AI Customer Service Pricing Per Resolution vs Per Seat Audit

This guide doesn’t explain the pricing models again. It’s an audit you can run in one afternoon with your own Shopify tickets. You get five written questions for any vendor, a peak month test and a break-even table that turns the answers into a decision.

Relay doesn’t bill per resolution or per seat. Its plans are monthly tiers by conversation volume, so you can check the cost against your own numbers before you start.

What counts as a resolution? 5 questions to ask the vendor

A price per resolution means nothing until you know what the vendor counts. Send these five questions by email and ask for written answers. If two vendors define a resolution differently, you can’t compare their rates.

1. Is a ticket billed as resolved when the customer stops replying?

Ask how long the tool waits before it closes a silent ticket, and whether that ticket is billed. A customer who gave up and a customer who got their answer are not the same result.

2. Is an answer billed the same as an action?

“Your order shipped on Monday” is an answer. Changing the shipping address in Shopify or issuing a refund is an action. Ask whether both cost the same, and which actions the AI can actually take in your store.

3. What happens when a resolved ticket reopens?

If a customer writes again two days later about the same order, the problem wasn’t solved. Ask whether the first resolution is credited back, billed again or left as it is.

4. Is a ticket billed if the AI starts it and a human finishes it?

Escalation is normal. Ask whether a ticket that gets handed off is billed, and how you can see that on your invoice.

5. Is there a monthly cap, and what happens past it?

This question decides your November bill. Ask whether there is a maximum, whether you get a warning before you reach it and what the rate is above it.

For per seat offers, ask a sixth question: does adding the AI put a separate fee on top of each seat? If it does, one bill charges you under both models.

Test the bill on your Black Friday month

Your busiest weeks decide your bill, so test the quote on them first. Our guide on staffing support around Black Friday email send times helps you see when that peak hits.

1. Pull last November’s tickets. If your store is newer, take your busiest month so far.
2. Sort them by type: where is my order, returns, exchanges, address changes, cancellations and product questions.
3. Apply the vendor’s five answers. If silent tickets are billed, count them. If reopened tickets are billed twice, count those too.
4. Work out three bills: one per resolution, one per seat (with any temporary seats you’d add for the peak) and one on a monthly volume tier.
5. Compare the peak bill, not the average.

Worked example: one store, two months

This is an example store. The ticket counts, the share the AI resolves and the $0.50 rate are assumptions for this example. They are not results or a quote from any vendor. Put your own numbers in their place.

In a normal month, $0.50 per resolution costs less than the Growth tier. In November, the same rate costs more. Now add question 1. If the vendor also bills 100 silent tickets that month, the peak bill goes from $450 to $500. Question 5 decides whether that number has a ceiling.

With per seat pricing, the AI lowers your bill only if you remove a seat. If you’d add one temporary seat for November, add one seat price to that month’s total.

Is per resolution cheaper than per seat? The break-even table

One formula lets you compare any per resolution quote with a monthly tier. Divide the monthly price by the number of tickets the AI resolves in a month. The result is the highest rate per resolution at which paying per result still costs less.

The table uses two of Relay’s published tiers: Starter at $149/month for up to 500 conversations / month, and Growth at $299/month for up to 2,000 conversations / month.

Here’s how to read it. If the AI resolves 1,000 tickets a month and a quote is above $0.30 per resolution, the Growth tier at $299 costs less. The more tickets the AI resolves, the lower the break-even rate goes. With per resolution pricing, the bill grows as the AI does more of the work.

Keep one limit in mind: a volume tier counts conversations, not resolutions. Choose the tier using your total tickets in the peak month, then run the break-even on resolutions.

How to run this audit during a free trial

A trial gives you real counts instead of the numbers from a demo:

1. Connect the tool, teach it your policies and set its permissions.
2. Let it handle real tickets for two weeks, and have it escalate anything it isn’t sure about.
3. Count the tickets closed with no human, the tickets escalated and the tickets reopened.
4. Put those counts into the worked example above, using your November volume.

If you also track satisfaction, count it per ticket type so refund tickets and WISMO tickets don’t get mixed together. Our guide on CSAT counting rules by ticket type shows how to set that up.

Relay’s trial is a 14-day free trial. Its statistics show resolution rate, time saved and payroll saved, which covers step 3. You’ll find more tool comparisons in our comparisons section.

Verdict: which model for which store

If the AI resolves fewer than about 250 tickets a month, even in November, per resolution can cost less, but only with a written monthly cap. Above 1,000 AI resolutions a month, any per resolution rate above $0.30 costs more than the Growth tier at $299.

FAQ

What counts as a resolution in AI customer service pricing?

Each vendor sets its own definition. Ask in writing whether it bills silent tickets, reopened tickets and tickets a human finishes. Also ask whether an answer costs the same as an action like a refund.

Is per resolution cheaper than per seat?

It depends on your volume and your team. Per resolution can cost less at low volume if there is a monthly cap. Per seat is cheaper only if the AI lets you remove seats. Run the break-even formula on your busiest month.

How do I estimate my Black Friday support bill?

Take last November’s tickets and estimate the share the AI resolves. Add any silent or reopened tickets the vendor bills, then multiply by the rate. Compare the result with the monthly tier or per seat price for the same month.

How does Relay price its AI support?

Relay has monthly tiers based on conversation volume: Starter at $149/month for up to 500 conversations / month, Growth at $299/month for up to 2,000 conversations / month, and Scale at $599+/month.