AI agent pricing in 2026: per seat, per action, per result
AI agents are sold per user, per unit of usage, per conversation or per finished result. This page lists the prices the main vendors publish, as of October 18, 2026, what each one actually charges for, and how to work out which model costs least at your volume.
Why AI agent prices are hard to compare.
Different units
One vendor charges per user, another per action, another per resolved conversation. The same month of work can produce very different bills.
Different definitions
A resolution means something different at each vendor. Zendesk bills only resolutions its checks verify, while other definitions count a customer who simply stops replying.
Credits, packs and minimums
Prepaid credits, minimum packs and rules on rollover change the real price per unit. Salesforce Flex Credits and Fin outcomes do not roll over.
Costs outside the quote
Setup, the human time spent on items the agent fails, and for custom agents the model usage and hosting, often sit outside the quoted number.
Per-result prices: you pay when the AI finishes the work.
Nearly all published per-result prices are for customer service. List prices, before any volume discount.
| Product | Billed unit | What to know | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Customer Agent | Resolved conversation | Cut from $1.00 per conversation on April 14, 2026. The Prospecting Agent costs $1.00 per lead it recommends. | $0.50 |
| Fin (formerly Intercom, now part of Salesforce) | Outcome, at most one per conversation | Counts resolutions and handoffs you configure. A resolution is deducted if the customer comes back for more help. The standalone plan includes 50 outcomes a month. | $0.99, or $9.99 per qualified lead |
| Gorgias AI Agent | Interaction resolved without a person | Billed as an ordinary ticket if a person replies within 72 hours. $1.50 above the plan allowance. | $0.90 annual, $1.00 monthly |
| Zendesk AI agents | Verified automated resolution | Checked by a language model and other signals before billing. Escalations, tests and sandboxes are not billed. | $1.50 committed, $2.00 pay as you go |
| Salesforce Agentforce Help Agent | Resolution with no human escalation | Escalations, abandoned chats and "didn't get my answer" are not billed. Sold in prepaid packs of at least 1,000. | $2 |
| Chargeflow | Chargeback disputed and won | Nothing is charged when a dispute is lost. | 25% of the amount recovered |
Usage and per-user prices: you pay for activity or access.
These models charge whether or not a given attempt succeeds.
| Product | Billed unit | What to know | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce Agentforce Flex Credits | Action | $500 buys 100,000 credits and a standard action uses 20. Unused credits do not roll over. | About $0.10 per action |
| Salesforce Agentforce conversations | Conversation | Charged per conversation whatever the result. Cannot be combined with Flex Credits in the same org. | $2 per conversation |
| Microsoft Copilot Studio | Copilot Credit | A generative answer uses 2 credits and an agent action 5. Custom agents are disabled at 125% of prepaid capacity unless you pay as you go. | $200 per 25,000 credits a month, or $0.01 per credit |
| Salesforce Agentforce add-ons | User per month | Sales, Service and Field Service add-ons. Industries add-ons cost $150. | $125 |
Vendors that price per outcome but do not publish a rate.
Prices for these vendors circulate on blogs, but none are on the vendors' own pages, so we do not repeat them.
| Vendor | Pricing model it describes | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Sierra | Per outcome agreed in the contract, often resolved conversations | Not published |
| Decagon | Per conversation or per resolution; most customers choose per conversation | Not published |
| Ada | Per conversation, with resolution-based pricing for some enterprise customers | Not published |
| Crescendo | Per resolution, with an outcome guarantee | Not published |
| EvenUp | Per case, for personal injury law firms | Not published |
Working out which model costs least at your volume.
Start with your own numbers rather than a vendor's resolution rate. Count a month of items, time a sample by hand and multiply by the loaded cost of a staff hour. BLS data for June 2026 puts benefits at 30 percent of total compensation in private industry, so a wage of $24 an hour costs an employer about $34 once benefits are added.
Then price each model on that same month. Per-user pricing stays flat however much the agent does. Usage pricing grows with every attempt, including the ones that end with a person doing the work anyway. Per-result pricing grows only with finished work, which moves the cost of failed attempts to the vendor.
For document work, compare a price per result with what the task costs you now. Ardent Partners found in 2025 that the average accounts payable team spent $9.40 to process one invoice, and its 2026 study put best-in-class teams at $2.67 against $12.50 for everyone else. A price per matched invoice has to sit well under your own figure to be worth signing.
A low price can also rise. Gartner predicted in January 2026 that generative AI cost per resolution in customer service will exceed $3 by 2030, so ask when and how the price per result can change before you commit.
What QueryNow charges for a custom agent.
We build one agent workflow for $10,000, paid only after it passes the acceptance criteria you signed. After launch you pay a fixed price for each result that passes its checks, set from your acceptance test, with a $1,200 monthly minimum. Failed work and work your team finishes are not billed, and model usage and hosting stay on your own cloud bill.
Where these prices come from.
Each price was read on the vendor's own page or announcement on October 18, 2026, unless another date is shown. Vendors change prices often.
- HubSpot, Customer Agent and Prospecting Agent: now you pay when the task is complete (April 13, 2026)
- Fin, pricing
- Fin, how Fin pricing outcomes work (September 17, 2026)
- Gorgias, pricing
- Zendesk, pricing (modified October 9, 2026)
- Zendesk, announcing changes to AI agent reporting (May 14, 2026)
- Salesforce, Agentforce pricing
- CIO.com, Salesforce unveils AI Help Agent with pay-per-resolution pricing (June 25, 2026)
- Chargeflow, pricing
- Microsoft, Copilot Studio pricing
- Microsoft Learn, Copilot Studio messages and capacity management (updated October 15, 2026)
- Sierra, Outcome-based pricing for AI agents (December 10, 2024)
- Decagon, Pricing AI agents (December 10, 2024)
- Ada, Resolution-based vs conversation-based pricing (July 18, 2025)
- Crescendo, Total Outcome Guarantee (October 23, 2025)
- BLS, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (released September 9, 2026)
- Ardent Partners, AP Metrics that Matter in 2025 (February 2025)
- Ardent Partners, AP Metrics that Matter in 2026, via Basware
- Gartner, GenAI cost per resolution for customer service will exceed offshore human agent costs by 2030 (January 26, 2026)
What to check in any AI agent quote.
The billable unit
Ask for the written definition of what is billed, with one example of a billed item and one that is not.
Failures and handoffs
Most per-result vendors do not bill when the agent hands work to a person. Usage pricing usually does.
Reversals
Find out whether a result is credited when the customer comes back or the record is corrected later.
Minimums and rollover
Check the smallest pack you must buy and whether unused units expire at the end of the month.
What happens at the limit
Zendesk can pause the AI agent and route requests to people. Copilot Studio disables custom agents at 125% of prepaid capacity.
Price changes
Ask when the unit price can change at renewal, and get your expected bill at today's volume and at double it.
From workflow to working tool in two weeks.
Scope and sign
We define the workflow, the deliverables, and the acceptance criteria, and sign an agreement on them before anything starts.
Build
We build the tool in your environment, with Claude Code and automated evaluation against your own data.
Pay when it works
$10,000, due only after every criterion in the signed agreement is met. Nothing before that.
The build is paid only after it passes your acceptance test. After launch you pay for results that pass their checks, with a $1,200 monthly minimum, and failed work is not billed.
How our per-result pricing works →
Tell us the workflow →Questions buyers ask.
How much does an AI agent cost in 2026?
It depends on the pricing model. In October 2026 published per-result prices ran from $0.50 per resolved conversation at HubSpot to $2 per resolution for Salesforce's Help Agent. Usage pricing was about $0.10 per action on Salesforce Flex Credits, and Agentforce add-ons cost $125 per user per month. A custom agent for your own workflow is usually priced as a build plus a run fee.
Which AI agents charge per resolution?
HubSpot Customer Agent, Fin, Gorgias, Zendesk AI agents and Salesforce's Agentforce Help Agent all publish a price per resolved conversation or outcome. Sierra, Decagon, Ada and Crescendo describe outcome-based pricing but do not publish rates.
Does Salesforce charge per conversation, per action or per resolution?
All three, depending on the product. Agentforce can be bought at $2 per conversation or through Flex Credits at about $0.10 per standard action, and the Help Agent is sold at $2 per resolution in packs of at least 1,000.
What is the cheapest way to pay for an AI agent?
There is no single cheapest model. Per-user pricing is simplest for tools people use directly, while per-result pricing usually works out better for steady volume with a result that can be checked, because you stop paying for attempts that fail.
Are model costs included in AI agent prices?
Packaged products such as Zendesk or Fin generally include the model in the price you pay them. For custom agents built in your own cloud, model usage and hosting are billed by your cloud provider, so ask for an estimate at your volume.
Ready to ship AI that actually works?
Send us the workflow. We return a fixed scope, price, and acceptance criteria in 48 hours. You pay $10,000 only after it works.
Tell us the workflow →Buying AI by the result: a Results as a Service guide for operators and finance teams
How to define, check and price AI results, with published per-result prices and the contract terms to ask for.
Read it free →