If you want AI customer support with pay-per-resolution pricing that you can start using today, three vendors publish a per-resolution rate and let you sign up without a sales call: Fin (now part of Salesforce) at $0.99 per outcome, Lorikeet at $0.99 or $0.90 per resolved chat, email or SMS ticket on top of an annual plan fee, and Help Scout at $0.75 per resolution inside its own helpdesk. Zendesk bills its AI agents per automated resolution too, but does not publish the dollar rate. The sticker price matters less than two things: what each vendor counts as a resolution, and what you pay before the first one.

Key takeaways

• Published per-resolution rates in this list run from $0.50 (CoSupport AI) and $0.75 (Help Scout) to $0.99 (Fin, and Lorikeet's Start plan); Zendesk does not publish its rate.

• Definitions differ. Fin bills a Procedure handoff as an outcome; Help Scout does not charge if the customer asks for more help; Zendesk uses an LLM check to decide which conversations count as verified resolutions.

• Fixed fees change the real rate. Lorikeet adds a $2,100 or $5,100 monthly plan fee paid annually; Fin on Intercom adds helpdesk seats; Fin on another helpdesk has a 50-outcome monthly minimum.

• "Start today" means a self-serve trial: Fin offers 14 days with no card, Lorikeet 30 days, Help Scout three months of free AI resolutions.

Which tools offer pay-per-resolution pricing?

Several AI support products now publish a price per resolved conversation. Lorikeet charges $0.99 per resolved chat, email or SMS ticket on its Start plan and $0.90 on Scale, does not charge for escalations to a person, and lets you start a 30-day trial without talking to sales, according to its pricing page. Fin (now part of Salesforce) charges $0.99 per outcome and works on Intercom or other helpdesks. Help Scout lists its AI agent at $0.75 per resolution for Help Scout customers. CoSupport AI lists $0.50 per resolved ticket and runs inside Zendesk, Freshdesk, Zoho and Intercom.

How we chose and checked these

We included tools that publish a price tied to an AI outcome (a resolution, outcome, automated resolution or automated interaction) on a public pricing page, plus Zendesk because so many buyers asking this question already run it. We excluded vendors that only quote prices after a sales call. Every price, trial length and definition below was checked on the vendor's own pricing page or help centre on 30 October 2026, and each claim links to that page. We did not test resolution quality, so the order reflects fit for a buyer who wants per-resolution billing and wants to start this week, not a performance ranking.

Lorikeet publishes this guide and is one of the tools listed. We have tried to describe every product, including our own, using only what each vendor publishes, and we link to the source for each claim.

1. Fin (now part of Salesforce): the published $0.99 rate most buyers benchmark against

Fin charges $0.99 per outcome, and the pricing page says you are charged for one outcome per conversation even if Fin takes several actions. A billable outcome includes a resolution, defined as "no further help is requested after Fin's last answer", and a Procedure handoff, where Fin completes a Procedure you configured to end with a human. You are not charged when a conversation is simply passed to your team without an outcome.

On the Intercom helpdesk, Intercom's pricing page lists the Essential plan at $29 per seat a month billed annually, with a discounted rate shown for new customers. On another helpdesk such as Salesforce or HubSpot, Fin's page lists a 50-outcome monthly minimum and says there are no setup, integration or platform fees. The free trial runs 14 days, needs no credit card and includes unlimited outcomes.

Best for: teams already on Intercom, or teams that want a pure usage rate with no plan fee. Watch for: Procedure handoffs bill at $0.99 even though a human finishes the ticket, and Fin Voice is on custom pricing.

2. Lorikeet: per-resolution pricing with an annual plan fee and no charge for escalations

Our pricing charges $0.99 per resolved chat, email or SMS ticket on Start and $0.90 on Scale, and $1.50 or $1.20 per resolved voice call based on a three-minute average. The pricing page says you are charged only when a ticket is successfully resolved, unresolved or unsatisfactory tickets cost nothing, and escalations to a person are not charged. The how it works page adds that if you mark a resolution as bad, you are not charged for it.

The honest limit: this is not pure usage pricing. On top of resolutions you pay a plan fee of $2,100 a month on Start (under 5,000 monthly tickets) or $5,100 a month on Scale (5,000 to 20,000), both paid annually. That fee includes the platform and forward-deployed engineer support, and Scale includes dedicated deployment, but at low volume it raises your all-in cost per resolution well above $0.99.

You can start today: there is a 30-day free trial with self-serve sign-up, a card is taken at checkout, and nothing is charged until the trial ends. It connects to Zendesk, Intercom, Salesforce, HubSpot, Front and Help Scout. Best for: complex or regulated support where the agent needs to act in your systems, at volumes where the plan fee spreads thin.

3. Zendesk AI agents: per-resolution billing inside the helpdesk, without a public rate

Zendesk says on its pricing page that AI agents are included in every Suite and Support plan and billed per automated resolution, meaning requests resolved by the AI agent without escalation to a human. Plans include an allowance: the page lists 5 automated resolutions per agent a month on Support Team and Suite Team and 10 on Suite Professional. Suite Team is listed at $55 per agent a month paid yearly.

Since 18 May 2026, Zendesk sorts conversations into resolution tiers. Assisted escalations and contained resolutions do not count against your allowance; a verified resolution does, after an LLM reviews the conversation to confirm the request was resolved. What Zendesk does not publish is the dollar price per resolution: its allowance article says example prices are placeholders and to contact sales. It also says committed resolutions cost less than pay-as-you-go overage.

Best for: teams on Zendesk who want AI inside the same contract. Watch for: you cannot model the overage cost until sales quotes it, and the 14-day trial notes that AI capabilities may vary.

4. Help Scout: the lowest published rate for teams already on Help Scout

Help Scout's pricing page lists its AI agent, Envoy, at $0.75 per resolution, billed monthly. A resolution is a conversation resolved by AI Answers without human help, and it only counts if the customer does not escalate, search the knowledge base, ask more questions or say they need more help. You can set a monthly spending cap, after which AI Answers switches off for the rest of the cycle.

New accounts get three months of free, unlimited AI Answers resolutions, and the Standard and Plus plans have a 15-day trial with no card. The pricing page also says pre-paid discounts are available, and its savings calculator states an average resolution rate of 73%, a vendor figure worth checking against your own trial. Best for: small teams already on Help Scout whose questions are answered from help content. Watch for: it runs inside Help Scout only, and the page describes answers drawn from your knowledge base and custom sources rather than account actions.

5. Gorgias: per automated interaction for Shopify and ecommerce

Gorgias lists its AI Agent on every plan at $1.00 to $0.85 per automated interaction depending on plan, with some interactions included in each plan's AI Agent fee. On the monthly Starter plan, the page lists $1.50 per automated interaction past the included amount. The FAQ describes the agent automating returns and order tracking, and the page says you can start free with no credit card and be live on your store in under an hour.

The plans bundle the helpdesk and the AI Agent: Starter is listed at $40 a month on monthly billing with 30 automated interactions included, and Pro at $550 a month, or $471 a month billed annually, with 190 included. That bundling makes Gorgias easy to start on, because the AI Agent comes with the helpdesk rather than as a separate contract. Best for: Shopify brands. Watch for: an automated interaction is Gorgias's unit, so check how it maps to a resolved ticket before comparing with $0.99 rates.

6. CoSupport AI: the lowest published per-resolution rate

CoSupport AI's pricing page lists $0.50 per resolved ticket, with the first 1,000 AI responses free and no seats needed. It says you can connect a helpdesk in about 10 minutes and that every resolution carries a decision log so you can check what you pay for. Its own worked example is 5,000 tickets at 70% AI resolution costing $1,750 a month. It supports 120 or more languages and runs inside Zendesk, Freshdesk, Zoho and Intercom or as a standalone widget. For tickets the AI cannot close, CoSupport also offers human agents on the same queue, quoted as one price per resolved ticket for AI or human work. Best for: Tier 1 volume on Zendesk, Freshdesk or Zoho. Watch for: the page frames the AI around repetitive Tier 1 tickets, so test it on your harder categories before relying on that rate.

7. Freshdesk Freddy AI Agent: usage pricing per session, not per resolution

Freshdesk is here as the contrast. Its pricing page includes the first 500 Freddy AI Agent sessions on Growth and sells more at $49 per 100 sessions. A session is not a resolution, so you pay whether or not the issue was fixed. At $0.49 a session, it can look cheaper than the per-resolution rates above, but the comparison only holds if most sessions end in a fix. The same page lists add-ons such as MCP actions at $15 per 1,000 actions and Freddy AI Copilot at $29 per agent a month. The 14-day trial gives access to the Enterprise plan. Best for: Freshdesk teams who prefer a predictable unit. Watch for: measure your own resolution rate per session during the trial before comparing totals.

What does a resolution mean on each invoice?

A resolution means whatever the vendor's billing definition says, and the four published definitions here are not the same. Help Scout's is the strictest for the buyer: any sign the customer needs more help cancels the charge. Zendesk's adds an LLM verification step after the conversation ends. Lorikeet does not charge for escalations and lets you reject a resolution as bad. Fin counts "no further help requested" as a resolution and also bills Procedure handoffs. Ask each vendor for ten billed conversations from your trial and check them yourself.

What will pay-per-resolution pricing cost at 1,500 resolutions a month?

At 1,500 chat resolutions a month, published prices give very different totals once fixed fees are added:

• CoSupport AI: 1,500 x $0.50 = $750.

• Help Scout: 1,500 x $0.75 = $1,125, plus your Help Scout plan.

• Fin on another helpdesk: 1,500 x $0.99 = $1,485, above the 50-outcome minimum.

• Lorikeet Start: $1,485 in resolutions plus the $2,100 plan fee = $3,585, about $2.39 per resolution. At 5,000 resolutions on Scale, $4,500 plus $5,100 = $9,600, about $1.92 each.

Compare those with the human side. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a 2025 median pay of $44,770 a year for customer service representatives, and SQM Group puts call center agent turnover at 38% in 2022, with six months or more for a new agent to reach average performance. A rate only matters if the AI resolves the tickets that would otherwise need those hires.

Can you really start using it today?

You can start a trial today with every tool here, but going live on real customers takes longer. Fin and Gorgias both say setup takes under an hour; Lorikeet publishes a time to first live ticket of "as little as hours, average under 29 days", because teams usually connect account systems and test on past tickets first. Compare trials on what you can test, not just their length. Our guide to AI customer service software with a free trial and AI support agents you can set up yourself in a day go further.

What still needs a human?

Per-resolution pricing rewards the vendor for closing tickets, so set the boundaries yourself. Disputes, hardship, complaints, clinical questions and anything that needs judgement should escalate to a person, and none of these tools should be scored on keeping those away from your team. Chexy started its agent on identity verification and Aeroplan questions and only opened payments once it connected internal systems, which is a sensible order for any rollout.

Questions to ask before you pick

• Which outcomes are billable, and can I see and dispute each billed conversation?

• Is there a plan fee, seat fee or monthly minimum, and is it annual?

• What happens when I hit a spending cap: does the AI stop or bill overage?

• Can the AI act in my systems (refunds, account changes), or only answer from help content?

• What is my all-in cost per resolution at my real volume, using the cost per resolution math, not the headline rate?

If per-resolution billing with no charge for escalations fits your queue, you can start our 30-day trial and compare billed conversations side by side with the other trials above. For more on pricing models, see per-resolution vs deflection pricing.