Introduction
Every major help desk now sells an AI agent that answers customers on its own, and most also sell a copilot that drafts replies for human agents. Seat prices have stopped being the whole story. These AI agents are billed per resolution, per outcome or per session. That fee is now the line on your invoice most likely to grow, so this roundup puts it next to the seat price for every tool.
scored.tools does not test tools hands-on. Everything below comes from each vendor's own pricing pages and documentation as of October 2026. None of these five tools has a scored.tools rating yet, so no entry carries a score, and the order below is not a ranking. Check the vendor's page before you sign anything, because AI pricing in this category changes often.
The tools
Intercom
Score: Not yet rated
Intercom has built its whole pitch around Fin, its AI agent. Intercom's pricing page bills Fin at $0.99 per "outcome". It uses that word, not "resolution", so read the definition before you model costs. Fin is sold two ways. It comes bundled with Intercom's own help desk, or it can sit on top of a help desk you already run, and in that case the page lists a minimum monthly commitment (it gives 50 outcomes as an example). That second route matters if you are locked into Zendesk or Salesforce but want Intercom's agent. Seats are priced separately on three tiers, so a team pays for the humans and for every outcome Fin delivers.
Best for: Teams that want the AI agent to be the front line and are willing to pay per outcome for it, including teams that will keep their current help desk.
Pricing: Essential $29, Advanced $85, Expert $132 per seat per month. Fin is $0.99 per outcome. The page has an annual/monthly toggle but shows one price per plan, so confirm which billing cycle those figures cover.
Zendesk
Score: Not yet rated
Zendesk includes AI agents in every Support and Suite plan and bills them per automated resolution. Each plan comes with a small allowance: 5 resolutions per agent per month on Support Team and Suite Team, and 10 on Suite Professional. After that, committed resolutions cost $1.50 each and pay-as-you-go resolutions cost $2.00. That is roughly double Help Scout's per-resolution rate, so a high-volume team should run the numbers. Copilot, the agent-side assistant, is a $50 per agent per month add-on for Professional and higher plans. Zendesk's strength is breadth. It has the deepest feature set of the five, and its routing, reporting and integrations are already proven at large support operations.
Best for: Mid-size and enterprise support orgs that need mature ticketing first and AI second.
Pricing: Support Team $19, Suite Team $55, Suite Professional $115 per agent per month, billed annually. Suite Enterprise is sales-only. AI resolutions are $1.50 committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go beyond the included amount. Copilot is +$50 per agent per month.
Freshdesk
Score: Not yet rated
Freshdesk prices its Freddy AI Agent by session rather than by resolution. Every plan includes the first 500 sessions, and each additional 100 sessions costs $49, or $0.49 per session. Per Freshworks, an email session is a 72-hour window from the customer's first email, and all AI replies in that window count as one session. You pay whether or not the AI resolves the ticket, which is the trade-off against resolution billing. The per-unit price is the lowest here, though. The Freddy AI Copilot add-on is $29 per agent per month and is listed for Pro and Enterprise only. Freshworks offers a 14-day trial on the Enterprise tier. The pricing page does not describe a permanent free plan.
Best for: Cost-conscious teams with steady email volume who want predictable AI spend.
Pricing: Growth $19, Pro $55, Enterprise $89 per agent per month, billed annually. Includes 500 AI Agent sessions, then $49 per 100. Copilot is +$29 per agent per month on Pro and Enterprise.
Help Scout
Score: Not yet rated
Help Scout has the cheapest AI agent rate in this group and the clearest definition of what counts. AI Answers costs $0.75 per resolution. Help Scout says a resolution counts only when the customer gets an AI response and does not escalate or ask for more help, and each conversation is charged at most once. It also offers a 3-month free trial of AI Answers and optional monthly spending caps, which few vendors here advertise. AI Assist and AI Summarize are unlimited on all plans, and Plus adds unlimited AI Drafts. There is a real free plan (5 users, 1 inbox, 100 contacts per month), so a small team can start at $0.
Best for: Small and growing teams that want shared-inbox simplicity and a hard cap on AI spend.
Pricing: Free; Standard $25, Plus $45, Pro $75 per user per month (16% off annually). AI Answers is $0.75 per resolution on any paid plan.
Gorgias
Score: Not yet rated
Gorgias is built for ecommerce, mainly Shopify stores, and bills by ticket volume rather than seats. Its pricing page lists AI Agent interactions at $0.90 each on annual contracts or $1.00 on monthly ones, with interactions above a plan's allowance billed at $1.50. Each plan includes a set number of tickets and AI interactions. Because there are no seats, adding agents in peak season costs nothing extra. The bill follows order volume instead. One caveat: when we checked, the page showed two different sets of plan prices, so confirm the figures directly with Gorgias.
Best for: Shopify and DTC brands whose questions are mostly order status, returns and product questions.
Pricing: Starter $10/month (50 tickets), Basic $50 annual or $60 monthly (300 tickets), Pro $300 or $360 (2,000 tickets), Advanced $750 or $900 (5,000 tickets), Enterprise custom. AI Agent is $0.90 to $1.00 per interaction.
Comparison table
| Tool | Score | Entry paid price | AI agent billing | AI agent unit price | Copilot | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intercom | Not rated | $29/seat/mo | Per outcome | $0.99 | Seat plans | No |
| Zendesk | Not rated | $19/agent/mo (annual) | Per resolution | $1.50 to $2.00 | +$50/agent/mo | No |
| Freshdesk | Not rated | $19/agent/mo (annual) | Per session | $0.49 | +$29/agent/mo | No (14-day trial) |
| Help Scout | Not rated | $25/user/mo | Per resolution | $0.75 | AI Drafts on Plus | Yes |
| Gorgias | Not rated | $10/mo (50 tickets) | Per interaction | $0.90 to $1.00 | Included features | No |
Final picks
Pick the billing model first, then the vendor. If your AI will mostly deflect simple questions, resolution billing (Help Scout, Zendesk) means you pay only when the AI succeeds. If you expect high volume and want a flat, predictable rate, Freshdesk sessions are the cheapest unit on paper.
- Small team on a budget: Help Scout. It has a free plan, a $0.75 resolution fee, spending caps and a 3-month AI trial.
- AI-first front line: Intercom. Fin is the product's centre of gravity, and it can sit on top of an existing help desk.
- Large, complex support org: Zendesk. It has the deepest ticketing, but budget for $1.50 to $2.00 per resolution plus the $50 Copilot add-on.
- Lowest AI unit cost: Freshdesk, at $0.49 per session with 500 included.
- Ecommerce: Gorgias. Ticket-based pricing suits seasonal staffing, and the AI is aimed at order questions.
Before you commit, take last quarter's ticket count and multiply it by your expected AI resolution share and each vendor's unit price. That figure will separate these five tools faster than any feature list.
