Guide · Sondel · reviewed 2026-10-20
Compare the unit before you compare the price.
AI support plans can use tickets, messages, conversations, resolutions, or seats. Those names do not describe the same work. Ask what starts a charge, what ends the unit, and which events do not count.
Four terms that need separate definitions
- Message
- One customer or agent reply. A long exchange can contain many messages. A message price can rise with back-and-forth clarification.
- Ticket
- A help desk record. One ticket can hold several customer contacts, and a single customer issue can create more than one ticket. A ticket is a workflow record, not a standard measure of an exchange.
- Conversation
- A defined window of related customer contact. Its length and reset rule matter. It may contain messages, actions, and a handoff, but it is not automatically a ticket or an outcome.
- Outcome
- The result of work, such as an answer delivered, a task completed, or a case handed to a person. An outcome describes what happened. It does not by itself define a pricing unit.
Sondel’s current conversation unit
Sondel has one plan: USD 299 each month, with 1,000 conversations included, then USD 0.30 for each conversation after that. There are no seat fees or API fees.
What can make a conversation billable
Sondel counts a conversation once when an answer is delivered, or when a requested task succeeds with confirmation from your system.
What does not count
Declines, clarifications, handoffs without an answer, and technical failures on Sondel’s side do not count. Messages, lookups, and actions within a conversation are included in that conversation.
When the window closes
The current window is 24 hours of inactivity for chat and API, and 72 hours for an email thread. Read the pricing page for the current plan terms before you make a buying decision.
Estimate the monthly plan charge
Enter whole monthly billable conversations. This is a price estimate only. It does not predict support volume, savings, or return on investment.
Monthly estimate
Formula: USD 299 + USD 0.30 × max(0, billable conversations − 1,000).
Questions for any vendor
- What exact event starts a billable unit?
- What ends it or resets its time window?
- Are handoffs, retries, and failed actions charged?
- Which messages, tools, and channels are included?
- Can you export the events used for a bill?