ZendeskがカスタマイズされたAIジャーニー向けに柔軟な料金プランを発表：サポートチームにとっての意味

Zendesk just rolled out its "AI Dynamic Pricing Plan," shaking up the old per-agent pricing model we've all gotten used to. And at first glance, "flexible" pricing sounds like a dream. The ability to ramp your AI up or down on a dime? What's not to like?

Well, let's talk about what this usage-based model actually means for your team's budget and day-to-day work. When you're the one who has to forecast costs and justify spending, "flexible" can start to feel a lot like "unpredictable."

So, let's get into it. We'll unpack what Zendesk's new pricing really is, look at how it could affect your support team, and then explore a simpler way to get powerful AI working inside the help desk you already have.

Understanding Zendesk's new flexible AI pricing

Zendesk's announcement about its AI Dynamic Pricing Plan is basically their way of tying your costs to how much you use AI, not just how many human agents you have. The main idea is to let you split your budget between two things: traditional seats for your agents and automated resolutions handled by AI.

This isn't totally out of the blue for them. It’s the next phase of their push for "outcome-based pricing," where you're paying for a ticket getting solved, not just for having access to the software. Zendesk’s CEO, Tom Eggemeier, was pretty direct about it, saying, "we predict 100% of interactions will involve AI." This new model is how they plan to make money in that future.

In simple terms, this changes the whole game for how companies buy and budget for their support software. Instead of a predictable monthly bill based on your team size, your cost is now directly linked to your AI interaction volume.

A closer look at the plans and pricing structure

To really get what this new flexible model means, we have to peek under the hood at their actual plans. Zendesk packs its AI features into its Suite plans, and surprise, surprise, the best stuff is often stuck in the more expensive tiers or sold as pricey add-ons.

Here’s a quick look at the core plans that their AI offerings are built on.

Plan	Price (Billed Annually)	Key AI & Automation Features
Suite Team	$55 per agent/month	Essential AI agents (with add-on)*, automated resolutions (5 ARs/agent/month), messaging & live chat, help center, basic workflows.
Suite Professional	$115 per agent/month	Everything in Team, plus automated resolutions (10 ARs/agent/month), skills-based routing, SLA management, advanced reporting.
Suite Enterprise	$169 per agent/month	Everything in Professional, plus automated resolutions (15 ARs/agent/month), custom agent roles, sandbox environment, advanced workflow capabilities.

*AI agents on the Support Team plan require adding the Help Center add-on.

The table gives you the base cost, but the real story is in the fine print. The top-tier features, like "Advanced AI agents" and "Copilot," will cost you extra.

But here’s the most important part: every plan has a cap on "automated resolutions" (ARs). If your AI is doing a great job and you go over your monthly limit, you start paying for each extra resolution. And that pay-as-you-go rate is $2 per resolution.

This is the piece of the puzzle that matters most. The new "flexibility" is really about you juggling your budget between fixed agent seats and these unpredictable, per-resolution costs.

Implications for support teams

A model where you pay for what you use sounds fair on paper, but for anyone leading a support team, it can bring on a whole new set of headaches.

The upside (The pitch)

Let's start with the good stuff Zendesk is highlighting. A usage-based model means you're charged for outcomes (solved tickets), which feels better aligned with the value you're getting. It also offers scalability. If your business has a busy season, you can theoretically crank up the AI to handle the holiday rush without being stuck paying for extra agent seats all year.

The downside (The reality)

While the pitch sounds good, managing a usage-based budget can be a real pain for support teams.

• Good luck forecasting your budget. How are you supposed to plan for next quarter when you have no idea what your ticket volume will be? A sudden flood of simple, easy-to-automate questions could make your bill shoot through the roof without warning. This turns a helpful tool into a financial guessing game.

• More administrative busywork. You're not just managing agent licenses anymore. Now you have to keep an eye on agent seats, how many resolutions are included with each, and all the pay-as-you-go overages. It’s another thing to track that pulls you away from what really matters, which is helping customers.

• You get penalized for being successful. This is the really strange part. The better your AI gets at its job and the more tickets it automates, the more your costs could go up. Every resolution it handles beyond your plan's limit is another charge on your invoice. It’s a weird setup that almost discourages you from getting the most out of your automation.

What if there was another way? A platform like eesel AI was built with simplicity and predictability in mind. It offers straightforward pricing with generous limits included in every plan, and you will never get a bill with per-resolution fees. This means you can automate to your heart's content without sweating over a surprise invoice. Your bill is the same each month, so you can focus on making things more efficient, not on managing a shaky budget.

A visual of the eesel AI pricing page, which contrasts with opaque pricing models by showing clear, public-facing costs.

The challenge of integration and control

Beyond the unpredictable costs, there’s the practical side of actually getting Zendesk's native AI up and running.

Zendesk's AI is built to live and breathe inside its own world. To really make it work, you have to do things the Zendesk way. This often means you have to completely change your existing workflows and move all your knowledge into their system. It's not something you can just plug into your current process, especially if your team relies on tools outside of the Zendesk suite.

Another big issue is the lack of a safe way to roll it out. How do you test the AI before letting it talk to your customers? Without a solid simulation environment, turning it on can feel like a leap of faith. One bad move could mess up the relationships you've worked hard to build with your customers.

And finally, Zendesk's AI works best when it's fed knowledge from within Zendesk, like help center articles. But what about all the crucial info your team keeps in Confluence, Google Docs, or Notion? Pulling that external knowledge into the AI is usually a manual, slow process that just creates another silo of information you have to keep updated.

This is where a tool built specifically for integration really shines.

This infographic illustrates how eesel AI centralizes knowledge from different sources to power support automation.

• It just plugs in. eesel AI is designed to connect directly to the help desk you already use, whether that's Zendesk, Freshdesk, or Intercom. You can be up and running in minutes, not months, without having to tear apart the workflows you've already built.

• Test without the risk. eesel AI’s awesome simulation mode lets you test your AI on thousands of your own past tickets. You can see exactly how it will behave, what its resolution rate will be, and figure out your ROI before a single customer interacts with it. It takes the guesswork out of the equation so you can deploy it with confidence.

• All your knowledge, in one place. Instead of making you move all your documents, eesel AI securely connects to all your knowledge sources, wherever they are. This ensures your AI can provide complete answers based on your entire company's knowledge, not just a small piece of it.

The eesel AI simulation dashboard shows how AI uses past data to predict future support automation rates.

A simpler path to AI automation

While Zendesk launches flexible pricing, it’s pretty clear that this "flexibility" comes with a side of complexity, less control, and unpredictable costs. For a lot of support teams, that trade-off just creates more problems than it solves.

There’s a much simpler way to do this. eesel AI is the perfect choice for teams that want control, simplicity, and predictability from their AI tools. It’s built to put you in charge.

• You can do it all yourself. Sign up and get your first AI agent going in a few minutes, without ever having to get on a call with a salesperson.

• Predictable, transparent pricing. No per-resolution fees. Ever. Your bill is the same every month, so you can automate with a clear budget and zero stress.

• You're in complete control. Use the simulation mode and gradual rollout features to deploy AI exactly how you want to, at a pace that works for your team.

• It works with your tools. eesel AI makes the help desk and knowledge bases you already have even better; it doesn’t make you get rid of them.

If you're looking for powerful AI automation without the budget chaos and setup headaches, it might be time to check out a better way.

Try eesel AI for free