Gorgias AI vs Zendesk AI Pricing

Everything you need to know about costs before choosing your AI support platform.

Your support setup

How many tickets do you get per month on average?

How many FTE human agents do you have?

Your goals

What is your target AI resolution or deflection rate (%)?

(For reference, My AskAI averaged 75% across all our clients in the last 30 days)

Gorgias' Automate AI & Zendesk's Advanced AI pricing data last updated: October 2026

Gorgias' Automate AI would cost:

$63,000 per year ($5,250/mo) ← Cheaper

Based on:

AI copilot costs $0/yr
AI replies cost $63,000/yr ($1.50 per resolution)

Zendesk's Advanced AI would cost:

$65,100 per year ($5,425/mo)

Based on:

AI copilot costs $2,100/yr
AI replies cost $63,000/yr ($1.50 per resolution)

But with My AskAI, it would only cost:

$6,000 per year ($500/mo) ← Cheapest

Minutes to setup, 30 day free trial, no CC required.

How Gorgias' Automate AI and Zendesk's Advanced AI pricing works

Gorgias AI and Zendesk AI take fundamentally different approaches to pricing their AI customer support agents. Understanding these differences is critical because the same ticket volume can result in wildly different monthly bills depending on which model you're on.
Gorgias AI: per-resolution pricing
Gorgias charges $1.50 per automated resolution. This is on top of the base Gorgias helpdesk subscription. The AI agent handles customer-facing conversations, and you're billed each time it resolves a ticket without human intervention.

Zendesk AI: per-resolution + add-on pricing
Zendesk charges per 'Automated Resolution.' Committed usage costs $1.50/resolution (bought in $150 blocks of 100). Pay-as-you-go costs $2.00/resolution. Each plan includes a small free allowance: 5/agent/month (Team), 10 (Professional), 15 (Enterprise). The Advanced AI Agent add-on (~$50/agent/month) is needed for full conversational AI — the base AI Essentials just sends help center links.

Why this matters: These pricing models aren't apples-to-apples. A direct comparison of the per-automated resolution vs per-Automated Resolution cost doesn't tell the full story — you also need to factor in base platform fees, agent seat costs, add-ons, and how each vendor defines a billable event. What one platform counts as a billable interaction, another might not charge for at all.

See how pricing changes for Gorgias and Zendesk as AI resolution, monthly ticket volume and number of agents changes.

30% AI Resolution

Scenario	Gorgias AI	Zendesk AI	My AskAI
1,000 tickets, 2 agents	$450	$550	$100
5,000 tickets, 5 agents	$2,250	$2,500	$500
10,000 tickets, 10 agents	$4,500	$5,000	$1,000
50,000 tickets, 35 agents	$22,500	$24,250	$5,000

50% AI Resolution

Scenario	Gorgias AI	Zendesk AI	My AskAI
1,000 tickets, 2 agents	$750	$850	$100
5,000 tickets, 5 agents	$3,750	$4,000	$500
10,000 tickets, 10 agents	$7,500	$8,000	$1,000
50,000 tickets, 35 agents	$37,500	$39,250	$5,000

70% AI Resolution

Scenario	Gorgias AI	Zendesk AI	My AskAI
1,000 tickets, 2 agents	$1,050	$1,150	$100
5,000 tickets, 5 agents	$5,250	$5,500	$500
10,000 tickets, 10 agents	$10,500	$11,000	$1,000
50,000 tickets, 35 agents	$52,500	$54,250	$5,000

Hidden costs and gotchas

Before committing to either Gorgias AI or Zendesk AI, here are the costs and catches that won't be obvious from their pricing pages.
Gorgias AI — what to watch for
- As your AI resolution rate improves, your per-resolution costs increase — creating a perverse incentive
- Base Gorgias helpdesk subscription required on top of per-resolution AI costs
- At $1.50 per resolution, 5,000 automated resolutions cost $7,500 before the base Gorgias subscription
- Primarily designed for ecommerce/Shopify — limited utility for SaaS or non-ecommerce use cases

Zendesk AI — what to watch for
- Pricing is not transparently listed on Zendesk's site — add-on costs require contacting sales
- The 'Automated Resolution' definition is decided by Zendesk, making costs hard to predict
- Zendesk's own help center article on Automated Resolutions has -17 downvotes from frustrated users
- Advanced AI Agent (~$50/agent/month) required for real conversational AI — base AI Essentials just sends help center links

The cost nobody talks about: what happens when the AI can't answer?

Gorgias AI uses per-resolution pricing while Zendesk AI uses per-resolution + add-on pricing. This means they handle the 'AI can't answer' scenario very differently.

Gorgias AI: Gorgias charges per automated resolution — $1.50 each time the AI resolves a ticket without human intervention. If the conversation is escalated to a human agent, it shouldn't count as an automated resolution, but the definition of 'resolved' is determined by Gorgias.

Zendesk AI: Zendesk charges per Automated Resolution — when the AI handles a conversation without it being transferred to a human. The exact criteria for what counts is determined by Zendesk, and their own documentation on this has been heavily downvoted by confused users.

This is why comparing headline per-automated resolution vs per-Automated Resolution costs is misleading. The metric that matters isn't how much each billable event costs — it's what each platform counts as a billable event in the first place, and whether you're paying for outcomes (successful resolutions) or activity (any AI interaction).

Frequently asked questions

How much does Gorgias AI cost? $1.50 per automated resolution. This is on top of the base Gorgias helpdesk subscription.

How much does Zendesk AI cost? $1.50 per Automated Resolution on committed usage (bought in $150 blocks of 100), or $2.00 per resolution on pay-as-you-go. Each plan includes a small free allowance (5–15 per agent/month depending on tier).

Which is cheaper — Gorgias AI or Zendesk AI? It depends on your ticket volume and AI resolution rate. At 10,000 monthly conversations with a 50% AI resolution rate: Gorgias AI costs approximately ~$7,500/mo (5,000 resolutions at $1.50). Zendesk AI costs approximately ~$8,450/mo (5,000 resolutions at $1.50 committed + Advanced AI add-on). Use the calculator above to model your exact costs. Note that Gorgias AI uses per-resolution pricing (charged per automated resolution) while Zendesk AI uses per-resolution + add-on pricing (charged per Automated Resolution), so the comparison isn't straightforward.

Is Gorgias AI included in the base Gorgias plan? No. Gorgias AI is priced separately at $1.50 per resolution on top of your base Gorgias helpdesk subscription.