SaaS pricing tiers (2026)
- Under 5K monthly tickets: $500-$1,200/mo + $5K-$25K setup.
- 5K-20K tickets: $800-$2,000/mo + setup.
- 20K-100K tickets: $1,500-$3,500/mo + setup.
- 100K+ tickets: $3,000-$5,000/mo + setup, with volume discounts.
Custom build budget
- Setup: $40K-$180K depending on integration depth and intent coverage.
- Monthly run-cost: $1.5K-$8K (hosting + monitoring + ongoing engineering).
- Token spend follows the same 10-15% of gross savings band as SaaS.
How to forecast in 7 steps
- Pick a pricing model — Per-resolution, per-seat, flat-fee, or hybrid. Each has different volume risks.
- Estimate token costs — 10-15% of gross savings, ongoing. Frontier-model pricing has dropped 70%+ in 18 months but token volume scales with traffic.
- Add integration — $25K-$35K one-time for typical mid-market helpdesk integration.
- Add training data + tuning — $12K-$18K one-time for tier-1 intent coverage.
- Add QA + supervision — ~8% of agent cost, ongoing. Required for any production deployment.
- Add 3-year contingency — 15-20% buffer for cost overruns and capability expansions.
- Compare against gross savings — Net savings = gross − all of the above. The calculator does this automatically.
Try it on your numbers
Plug in your real volumes and see the projection.
The calculator runs the same methodology described above — channel modifiers, hidden costs, and the build-vs-buy verdict. Free preview without an email.
Run the calculatorFrequently asked
Is per-token pricing always bad?
No, but it requires a monthly cost cap and a quarterly review clause. Without those, it is the most common cost overrun pattern we see.
How accurate are the SaaS tier ranges?
Within ±25% across the major vendor pricing pages we benchmark quarterly. Negotiation typically moves the number 10-20% off list.
Do hidden costs apply equally to SaaS and custom?
Largely yes - integration, training, QA all apply both ways. Token costs are similar percentage-wise.