What counts as an AI "resolution"? Seven vendors' billing definitions, side by side

A "resolution" is whatever the vendor's billing terms say it is, and seven vendors say seven different things. Fin bills $0.99 when "no further help is requested after Fin's last answer"¹. Help Scout bills $0.75 but excludes any conversation where the customer escalates, keeps asking, or clicks "I still need help"⁵. HubSpot reportedly bills $0.50 when there is no human handoff within 72 hours³. The unit price is the second thing to read. The first is the definition, because it decides whether a customer who gave up counts as a customer you helped.

This article sets the definitions side by side, verbatim and dated to the pages we read on 1 October 2026, and ends with the questions a small team should put to any vendor before signing a per-resolution contract. Pricing pages change often; check each one again on the day you buy.

What is per-resolution pricing?#

Per-resolution pricing is a billing model in which the vendor charges for each conversation its AI agent is deemed to have finished, rather than for each seat or each message. Vendors use four different units under that heading, and they are not interchangeable.

• Resolution or outcome. A conversation the vendor's system classifies as finished by the AI. The classification rule is set by the vendor.
• Automated resolution. Zendesk's term; its pricing page calls it "the unit of measurement used for calculating and billing your account for AI agent usage"⁴.
• Conversation. A unit of activity, billed whether or not the customer was helped. Tidio's standard Lyro plans are sold in blocks of conversations⁷.
• Conversion. A business result the buyer can see in their own records, such as a client signed or a booking made. Clio Grow AI is the one vendor in this set that bills this way⁸.

The distinction between the first two and the last is the subject of this article. A resolution is observed by the vendor. A conversion is observed by you.

How do Fin, HubSpot, Zendesk, Help Scout, Gorgias, Tidio and Clio define a resolution?#

The table below quotes each vendor's own billing language where we could read it, and marks where we could not. "Verifiable by the buyer" asks a narrow question: could a small team check a disputed charge against something it can see without the vendor's classification?

Which definition applies to your contract?#

The definition that binds you is the one in your plan's terms on the day you sign, not the one in a blog post, including this one. Before comparing prices, run the applicability funnel: four questions that decide which row above, if any, describes your bill.

1. Which product and plan? Tidio bills per resolution only on Premium; its other plans bill per conversation⁷. HubSpot's Customer Agent reportedly requires a Professional or Enterprise subscription (per a September 2026 HubSpot blog post we saw only as a search snippet; verify), which is a cost before the first resolution.
2. Is there a minimum or an allowance? Fin's 50-outcome minimum means the floor is $49.50 a month before seats¹. Zendesk includes 5 or 10 automated resolutions per agent, after which each one is billed⁴.
3. Are seats billed as well? Fin with the Intercom helpdesk, Zendesk and Help Scout all charge per seat in addition to resolutions¹³⁴⁵. Gorgias prices its helpdesk by ticket volume rather than per agent⁶.
4. Is a handoff billed? Fin bills a configured Procedure that ends in a handoff as an outcome¹. Gorgias says a handed-off ticket moves to your helpdesk plan and "You're not charged for both"⁶. Help Scout does not charge when the customer escalates⁵.

What does a "resolution" reward?#

A billing definition is also an incentive, and most of these definitions reward the absence of a further request. Under a rule like "no further help is requested", a customer who received a correct answer and a customer who gave up look the same to the meter.

Practitioners have said so in public. In a Hacker News discussion on 15 June 2026, one commenter wrote that a Fin outcome can be counted "when the customer simply does not ask for more help after Fin responds" and called it "a very soft resolution metric"⁹. A small-business reviewer on G2 in June 2026 described a "gray area around the 'assumed resolved' conversations that you are being charged for"¹⁰. Robylon, which sells a competing product, calls per-resolution billing a "perverse incentive where improving your automation directly increases your costs"¹²; that is a vendor's characterisation, not a neutral finding.

The handoff numbers show why the definition matters. Gorgias's own platform data for October 2025 to April 2026 found that 55% of AI-touched tickets ended in a human handoff, with a median wait of 10 hours afterwards, and that one-third of handed-off tickets never received a human reply¹¹. A definition that counts "no handoff within 72 hours" as resolved³ would, as reported, bill for a conversation in which the customer needed a person but did not get one in time.

Why Intercom said it would not price per booking#

Intercom has published the clearest statement of why a business result is hard to bill. In a post dated 8 May 2026 about pricing Fin for sales conversations, Intercom wrote: "The purest version of outcome-based pricing for Fin's sales role would be a percentage of closed revenue."² It then gave two reasons for not doing so.

Between the moment Fin qualifies a lead and the moment a deal closes, dozens of things can impact the final result.

Intercom blog, on attribution, 8 May 2026

To track closed revenue, we'd need deep integration into every customer's CRM, tracking each opportunity from qualification through to close.

Intercom blog, on measurement, 8 May 2026

Intercom priced the sales role per qualified lead instead: "At $10 per qualified lead, the pricing reflects this boundary."² The same post reports that in its research "zero buyers preferred paying for activity. They wanted to pay for results."²

Both objections are fair for a complex B2B sale. They apply with less force to a small service business, where the result is often a single event with a timestamp: a booked appointment, a held date confirmed, a signed engagement. Clio's Grow AI shows that a vendor can bill on that kind of event in at least one vertical⁸. The attribution problem shrinks when every reply leaves a record of what was asked, what was answered and what was booked, because the buyer can then trace the result without the vendor's classification.

What does per-resolution pricing cost at 500 a month?#

List prices make a rough comparison possible for a three-person team whose AI agent is credited with 500 resolutions a month. The figures below are arithmetic from published list prices, not quotes; they exclude taxes, add-ons, discounts and any plan you would need anyway.

The sensitivity that matters is the share of billed resolutions in which the customer simply left. Illustration If one in five of the 500 were customers who gave up rather than customers who were helped, a Fin bill would include about $99 a month, roughly $1,190 a year, for silence. Nobody has published that share for small teams; a vendor that cannot show you conversation-level outcomes cannot tell you either.

Questions to ask before you sign a per-resolution contract#

A per-resolution contract should be read the way you would read any metered agreement: the unit, the counting rule, the record and the dispute path. The list below separates what you must get in writing from what you should ask and what you may negotiate. It is not legal advice; have counsel review the contract terms.

MUST GET IN WRITING
1. The exact billing definition of a resolution or outcome, quoted from the
   contract or order form, with the date of the version you are signing.
2. Whether silence counts: if the customer stops replying, is that billed?
3. Whether a handoff to a human is billed, and within what time window.
4. Any monthly minimum, included allowance, and the overage price.
5. How you can see, per conversation, why it was billed.

SHOULD ASK
6. Can we dispute a charge? Within how many days, and what evidence counts?
7. Is there a monthly spending cap, and what happens to the agent when it is hit?
8. What does the AI do when the answer is not in our documents: refuse,
   hand off, or answer anyway?
9. When a handoff happens, does the customer see when a person will reply?
10. Who is liable for an incorrect answer (refund, price, policy)?
    Where is that stated?

MAY NEGOTIATE
11. A trial period billed on our own definition of resolved
    (for example: customer confirmed, or booked).
12. Price protection if the definition or unit price changes mid-term.
13. Month-to-month terms, or a notice period you can live with.

What remains unclear#

Three points could not be settled from public pages. HubSpot's 72-hour wording comes from a secondary source and a truncated HubSpot snippet³. Zendesk's pricing page names the unit but does not define it⁴. Tidio's Premium resolution rule was not published on the page we read⁷. For a wider view of the decision, see should a startup use AI for customer support? and how to make sure customers are never stuck with a bot.

Where Valet fits#

Valet is priced on an outcome the owner can see. During early access it is a small monthly base plus a fee only for bookings or quotes Valet wins, capped monthly and month to month. A booking is a calendar event Valet created, with an invite sent to the customer, so the owner can check it in their own calendar without taking Valet's word for it. Every reply also carries a Valet receipt: what was asked, the rule used, the sources used, and where it was sent from. Money questions, complaints and anything not on the owner's list go to the owner, and the customer is told when the owner will reply.

If you want to see how your current inquiries end before you choose any pricing model, the free lead check takes 10–20 recent inquiries and shows what went unanswered, what stopped after one reply, and what it was worth.