Low volume
Fifty resolutions a month at $0.99 is about $49.50, Gorgias enters at $10 for 50 tickets, and Tidio has a genuinely free tier. If your queue is small, a meter or a free plan is cheaper than any flat plan on the market.
Pricing models
Per-resolution vs flat pricing for AI support
One model bills you when the AI works. The other bills the same amount every month. Which one is cheaper depends almost entirely on how steady your queue is.
What the two models actually are
Metered covers anything that moves with volume: per resolution, per conversation, per message credit, per seat. In our August 2026 price scan, Fin charges $0.99 a resolution, Lorikeet $0.80 to $0.95, Gorgias $1.50 per AI conversation, Siena $0.90 per automated ticket, and Richpanel $0.20 on top of $99 per seat. Chatbase sells message credits at $40 per 1,000.
Flat is a monthly price for a stated volume. You know the number before the month starts, and it does not change if the month goes badly, or well.
Notice how tightly the metered rates cluster. Fin at $0.99 and Lorikeet at $0.80 to $0.95 arrive at almost the same unit price from opposite ends of the market. Per-resolution pricing has effectively converged near a dollar, which at least makes the arithmetic easy to do in your head.
The arithmetic
The problem is not the rate. It is the variance.
Take a store on a $0.99 per resolution rate and three ordinary months. Same team, same product, same tooling.
| Month | Resolutions | Metered at $0.99 | Sensbot Scale, flat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiet month | 400 | 400 × $0.99 = $396 | €299 |
| Normal month | 600 | 600 × $0.99 = $594 | €299 |
| Peak month | 900 | 900 × $0.99 = $891 | €299 |
Sensbot Scale is €299 a month and covers up to 1,500 AI replies or 2,500 chats, so all three months sit inside one plan and one price. The units are not identical, so read the two columns as shapes rather than as a like-for-like quote: one line rises with your traffic and the other does not. In our own merchant conversations the objection to metered AI billing is almost never the unit price. It is not knowing what the bill will be.
When the meter is the better deal
We would rather say this out loud than have you work it out after signing. There are three situations where metered billing beats a flat plan, including ours.
Spiky or seasonal volume
Eleven quiet months and one enormous one is the classic metered profile. A meter charges almost nothing for the eleven. A flat plan does not refund them. Do the sum across your own twelve months.
You are still testing
Before you know whether AI drafting works on your queue at all, paying by the unit is a reasonable way to find out cheaply. Trials do the same job, but a meter lets you stay small indefinitely.
When flat pricing wins
Steady volume
A predictable queue on a meter is a predictable bill that still grows every time you grow. On a flat plan, growth inside your tier is free, and crossing a tier is a decision you make rather than a surprise you receive.
Budgeting and approval
A flat number survives a finance review. A metered forecast is an argument with a spreadsheet, every quarter, and you lose it whenever a campaign works.
No cliff at the cap
Meters have edges. At least one ecommerce chatbot vendor in our scan does not bill overage below its top tier: the chatbot switches off at the conversation cap until you upgrade. A flat plan that includes your volume does not stop mid-month.
The second meter nobody mentions: seats
Per-seat pricing is quietly dying as a value metric in this market. Gorgias states outright that it never prices per agent. Richpanel is the outlier, anchoring at $99 per seat and using that as its differentiator. At least one ecommerce chatbot vendor in our scan charges $19 per seat per month on every paid tier, on top of a conversation meter, which means the cheapest sticker price in the market stops being the cheapest as soon as a second person joins the queue.
Then there is the third meter: paying to remove the vendor's branding from your own storefront. Chatbase charges $1,188 a year for it.
Sensbot charges for none of the three. No seats, no credits, no per-resolution fee, and custom branding is included from the Growth plan.
What we do, and the trade it involves
Our plans are flat monthly prices for a stated volume: €49, €129, €299, and done-for-you from €390. Nothing is metered per conversation, per resolution or per token. When you outgrow a plan you move up a tier, and the bill stays predictable.
That is a real trade and it does not favour everyone. A low-volume store pays us more than it would pay a meter. We think it is the right trade for a store with a steady queue, and we would rather say that plainly than pretend the meter never wins.
Common questions
Is per-resolution pricing ever cheaper?
Yes, in two clear cases. If your volume is low, roughly under 50 conversations a month, a meter or a free tier beats any flat plan. If your volume is spiky, a meter charges you almost nothing in the quiet months. Steady volume is where flat pricing takes over.
What counts as a resolution?
That is defined by the vendor doing the billing, and it is worth reading the definition before you sign. What we can say is that published per-resolution rates cluster near a dollar: Fin at $0.99, Lorikeet at $0.80 to $0.95, as of August 2026.
What happens when I hit my Sensbot plan limit?
We tell you, and you move up a tier. A volume-based plan does have a limit; the difference from a meter is that you know the number before the month starts and it does not change unless you change it.
Do you charge per agent or per mailbox?
Not per agent. Email Assistant plans include a number of mailboxes: 1 on Starter, 2 on Growth, 5 on Scale, and every mailbox on done-for-you. Your whole team can work them.
Where can I see the full market comparison?
On how much AI customer support costs in 2026, which lists the published entry price and the metered unit price for every vendor in our August 2026 scan.
Work out which model fits your queue.
Send us your monthly volume and we will do the arithmetic both ways, including the case where a meter is cheaper.
Free trial on every platform. No credit card on Shopify, Shoper or Upgates.