Help Desk AI Cost Calculator
Set your ticket volume, agent count, and expected AI deflection rate, and see what eight vendors would charge — seats, AI meter, and overage, separated out. Published rates only, last verified 2026-08-21.
Zoho Desk (Standard)
$28/mo · $336/yr · $0.05 per resolution
Seats/plan $28 · AI $0 · Overage $0
What breaks this estimate
The free tier covers up to 3 agents, which genuinely beats every paid option including Relay for the smallest teams. Say so rather than pretending otherwise.
Relay (Growth)
$95/mo · $1,140/yr · $0.16 per resolution
Seats/plan $95 · AI $0 · Overage $0
What breaks this estimate
Flat per-seat pricing means the bill does not fall when your AI deflects more. Teams with very low ticket volume may never reach the meter a per-resolution vendor would charge them on, and would pay less there.
Help Scout (Plus)
$675/mo · $8,100/yr · $1.13 per resolution
Seats/plan $225 · AI $450 · Overage $0
What breaks this estimate
The lowest published per-resolution rate of the metered vendors at $0.75, but seat prices are annual-billing rates. Paying monthly raises them to $30, $54, and $90.
Freshdesk (Enterprise)
$739/mo · $8,868/yr · $1.23 per resolution
Seats/plan $445 · AI $294 · Overage $0
What breaks this estimate
Freddy AI is sold as $49 per 100 sessions, which works out to $0.49 per session, and unused sessions expire at the end of each billing cycle with no rollover. A session is not the same unit as a resolution, so this number is not directly comparable to the others.
Unit mismatch: Billed per AI session, not per resolution. One conversation can consume several sessions, and unused sessions expire monthly.
Gorgias (2,000 tickets)
$900/mo · $10,800/yr · $1.50 per resolution
Seats/plan $360 · AI $540 · Overage $0
What breaks this estimate
An AI resolution is billed twice: once as a ticket against your plan's included volume and again as a $1.00 AI resolution ($0.90 on annual billing). Overage beyond the included tickets runs $0.40 down to $0.32 per ticket depending on tier. Seats are not the meter here, volume is.
Unit mismatch: AI resolutions consume plan tickets as well as billing as resolutions, so they are charged twice.
Intercom (Advanced)
$1,019/mo · $12,228/yr · $1.70 per resolution
Seats/plan $425 · AI $594 · Overage $0
What breaks this estimate
Fin bills $0.99 per resolved outcome with a 50-outcome monthly minimum, so the first $49.50 of AI is charged whether or not Fin resolves anything. Seats are billed separately on top.
Zendesk (Suite Professional)
$1,650/mo · $19,800/yr · $2.75 per resolution
Seats/plan $575 · AI $1,075 · Overage $0
What breaks this estimate
Three charges stack: the Suite seat, the Copilot add-on at $50 per agent per month, and per-resolution AI beyond the free allowance (5 to 15 per agent per month depending on plan; we model 10). Committed resolutions run about $1.50 and pay-as-you-go about $2.00. The $19 Support Team plan is ticketing only and is not comparable.
Published rates only, last verified 2026-08-21. Where a vendor does not publish a rate it is not modelled rather than guessed. Seat tiers default to each vendor’s middle plan, because that is what most teams actually buy, and picking the cheapest tier would flatter every vendor including Relay. This is an estimate for comparing shapes of pricing, not a quote.
Why AI support pricing is so hard to compare
The published per-resolution rates in this category span roughly four times, from $0.49 to $2.00. That alone would be manageable. The real problem is that the unit is not the same unit, so the numbers cannot be lined up next to each other without doing exactly what this calculator does.
- Per seat. You pay for humans. Predictable, and it does not fall as AI takes more of the load.
- Per resolution. You pay when the AI closes something. This is the one people underestimate, because the bill rises exactly as the product succeeds.
- Per ticket volume. You buy a bucket of tickets and pay overage past it, so an AI resolution can consume both a ticket and a resolution charge.
- Per session. Freshdesk’s Freddy sells sessions, not resolutions, and unused ones expire each cycle. One conversation can burn several.
For the reasoning behind each of these, plus the double-charge and expiry cases named with numbers, read The AI Support Pricing Index 2026.
Where Relay loses
Relay, by Switch Labs, is one of the eight rows here and it does not win every scenario. Two cases where something else is the better buy:
- Three agents or fewer. Zoho Desk’s free tier covers up to three agents at no cost. Nothing paid beats free.
- Very low ticket volume. If you handle a handful of tickets a month, a per-resolution vendor may bill you almost nothing while a per-seat product still charges for every seat.
Where flat pricing wins is the opposite case: as deflection improves, a metered vendor charges you more for the same team, and a flat one does not. That is the whole argument, and it is worth exactly as much as your deflection rate makes it worth, which is why there is a slider for it rather than a claim.
Relay is three per-seat tiers — Starter $9, Growth $19, and Scale $39 per user per month — with AI included on every one and no per-resolution fee. See the Relay overview or go straight to Relay.
Frequently asked questions
What does Intercom Fin cost per resolution?
Intercom Fin bills $0.99 per resolved outcome, with a 50-outcome monthly minimum, on top of Intercom seat pricing of $29, $85, or $132 per seat per month depending on plan. The minimum means the first $49.50 of AI is charged whether Fin resolves anything or not.
What is Zendesk's per-resolution AI price?
Roughly $1.50 per resolution on a committed plan and around $2.00 pay-as-you-go, after a free allowance of about 5 to 15 resolutions per agent per month depending on plan. That sits on top of a Suite seat ($55, $115, or about $169 per agent per month) and the Copilot add-on at $50 per agent per month.
Does Gorgias charge twice for AI?
Effectively yes. An AI Agent resolution bills as $1.00 monthly, or $0.90 annually, and it also consumes a ticket against your plan's included volume. Once you exceed that volume, the same conversation additionally incurs overage of $0.40 to $0.32 per ticket depending on tier.
Which help desk has no AI usage fees?
Relay includes AI on every tier with no per-resolution or per-session fee, so the bill does not move when deflection improves. Zoho Desk also does not meter AI resolutions on its published per-agent plans. Every other vendor in this calculator charges a usage meter of some kind on top of seats.
What is the cheapest AI help desk?
For teams of three or fewer, Zoho Desk's free tier genuinely wins and no paid product beats it, Relay included. Above that it depends on your deflection rate: flat per-seat pricing gets relatively cheaper as AI resolves more, while per-resolution pricing gets more expensive precisely when the AI works well. Run your own numbers above rather than trusting a single answer.
How accurate is this calculator?
It uses published list prices only, last verified 2026-08-21, and it does not model negotiated enterprise discounts, promotional rates, regional pricing, or add-ons a specific vendor might bundle for you. It defaults to each vendor's middle seat tier rather than the cheapest, because that is what most teams actually buy. Treat it as a comparison of pricing shapes, not a quote.
Go deeper
- The AI Support Pricing Index 2026 — the full table, the double-charge cases, and the methodology
- Relay vs Zendesk
- Relay vs Intercom
- Relay vs Gorgias
- Per-resolution vs flat AI pricing