 20,000 monthly visitors. Conversation count is irrelevant. |
| Algomo, a monthly amount | The $100 level on the pricing page's picker, and never more than that | 600 useful conversations at five credits is 3,000 credits. The 400 cost nothing. |
Algomo's model, stated once
Algomo is our product, so read this as the vendor's row. You pick a monthly amount: Free, then $50 to $500 on Business, Enterprise above. It buys credits. A conversation that actually helped someone costs five credits; one that went nowhere costs nothing. The amount you chose is the most you can be charged that month: there is no overage and there are no top-ups. If the credits run out early, you renew early and the month starts again that day, or you wait for the month to turn. That is the entire model, and every number in it is on this site's pricing page.
Two honest notes on it. First, 'actually helped' is our judgement of the conversation, the way a resolution is Fin's, and you should ask us the same question you would ask them: read the transcripts and check that the ones we counted are the ones you would have. Second, a ceiling has a cost: on a month when traffic triples, the agent pauses at your amount unless you renew early. We think a pause you chose is better than a bill you did not, and we would rather you knew the trade before you picked a number.
Questions to ask any vendor
What is the unit, in one sentence, and who decides when one has happened. If it is a resolution, quote me the definition from the pricing page and tell me whether a customer who gave up counts. If it is a conversation or a credit, how many does a conversation typically use, and does a greeting count. What is on top of the unit: seats, a platform fee, a minimum, an implementation charge. What happens on the day I run out: does the product pause, does a pack add itself, can I turn that off. Is there a number I cannot be billed above, and is it on your website. If the price is not on your website, why not, and what is the average contract. Any vendor with a defensible model can answer all seven in a paragraph. A vendor who answers with a demo is telling you which model they run.
Questions, answered
Is per-resolution pricing cheaper than a flat fee?
It is cheaper in a quiet month and more expensive in a busy one, and the vendor decides what a resolution is. Fin's definition counts any conversation after which no further help is requested, at $0.99 each with no ceiling. Whether that beats a fixed amount depends on your volume and on how many of your conversations the definition catches. Work your own numbers through the table above before you decide.
Why do so many vendors not publish a price?
Because the contract is negotiated. Sierra, Ada, Decagon and delight.ai all sell through a sales team, and Zendesk publishes seats but not the resolution rate. That is a legitimate way to sell to enterprises; it is a poor way to shop when you are not one. Third-party trackers fill the gap with reported figures, and this page labels every one of those as third-party rather than as the vendor's price.
What is a conversation that actually helped, and who decides?
On Algomo, a conversation where the agent answered, acted or booked something the visitor came for, judged by us from the transcript. One that went nowhere, a greeting, a wrong site, a question it could not take, costs nothing. The check is the same one you would run on any outcome-based vendor: read the transcripts and see whether you agree with the count.
What happens on Algomo when the credits run out?
The agent pauses. You renew early and your month starts again that day, or you wait for the month to turn. There is no overage and no pack that adds itself. The amount you picked is the most you can be charged, which is the point of the model.
Where these numbers come from
Fin's $0.99, the $9.99 qualification, the resolution definition and the 50-outcome minimum were read from fin.ai/pricing on 3 September 2026. Zendesk's seat prices and its outcome-based wording are on zendesk.com/pricing and its AI agents page, read the same day; the $1.50 and $2.00 resolution rates are from third-party trackers. Chatbase's tiers and overage are on chatbase.co/pricing; Botpress's tiers, packs and the sentence about pausing the product are on botpress.com/pricing and in its FAQ; Tidio's Lyro rate and its Premium pay-per-resolution tier are on tidio.com/pricing; Freshchat's euro prices are on the Freshworks live chat pricing page; Docket's tiers are on docket.io/pricing; Ada's pricing page books a consultation, and Sierra's pricing page is a 404. All read on 3 September 2026. The one-on-one pages, including Algomo against Intercom Fin and Algomo against Chatbase, carry the same figures with more room; the full field is on our comparisons page.
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