Forethought has definitely made a name for itself in the AI customer support world with a suite of tools built to automate service workflows. But trying to figure out if it’s right for you can be tricky. You’re not just looking at features; you’re trying to decode a pricing model that often feels like a complete black box.
This article is going to pull back the curtain on Forethought pricing. We’ll walk through the different plans, point out potential hidden costs, and give you the info you need to figure out its real value. While Forethought is a solid tool, its model isn’t your only choice. Newer, more straightforward alternatives like eesel AI are out there, offering more flexibility without making you pay more just for growing your team.
What is Forethought?
At its core, Forethought is a platform that uses generative AI to help companies automate customer service. The main idea is to cut down on manual tasks and speed up response times by learning from a company’s own data, like past support chats and help center articles.
The platform is built around a few key products:
- Solve: This is the main AI agent that handles customer conversations through chat and other digital channels.
- Triage: Think of this as an AI-powered traffic controller. It automatically sorts, prioritizes, and sends incoming support tickets to the right agent or team.
- Assist: An AI sidekick for your human agents. It gives them real-time suggestions, quick summaries, and guidance on how to solve issues.
- Discover: The analytics dashboard where you can see what your customers are doing and how your support team is performing.
When you put them all together, these tools are meant to make your whole support process run a lot smoother, from the moment a customer reaches out to the final fix.
How different products impact Forethought pricing.
A detailed look at Forethought pricing and plans
One of the first things you’ll probably notice about Forethought is the lack of public pricing. You’ll land on their site and see a “Get a Quote” button, which means you have to jump on a sales call before you can get any sense of the cost. For anyone trying to budget or compare different tools, this can be a real headache.
The lack of transparent Forethought pricing on their website.
Thankfully, data from software procurement platforms like Vendr gives us some clues. Vendr shows that the median annual contract for Forethought hovers around $74,483, with deals falling anywhere between $40,000 and $155,000. That gives you a rough idea, but your final Forethought cost will really depend on your specific needs, how much you use it, and which plan you go with.
Core Forethought pricing plans
Forethought has three main plans, with each tier adding more features on top of the last:
- Basic: This plan is for getting started with AI, offering tools to boost efficiency. It comes with an AI agent for chat, some basic automation “Autoflows,” and an insights dashboard.
- Professional: Built for more established teams looking to step up their support game. It adds support for more channels (like voice and mobile), deeper ticket insights, and multilingual options.
- Enterprise: This is pitched as the all-in-one AI support package. This tier gives you full API access, helps you find gaps in your knowledge base, and includes premier support.
To make it a bit easier to see what’s what, here’s a breakdown of the plans.
| Feature Category | Basic | Professional | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Channels | Chat, Email | Everything in Basic + Voice, Mobile | Everything in Pro + Slack (Add-on) |
| Automation | Autoflows, Custom Actions | Everything in Basic | Everything in Pro |
| Content Management | Connect data sources | Everything in Basic | Everything in Pro + Gap Detection |
| Insights | Basic Dashboard | Advanced Dashboard | Everything in Pro + Analytics API (Add-on) |
| AI Copilot (Assist) | Bundle or buy | Bundle or buy | Bundle or buy |
| Security | Standard | Standard | Advanced Security (Add-on) |
Understanding your Forethought pricing add-ons
Here’s where Forethought pricing can get tricky: a lot of important features aren’t actually in the core plans. This is where costs can start to balloon without you realizing it. To get everything you need, you often have to pay for add-ons separately.
The main ones include:
- Assist Agent: The AI copilot that gives your human agents ticket summaries and suggested replies. This is a “bundle or buy” feature on all plans, so it’s not included by default.
- Agent QA: An AI tool that automatically scores agent conversations to keep an eye on quality. This is also an add-on.
- Forethought for Slack: An internal bot for answering your team’s questions right in Slack. You guessed it, this costs extra, too.
This pick-and-choose model makes it incredibly hard to plan your budget. A plan that looks manageable on the surface can get a lot more expensive once you tack on the features your team really needs to do their job.
How add-ons increase the total Forethought pricing.
The hidden costs and limitations of the Forethought pricing model
Forethought is a capable platform, no doubt about it. But its pricing model comes with a few snags that can make it a tough sell for teams that need clear, scalable costs. Let’s get into some of the not-so-obvious costs and downsides.
Lack of Forethought pricing transparency
The biggest hurdle is the “Get a Quote” model. It pushes you into a sales process just to find out what you might end up paying. You can’t just quickly compare it to other tools or see if it fits your budget without getting on the phone with a sales rep first.
This is a huge difference from platforms like eesel AI, which has a completely transparent pricing page. With eesel AI, you know exactly what you’re paying upfront based on your usage, no mandatory sales call required.
A Forethought pricing model that doesn’t scale predictably
According to Forethought’s own FAQ, their pricing is a mix of platform fees and usage costs tied to things like “deflection volume” and “ticket volume for agent handoffs.” This can lead to a monthly bill that swings up and down without much warning. As your support requests grow, your costs grow too, but it’s not always easy to predict by how much.
On top of that, many AI vendors use a per-agent pricing model, which basically penalizes you for expanding your support team. Adding a new person shouldn’t come with a big software tax. eesel AI gets around this with a simple, interaction-based model. You only pay for what you use (AI replies and AI actions), and you can add your entire team without any extra per-agent fees. This keeps costs predictable and lets you scale your team without your software bill going through the roof.
Scaling per-agent vs per-interaction costs.
Complex setup and data needs influencing Forethought pricing
To get Forethought working well, you need to bring a lot of data to the table. A review from SMBGuide points out that the platform needs about 20,000 past tickets to train its AI properly. That’s a pretty high bar for smaller or newer companies that might not have that much history to pull from.
This suggests that Forethought is a heavy-duty platform that expects you to rip out your old system and replace it entirely. On the other hand, eesel AI is designed to be a lightweight layer that works with the tools you already have, like Zendesk or Freshdesk. You can get up and running quickly without needing a mountain of historical data or a complete overhaul of your support setup.
How core tools sold separately impact Forethought pricing
As we touched on earlier, many of the tools you’d assume are standard for an AI support platform are sold as extras. The AI-powered agent assistant (Assist), advanced security, and even integrations like Slack are often treated as add-ons you have to pay more for.
This model makes you choose between a pretty basic platform and a much more expensive one that has all the features. With eesel AI, every core product, AI Agent, AI Copilot, AI Triage, AI Internal Chat, and AI Chatbot, is included in every single plan. You get the full, powerful toolkit right out of the box, so you’re not caught off guard by fees for the tools you need to do well.
AI copilot, a feature that can be an add-on in Forethought.
A better alternative to Forethought pricing: How eesel AI’s pricing compares
If the confusing and murky Forethought pricing model sounds like a dealbreaker, eesel AI offers a modern, flexible, and totally transparent alternative. It’s built to fix the very issues that make platforms like Forethought a headache for many teams.
Transparent, interaction-based pricing vs. Forethought pricing
eesel AI’s pricing is simple and public: you pay based on the number of monthly AI interactions (one AI reply or one AI action), not the number of agents you have. This makes your costs easy to predict and ties them directly to the value you’re getting.
Here’s a clear look at eesel AI’s plans:
| Plan | Effective /mo (Annual) | AI Interactions/mo | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | $239 | Up to 1,000 | Train on docs, Copilot, Slack, Reports |
| Business | $639 | Up to 3,000 | Train on past tickets, AI Actions, MS Teams, Simulation |
| Custom | Contact Sales | Unlimited | Advanced actions, custom integrations, enterprise security |
A complete platform at every level: A contrast to the Forethought pricing model
Unlike Forethought’s add-on-heavy model, eesel AI gives you its full suite of tools no matter which plan you choose. Whether you’re on the Team or Business plan, you get the AI Agent, Copilot, Triage, Internal Chat, and Chatbot. The plans scale based on how much you use them and your need for advanced features, like training on past tickets or using custom API actions, but you never have to pay extra for a core product. This means you get a complete, ready-to-go solution from day one, with no surprise charges.
Forethought pricing vs. eesel AI: A quick comparison
Here’s how the two platforms look side-by-side on the things that matter most.
| Factor | Forethought | eesel AI |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Model | Opaque, Quote-Based | Transparent, Interaction-Based |
| Per-Agent Fees | Likely part of the custom quote | None |
| Core Features | Often sold as separate add-ons | All products included in every plan |
| Implementation | Heavy lift, needs lots of data | Lightweight layer, easy setup |
| Testing | Limited pre-launch testing | Full simulation on historical data |
| Best For | Enterprises with large budgets | Teams wanting flexibility, transparency, and predictable costs |
Is the Forethought pricing worth the investment?
Look, Forethought is a powerful AI platform that can deliver great results for the right kind of customer, usually a large company with a big budget. But its confusing and complex pricing, which depends on custom quotes, unpredictable usage fees, and pricey add-ons, makes it a gamble for teams that need to grow without breaking the bank.
The fact that you have to go through a sales process just to get a price is a major hurdle, and the need for a huge dataset to get started can be a non-starter for many. When you add in that key features are often sold separately, the total cost can quickly get out of hand.
For businesses looking for a powerful, all-in-one AI solution with clear, predictable pricing, eesel AI is the better option. Its interaction-based model grows with you, not against you, and its all-inclusive plans make sure you have every tool you need without any hidden fees.
Ready for an AI platform with no surprises? Book a demo of eesel AI or start a free trial to see how our transparent, all-in-one solution can transform your support workflows.
Frequently asked questions
Forethought uses a “Get a Quote” model, meaning they don’t publish their prices publicly. You must contact their sales team for a custom quote, which makes it difficult to quickly compare costs or budget for the platform without a sales call.
Add-ons can significantly increase your total cost. Core features like the agent copilot (Assist), quality assurance tools, and Slack integration are often not included in the base plans, so you must pay extra for functionality that many teams consider essential.
Forethought’s costs are based on a mix of platform fees and usage metrics like “deflection volume,” which can cause your bill to fluctuate unpredictably. This differs from simpler models, like paying per interaction, which tie costs directly to the value you receive and make budgeting much easier.
Generally, no. The high contract values (often starting at $40,000+ per year), complex setup, and large data requirements make Forethought a better fit for large enterprises with significant budgets rather than smaller, growing teams that need flexibility and cost predictability.
