The seat prices tell half the story now. The other half is what each vendor charges when its AI agent resolves a ticket without a human.
| Seat price | AI agent cost | 10-agent mid-tier /mo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Help Scout | $25–75/user | $0.75 per AI Answers resolution | ~$540 (Plus) |
| Intercom | $29–132/user | $0.99 per Fin resolution | ~$990 (Advanced) |
| Zendesk | Suite tiers + AI add-on | Copilot add-on ~$50/agent + per-resolution overage | higher |
Help Scout is the value pick for SMB SaaS — a clean shared-inbox model, $25–75/user, and AI resolutions at $0.75 each. For a team handling under ~5,000 tickets a month it consistently wins on dollar-per-resolved-ticket. The interface is the friendliest of the three and setup is fast.
Intercom made the biggest AI bet — Fin, its autonomous agent, is the most capable at actually resolving conversations end-to-end on a well-documented product, and it bills $0.99 per resolution on top of seats that run $29–132. If you have high ticket volume and good help docs, Fin genuinely deflects a large share of tickets, and $0.99 to not touch a ticket is cheap. If your docs are thin or your queries are complex, you pay the seat premium without getting the deflection.
Zendesk is the enterprise incumbent — the most configurable, the biggest app marketplace, the best fit for large support orgs with complex routing and many channels. Its AI is layered on as a $50/agent Copilot add-on plus per-resolution overage, which stacks up. You're paying for scale and flexibility.
SMB with a well-documented product: Help Scout, or Intercom if ticket volume is high enough that Fin's deflection pays for itself. Large, complex support operation: Zendesk.