What happens if I go over my plan conversation limit?
It depends on a decision the vendor makes and that is worth knowing before signing: either the agent stops answering, or it keeps answering and the excess gets billed. The first turns a volume spike into a customer service problem; the second, into an unexpected invoice. Neither is bad, but knowing which applies to you changes which plan you buy.
Short answer
It depends on a decision the vendor makes and that is worth knowing before signing: either the agent stops answering, or it keeps answering and the excess gets billed. The first turns a volume spike into a customer service problem; the second, into an unexpected invoice. Neither is bad, but knowing which applies to you changes which plan you buy.
In detail
If the agent switches off
The conversations go to your team, which is exactly what you do not want on the day your inbox fills up. Spikes do not arrive evenly spread: they arrive with a launch, an incident or a campaign, and those are precisely the days with fewest hands.
If the excess gets billed
What matters is at what price and with what warning. An excess at the same unit price as the plan is reasonable; one at triple is not. And a warning at 80% of consumption is the difference between choosing and finding out when the invoice arrives.
What is worth having in writing
What happens at the limit, the price of the excess, whether there is a warning and at what percentage, and whether you can change plan mid-month without penalty. Four lines, and they avoid the only unpleasant argument this pricing model produces.
How to size the plan
Not by your current ticket volume, but by **incoming conversation** volume, which is usually higher: it includes whoever asks and leaves without opening a ticket. And with room for the bad month, not the average one.
Terms that come up here
Other questions in this thread
What counts as a conversation when you pay per resolution?
A conversation is a whole thread with one customer, not each message: if they write five times about the same thing, it is still one. What varies between vendors is when that thread gets cut and what counts as resolved, and those two definitions decide your invoice far more than the unit price on the website.
Is Freshdesk cheaper than Zendesk?
On the per-seat rate yes, nearly always, and the gap is noticeable on the entry plans. But the saving narrows as soon as you move into the higher plans of either, and it disappears entirely if what pushed you to switch was the cost of the AI, because there both charge separately and on a similar model.
Is Intercom more expensive than Zendesk?
It depends on how many people answer and how much you use the AI, which is why the comparisons circulating contradict each other. Intercom charges per seat plus per resolution of the automated agent; Zendesk charges per seat plus its AI module separately. With a small team and high automated volume, Intercom usually comes out dearer; with a large team and little AI, it inverts.
Where this question comes from
Intake pricing →