Most help desks show you a price per person. Then you turn on the AI, it starts closing conversations, and you get charged again. Per conversation, this time.
I wanted a number I could take into a call. Two people. A hundred conversations the AI handled. What does that actually cost on Fin, Help Scout, Zendesk, and Fernand? Public prices, November 2026. There is a calculator below. Drag it.
How they charge
Fin is $29 a seat, plus $0.99 every time it closes a conversation without you. Help Scout is $30 a seat, plus $0.75. Same shape. You pay for the humans, then you pay for the answers.
Zendesk looks like $55 a seat. Copilot is not on that plan. You have to be on Professional, at $115, then Copilot at $50, then the bot that actually closes conversations. Ten free resolutions per agent. After that, about $1.50 each, on an annual contract.
Fernand is free up to 100 conversations. After that, $29 for people who can reply. The agent is included. No extra line when it answers. Plain also bundles AI, at $55 a seat, for bigger technical teams.
What it costs this month
Two people, a hundred conversations. That is a pretty normal month when you are still answering a lot of it yourself.
Move conversations up and Fin, Help Scout, and Zendesk climb. Fernand stays at $0 until you pass 100, then it is just the seats.
The Zendesk number is Professional plus Copilot plus the resolutions past the free ten per agent. Suite Team cannot buy Copilot. More on that here.
Why it felt free in the demo
The trial is free. The questions they show you are ones the help center already knows. So the invoice is empty, and it feels like you got away with something.
Then you write the real articles. Password reset. Failed payment. How to export. The agent starts closing those, which is the whole point, and that is also when Fin and Help Scout start charging. You got better at support. The bill went up.
Help Scout lets you cap it. Hit the cap, the agent turns off, and people wait on you again. I would rather leave it on and know it is $0.
What they are actually charging for
On Fin and Help Scout, you pay when the AI handled the conversation and nobody had to jump in. If the customer still needs a human, it usually does not count. Fairer than charging for every bot hello. It also means your best help articles are the ones that create a charge.
On Zendesk, Copilot is the human assist. The autonomous resolutions are a separate meter, after a tiny allowance. You also paid to be on a plan that is allowed to buy any of this.
On Fernand, the same thing happened. It just does not show up on the invoice.
If someone cannot tell you, in one sentence, what event creates a charge, you do not have a price yet.
What we do
We did not want a number we would second-guess every time the agent replied. We wrote the ten articles we were already typing from memory, connected the inbox, and turned on the agent that came with the plan. When it is included, you use it. When it is $0.99 a time, you hesitate. That hesitation is how you are still the help desk at 11pm.
The rest of the field is in eight help desks for SaaS. Some of those tools are for a much bigger company than the one you are running.
The agent is on Fernand's free plan. We still look at the invoice. There is just nothing extra on it for the replies the agent wrote.