# Ada vs Fin (2026): enterprise platform vs $0.99 per resolution

> Source: https://theagentsindex.com/compare/ada-vs-intercom-fin (structured, researched, re-verified)

Ada and Fin both sell AI agents that resolve customer service conversations end to end, but they answer "how should a team buy this?" with opposite assumptions. The differences are not feature parity — both run across chat, email, voice and the major messaging channels, both expose APIs and an MCP server, both ship a Playbook/Operator-style improvement loop, and both cite large customer books. The differences sit at the procurement desk and the helpdesk desk, and they decide which team each product is right for.

Pricing is the cleanest place to start. Every Ada engagement begins with a sales call: there is no self-serve signup, no public price list and no free trial, and Vendr's tracked purchase data puts the median contract at $72,000 per year, with annual platform fees typically running from around $100,000 for mid-size deployments to north of $300,000 for the largest, plus separate implementation fees. Fin publishes pricing on the page: $0.99 per resolution, a 50-outcome monthly minimum, and a 14-day free trial with no credit card and unlimited outcomes during the trial. That $0.99 figure is the rate for resolutions and Procedure handoffs; Qualifications are billed at $9.99 each, which is roughly ten times the headline number, and "resolution" includes cases where the customer simply stops replying — so spend can grow with traffic in ways the headline does not predict.

Architecture is the second axis. Ada's ACX Platform is a single-vendor stack that owns the agent definition across chat, voice, email, messaging, in-app and custom channels, with the Reasoning Engine, Conversation Hub, Playbooks and Performance Center bundled under one contract. Fin is built to sit on top of a helpdesk the team already runs — Intercom, Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshworks, Dixa, Front, Zoho, Sprinklr or Gorgias — and resolves the front line while the existing ticketing stays put. If your helpdesk decision is already made, Fin usually wins on switch cost; if it isn't, Ada is the whole stack and the bill is one line instead of three.

Reliability and independence are the third axis. Ada is a 2016 Toronto company with $200M+ raised and a $1.2B Series C in 2021, and named case studies from IPSY, Loop Earplugs, Cebu Pacific and Life360. Its admin-side G2 score sits at 4.6 out of five, but the Trustpilot end-user score on the Ada.support profile is 1.8 out of five — a real gap between the polish of the operator console and what the customer actually experiences in chat. Fin reports a 76% average resolution rate across 12,000+ customers with the top 10% above 85%, but Salesforce signed a definitive agreement on 2026-06-15 to acquire Fin for roughly $3.6 billion, expected to close around Salesforce's fiscal Q4 2027, and neither company has published what changes for teams running Fin on a non-Salesforce helpdesk once the deal closes.

| Fact | Ada | Fin |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | Enterprise AI customer service agents for voice, messaging and email, run from one platform. | Customer service AI agent, billed per resolved outcome, deployable on any helpdesk |
| Pricing | Custom, contact sales | $0.99 / outcome |
| API | Yes — Public V2 REST API at developers.ada.cx (knowledge, end users, conversations, webhooks, integrations, persona, variables, custom instructions, tools, audit log, data export). An MCP server exposes the same surface to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Google ADK and other MCP clients. | Yes — Fin Agent API (developers.intercom.com) for embedding Fin in your own product; Fin API Platform exposes Apex 1.0, Apex Flash, Retrieval and Reranker as separate models, gated to $250k+ annual spend. |
| Tags | API · Autonomous · Enterprise | API · Autonomous · Enterprise |
| Best for | Enterprises that want a long-running, well-capitalized AI support agent vendor with a public V2 REST API and an MCP server, rather than a sales-only integration surface. | Support 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. |
| Full facts | https://theagentsindex.com/ada.md | https://theagentsindex.com/intercom-fin.md |

## Verdict: Ada or Fin?

Choose Ada if you want a single enterprise platform with a 10-year track record, can run a sales-led procurement with custom contracts in the six figures, and want the helpdesk, the agent and the improvement loop on one bill. Choose Fin if you already run a major helpdesk, want transparent per-resolution pricing and a 14-day trial, and can tolerate the open question of what happens to non-Salesforce customers when the Salesforce deal closes.

## FAQ

**Does Fin actually work on non-Intercom helpdesks, or is that marketing?**

Fin lists Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshworks, Dixa, Front, Zoho, Sprinklr and Gorgias alongside Intercom as supported helpdesks and claims under-an-hour setup. The same agent definition runs across chat, email, voice, WhatsApp, SMS, Slack, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. Your existing ticketing stays where it is; Fin sits on top as the front line.

**How long does Ada take to deploy?**

Independent estimates put Ada implementations at 8 to 16 weeks with Ada's own professional services team. The agent is constrained to whatever content lives in connected official knowledge sources — past ticket backlogs, PDFs, internal wikis, Google Docs, Confluence and Notion are not natively ingested, so part of that timeline is the team's own work to clean and connect knowledge.

**What does Fin bill for if a customer just stops replying?**

Fin's "resolution" definition includes cases where the customer leaves without a response, so a customer going silent counts as a billable outcome. Resolutions and Procedure handoffs are $0.99; Disqualifications are also $0.99; Qualifications are billed at $9.99 each, roughly ten times the headline rate. The 14-day trial has unlimited outcomes so you can see your real billable shape before committing.

**Is the $0.99 per-resolution rate really the final number?**

No. $0.99 is the rate for Resolutions, Procedure handoffs and Disqualifications. Qualifications are billed at $9.99 each. Running Fin on Intercom adds $29 per seat/month on top. The Pro add-on (Operator + analytics) starts at $99/month with usage tiers above 1,000 conversations. Direct access to Fin's underlying models via the Fin API Platform requires annual spend of $250,000 or more.

**What happens to Fin if the Salesforce acquisition closes?**

Salesforce signed a definitive agreement on 2026-06-15 to acquire Fin for roughly $3.6 billion, with closing expected around Salesforce's fiscal Q4 2027 pending regulatory approval. Fin's leadership is staying on, and Salesforce says Fin will complement Agentforce, but neither company has published what changes for customers running Fin on a non-Salesforce helpdesk once the deal closes. That uncertainty is the largest unknown in any Fin-versus-Ada decision today.
