Ranked · Support agents
The 9 best AI support agents (2026)
The best AI support agents in October 2026 are Fin, Auto-Respond and Zendesk AI agents.
9 agents compared · entry plans $10 to $149 a month · none with a free plan · prices checked 3 September–24 October 2026
Reviewed by The Agents Index editorial team.
Ranked: 9 of the 19 support agents we list. The 10 not yet ranked follow the ranking. All 19 in support agents →
All picks at a glance
| # | Agent | Best for | Starts at | Key facts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | FinSelf-serve, public pricingvs Sierra | Support teams from mid-market to enterprise | From $0.99/outcome |
|
| 2 | Auto-RespondSelf-serve, public pricing | Local service business owners who lose leads to slow follow-up and want phone | From $10/month |
|
| 3 | Zendesk AI agentsSelf-serve trial, seat price public — resolution rate undisclosed | Support teams already committed to (or actively evaluating) Zendesk as their core helpdesk | From about $28/seat/month |
|
| 4 | BotsifyVerifiedPublic price, managed build — not self-serve | Small businesses and agencies that want a managed, prompt-based AI agent across chat channels | From $149/month | |
| 5 | SierraEnterprise, sales-led — full replacementvs Fin | Large enterprises that want branded, autonomous customer agents that resolve issues end to end | Quote only |
Checked between 3 September 2026 and 24 October 2026. “About” figures are converted at the European Central Bank rate of 23 October 2026.
About this list
Every AI support agent in this category sells outcome- or resolution-based pricing, but they split sharply on one thing that matters more than any feature list: can you actually try it, and at what price? Two of the nine are genuinely self-serve with a fully posted price and a free trial: Intercom Fin ($0.99 per resolution, 14-day no-card trial) and Auto-Respond, the one small-business entry here, priced per channel from $10/month for a voice number plus $1 per minute of talk time, with a 7-day trial. Zendesk AI Agents sits in its own middle case: a 14-day no-card trial and a fully public per-seat price ($55–$115/agent/month for the Suite plans that include AI Agents) make signup genuinely self-serve, but the usage meter on top of that seat price, the per-resolution rate, is undisclosed, so you can start without a sales call yet still can't fully price it out in advance. Botsify is the only other listing here with any public price at all, $149/month for its Done-for-You plan, but that price buys a managed build Botsify's own team assembles for you, not a self-serve dashboard. Sierra, Decagon, Crescendo, Cresta and Ada publish no full-suite pricing whatsoever. You start with a pilot or a contract, not a signup form or a posted rate.
A second, more subtle split cuts across the six full-resolution names. Sierra, Decagon, Crescendo, Ada and Zendesk AI Agents are all built to resolve a conversation end to end and hand off to a human only on exception. Cresta is built the other way around: its AI Agent resolves conversations too, but the platform's bigger emphasis is Agent Assist and the newer Knowledge Agent, which keep supporting the human rep continuously rather than stepping back once a human takes over. It's the one listing here explicitly built to augment a blended AI-and-human operation, not just replace one. Botsify, on its Done-for-You plan, is also built for full resolution rather than augmentation, closer in intent to Sierra, Decagon, Crescendo, Ada and Zendesk than to Cresta, but publishes no resolution rate or named case study to weigh against them.
A third split cuts across developer access, independent of price. Ada and Zendesk AI Agents are the only two of the enterprise-leaning names that ship a fully documented, publicly-browsable developer API (Ada's Conversations/Email API plus an MCP server; Zendesk's long-standing developer.zendesk.com platform and app marketplace), a real developer surface Sierra, Decagon and Crescendo don't publish at all. Botsify also ships a genuine API (a public Postman collection), despite its own price being public but its onboarding still a managed build rather than self-serve. That makes Ada, Zendesk AI Agents, Botsify and Auto-Respond (a REST webhook plus a Lead Reply API) the four listings here a developer can actually integrate against without a sales-gated SDK.
So this is not a single top pick. It is all nine independently researched AI support agents in our index, grouped by those real buying decisions: self-serve versus publicly-priced-but-managed versus enterprise sales-led, full replacement versus blended augmentation, and which ones actually ship a usable developer API. Each carries an honest note on what it actually gets you and where its pricing or proof falls short of the pitch.
9 agents, ranked. How we rank
Featured agents
This spot is open
Featured agents show here and at the top of their category.
- API access: Not stated
- Free tier: Not stated
- MCP server: Not stated
- Own API key: Not stated
- Open source: Not stated
- Self-hosted: Not stated
The ranking
Self-serve, public pricing
Editor’s pick
Best forSupport teams from mid-market to enterprise that want an AI agent layered over their existing helpdesk with pay-per-resolution economics, omnichannel coverage and a built-in tuning loop.
VerdictOne of only two here you can try without a sales call: $0.99 per resolution, a 14-day no-card trial, and a documented API that Intercom says layers onto Zendesk, Salesforce or Freshdesk in under an hour. The catch is the resolution meter itself: Intercom's 76% headline rate outruns what independent analyses see in many real deployments (nearer 40–50%), and billing counts a customer who simply stops replying as a paid "resolution."
- Price
- From $0.99/outcome · source
- Free to try
- 14-day free trial
- Watch for
- What counts as a billable "resolution" includes soft outcomes (customer stops replying), which can inflate spend relative to true resolutions.
Best forLocal service business owners who lose leads to slow follow-up and want phone and marketplace messages answered and booked automatically on their own calendar.
VerdictThe only listing here built for a small local service business rather than a support queue: it answers the phone and replies to Yelp, Thumbtack, Facebook, Instagram and Google LSA leads in under two seconds, then checks the live calendar and books the appointment itself, escalating emergencies and out-of-scope questions to the owner with the conversation context attached. Pricing is fully published and per channel ($10/month for a voice number plus $1 per minute of talk time, $19 for Facebook Lead Ads, $49 for Messenger, $99 each for Thumbtack and Yelp), with a 7-day trial and a REST webhook plus Lead Reply API for wiring it into a custom CRM. The honest caveat is proof: no independent reviews exist yet, so the specifics are the vendor's own claims, and the per-channel, per-minute meter means the real cost depends entirely on how many channels you turn on.
- Price
- From $10/month · source
- Free to try
- 7-day free trial
- Watch for
- Pricing is split across separate line items (per source, per voice number, per minute of talk time, plus optional SMS add-on), which makes it harder to know total monthly cost without configuring the exact channel mix first
Self-serve trial, seat price public — resolution rate undisclosed
Best forSupport teams already committed to (or actively evaluating) Zendesk as their core helpdesk who want the AI agent to come from the same vendor and billing relationship, rather than layering a third-party agent on top.
VerdictThe only listing here bundled into an existing helpdesk platform rather than sold standalone: a 14-day no-card trial and a public per-seat Suite price ($55–$115/agent/month) make signup genuinely self-serve, but the per-resolution usage rate on top of that seat price is undisclosed: independent analysis puts it around $1.20–$1.50 per Verified Resolution. A May 2026 billing change stopped charging for escalations and abandoned conversations, and a full public developer API (developer.zendesk.com) matches Ada's as the category's best-documented.
- Price
- From about $28/seat/month · source
- Free to try
- 14-day free trial
- Watch for
- Requires an existing Suite Team-or-higher subscription for new customers; there is no way to buy AI Agents standalone unless you come in as a Forethought customer.
Public price, managed build — not self-serve
Best forSmall businesses and agencies that want a managed, prompt-based AI agent across chat channels, or want to resell one under their own brand, from an established, decade-old vendor.
VerdictThe only other listing here with any public price at all: $149/month for its Done-for-You plan. But that price buys a managed build Botsify's own team assembles for you, not a self-serve dashboard: a decade-old (2016), bootstrapped alternative to the enterprise scale of the five sales-led names, with a genuine developer API (a public Postman collection) but no published resolution rate or named case study to weigh against Sierra's or Decagon's.
- Price
- From $149/month · source
- Watch for
- Model/LLM choice is not exposed; you cannot pick or verify which model answers a given conversation.
Enterprise, sales-led — full replacement
Best forLarge enterprises that want branded, autonomous customer agents that resolve issues end to end and are willing to run a managed engagement.
VerdictThe deepest enterprise track record in the category: Bret Taylor's Agent Studio has passed $100M ARR in under two years and reached roughly half the Fortune 50, with agents that complete real actions (refunds, subscription changes, order tracking) across six channels from one definition. There is no public price, free tier or self-serve API; access is a negotiated enterprise engagement.
- Price
- Quote only · source
- Why here
- Sierra publishes no price, so it is listed after the products that do.
- Watch for
- No public sign-up, pricing page or self-serve API, access is via an enterprise sales engagement.
Ranked 6 to 9
| # | Agent | Price | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 |  DecagonLarge enterprises in retail, travel, fintech, health and telecom that want a heavily-funded Quote only | Quote only | |
| 7 |  | Quote only | |
| 8 |  | Quote only | |
| Enterprise, sales-led — blended augmentation | |||
| 9 |  | Quote only | |
| In this category, not yet ranked | |||
 SkipCallsVerifiedAI receptionist that answers a small business's existing phone number 24/7 | |||
 IrisAgentAI support agents that resolve chat, email, voice and text inside your existing helpdesk | |||
 Maven AGIEnterprise AI agent platform that resolves customer conversations across chat, email, voice | |||
 AideGoverned AI agent that resolves customer conversations end to end inside Zendesk, Front | |||
 AiZipZapVerifiedTrades, freelancers and IT teams that field vague customer enquiries by email | |||
 VeraDialVerifiedAI receptionist and verified US/Canadian business line that answers calls and texts | |||
 KalyvoxVerifiedAI phone receptionist that answers inbound calls, qualifies them, transfers or books appointments | |||
 MixdeskVerifiedOmnichannel customer engagement platform with AI Agents for support, sales and lead qualification | |||
 VoiceFleetVerifiedInbound AI phone receptionist for small businesses: answers calls, captures bookings | |||
 Aissist.ioVerifiedSMB and mid-market support and sales teams keeping their existing helpdesk | |||
Side by side
Every field, side by side
Scroll sideways to see them all.
| Feature | Fin | Auto-Respond | Zendesk AI agents | BotsifyVerified | Sierra | Decagon | Crescendo | Ada | Cresta | SkipCallsVerified | IrisAgent | Maven AGI | Aide | AiZipZapVerified | VeraDialVerified | KalyvoxVerified | MixdeskVerified | VoiceFleetVerified | Aissist.ioVerified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Description | Intercom's customer agent that resolves support conversations across chat, email, voice and social channels. | AI answering service and voice agent that answers calls and marketplace texts, qualifies leads and books jobs. | Customer-service AI agents for messaging, email and voice, billed per automated resolution. | White-label platform for building prompt-based AI chat and voice agents that agencies resell under their own brand. | Enterprise platform for customer-service AI agents across voice, chat, email and messaging, priced by outcome. | Enterprise AI customer-service agents for chat, voice and email, built in natural language. | AI-native CX platform: agents resolving support across voice, chat, email and SMS, with a staffed team behind them. | Agentic customer experience platform running AI support agents across voice, messaging and email. | Enterprise contact-centre platform with autonomous voice and digital AI agents plus real-time human agent assist. | AI receptionist that answers a small business's existing phone number 24/7. | AI support agents that resolve chat, email, voice and text inside your existing helpdesk. | Enterprise AI agent platform that resolves customer conversations across chat, email, voice and internal tools. | Governed AI agent that resolves customer conversations end to end inside Zendesk, Front, Gorgias or Gmail. | Customer intake agent that turns each request into a job brief, missing questions and a reply draft. | AI receptionist and verified US/Canadian business line that answers calls and texts and places outbound calls. | AI phone receptionist that answers inbound calls, qualifies them, transfers or books appointments. | Omnichannel customer engagement platform with AI Agents for support, sales and lead qualification. | Inbound AI phone receptionist for small businesses: answers calls, captures bookings, escalates urgent callers. | Multi-agent AI that resolves support and sales conversations inside your existing helpdesk. |
| Category | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Agent platforms, Conversational agent builders, Support agents | Support agents, Agent platforms | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents, Agent platforms | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents | Support agents |
| Pricing | From $0.99/outcome | From $10/month | From about $28/seat/month | From $149/month | - | - | - | - | - | From $19.99/month | From Free | - | From $99/month | From Free | From $14.99/month | From $95/month | From Free | From about $111/month | From Free |
| API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tags |
Questions buyers ask
What is the best AI agent for customer support?
It depends on how you want to buy. For a self-serve team that wants to try before committing, Intercom Fin and Auto-Respond are the only two of these nine with fully public pricing and a free trial. If you're already on (or moving to) Zendesk and want the AI agent to come from the same vendor and billing relationship, Zendesk AI Agents — self-serve to start, though its usage rate isn't published. For a public price without a self-serve dashboard — a managed build from a small, established vendor — Botsify. For an enterprise that wants the deepest, most proven platform, Sierra. If published, named case-study proof matters most, Decagon. If you want the software AND the outsourced human staff bundled into one contract, Crescendo. If you want an established incumbent with a real developer API, Ada. If a blended AI-and-human operation — not a full replacement — is the actual goal, Cresta. And for a small local service business fielding phone calls and Yelp/Thumbtack/Facebook leads rather than a support queue, Auto-Respond.
Which AI support agents have a free trial or self-serve pricing?
Two are fully self-serve: Intercom Fin ($0.99 per resolution, with a 14-day no-card-required free trial) and Auto-Respond (priced per channel from $10/month for a voice number plus $1 per minute of talk time, with a 7-day trial). Zendesk AI Agents is a middle case: a 14-day no-card trial and a public per-seat Suite price ($55–$115/agent/month) make signup self-serve, but the per-resolution usage rate isn't published. Botsify publishes a price too ($149/month) but it is not self-serve — Botsify's own team builds the agent for you, and no trial length is stated on its current pricing pages. Sierra, Decagon, Crescendo, Cresta and Ada are all enterprise, sales-led products with no published full-suite pricing or public signup — every engagement starts with a pilot or negotiated contract (Cresta discloses one narrow AWS Marketplace price for its Agent Assist product alone, not the full platform).
How much do AI support agents cost?
Fin from Intercom costs $0.99 per outcome across any helpdesk, with a 50-outcome monthly minimum. On Intercom's own helpdesk, Fin adds $29 per seat a month on top. Zendesk AI agents require a Suite Team plan or higher, from $55 per agent a month, which includes the Essential AI Agent tier. Above the plan allowance, each automated resolution costs $1.50 committed or $2 pay-as-you-go. Botsify's Done-for-You Agent plan is $149 a month ($1,490 a year billed annually), though that plan is a managed, done-for-you service. Its separate White Label/agency plan publishes no price at all and is sold through a sales call. Crescendo prices from $2.99 per resolved outcome, all-inclusive and sold only through sales. Decagon publishes no price. One independent estimate runs from $74,000 to more than $600,000 a year, depending on volume. Sierra also publishes no price. It negotiates a custom outcome-based rate per enterprise contract. Cresta publishes no price for its core AI Agent or Conversation Intelligence products either. The only public number anywhere is an AWS Marketplace listing for Agent Assist alone, on one channel (chat or voice), at $150,000 a year, non-cancellable and non-refundable. Ada also publishes no price. Vendr puts its median contract at $72,000 a year across 114 tracked purchases, and independent estimates run past $300,000 a year for large deployments. Auto-Respond is the only product here priced per channel: $10 a month for a voice number plus $1 per minute of talk time, from $19 a month for Facebook Lead Ads, $49 a month for text channels, and $99 a month each for Thumbtack and Yelp.
Why do these AI agents report such different "resolution" rates?
Because "resolved" isn't defined the same way everywhere. Intercom reports a 76% average resolution rate for Fin, but independent analyses of its own published case studies often find real-world rates nearer 40–50%, and its billing counts a customer who simply stops replying as a resolution. Decagon's reviewers report similar disputes over what counts as a billable resolution. Read each listing's own sourced pros/cons before comparing headline rates across vendors.
How is Cresta different from Sierra, Decagon, Ada and Zendesk AI Agents?
Sierra, Decagon, Ada and Zendesk AI Agents are all built to resolve a conversation end to end and hand off to a human only on exception. Cresta's AI Agent does that too, but the platform's bigger emphasis is Agent Assist and Knowledge Agent, which keep supporting the human rep continuously — a blended AI-and-human model rather than a full-replacement one. Sierra, Decagon and Crescendo share largely custom-quoted, sales-led pricing with no free trial; Ada and Zendesk AI Agents are the two full-replacement names that at least offer self-serve trial access, even though neither publishes its exact usage rate.
Which AI support agent has a public developer API?
Intercom Fin's API is the only one paired with genuinely self-serve, no-sales-call, fully disclosed pricing. Ada and Zendesk AI Agents both publish a fully documented developer platform — Ada's Conversations/Email API plus an MCP server, Zendesk's long-standing developer.zendesk.com API and app marketplace — but neither discloses its AI-agent usage pricing in full. Botsify publishes a genuine API too (a public Postman collection) — its price is public, though the product itself is a managed build rather than self-serve. Auto-Respond ships a REST webhook and a Lead Reply API for wiring the answering flow into a custom CRM. Sierra's Agent SDK and Cresta's API-based integrations are real but gated to contracted customers; Decagon and Crescendo have no self-serve API or public developer docs at all.
Sources and method
Every price here was read on the maker's own pricing page.
- Fin: fin.ai/pricing, checked 24 October 2026
- Auto-Respond: auto-respond.com/docs/pricing, checked 11 September 2026
- Zendesk AI agents: zendesk.com/pricing, checked 3 September 2026
- Botsify: botsify.com/pricing/done-for-you-agent, checked 24 October 2026
- Sierra: sierra.ai/product, checked 26 September 2026
All 9 sources
- Decagon: decagon.ai/vs/sierra, checked 21 October 2026
- Crescendo: crescendo.ai/pricing, checked 24 October 2026
- Ada: ada.cx/platform, checked 20 October 2026
- Cresta: cresta.com/llm-info, checked 13 September 2026
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