1. The four pricing models you will see
Dedicated agent, monthly. You pay a flat monthly rate per full-time agent assigned to your store. Best when volume is steady and you want the same people learning your products.
Per ticket or per contact. You pay for each resolved conversation. Best for variable volume – quiet months cost less – but watch how "ticket" is defined. A chat that reopens three times should not bill as three tickets.
Per hour. Common for part-time coverage or overflow arrangements. Simple, but hours do not equal output: ask what a productive hour includes (active chat time vs. idle availability).
Shared team, tiered by volume. A pool of agents handles your store alongside others, priced in volume bands. Cheapest per contact, but agents know your store less deeply. Fine for simple, repetitive queries.
2. What actually drives the price
Coverage hours. Business-hours email support costs a fraction of 24/7 live chat. Every extra shift multiplies the team. Decide which hours your customers actually need before you price anything.
Channels. Email-only is cheapest; adding live chat, phone, and social each adds staffing and tooling. Most stores over-buy channels – check where your customers actually contact you first.
Ticket complexity. "Where is my order" tickets are cheap to handle; technical troubleshooting, custom orders, and B2B accounts are not. Providers price the skill level the work demands.
Volume and seasonality. Steady volume gets better rates than spiky volume. If Black Friday triples your tickets, ask specifically how peak pricing works – that is where surprise invoices come from.
Language and market. Native-level English for US/UK customers costs more than basic coverage. So does deep product training: the more your catalog demands expertise, the more onboarding the provider must invest.
3. How to compare quotes without getting fooled
Normalize every quote to cost per resolved ticket: monthly cost divided by tickets actually resolved (not just received). A cheap per-ticket rate with a 40% reopen rate is more expensive than a higher rate that resolves first time.
Ask every provider the same five questions: What counts as a billable ticket? How are reopened tickets handled? What happens to pricing when volume spikes? Who trains agents on our products, and who pays for that time? What are the exit terms?
4. Red flags in pricing
Rates far below market usually mean shared agents spread across too many clients, or corners cut on training. Vague definitions of billable work. Long lock-in contracts before a trial. And any quote given without asking about your volume, channels, and hours is a guess, not a price.
Want an honest number for your store?
Tell us your volume, channels, and hours. We will give you a straight quote – and tell you if outsourcing does not make sense for you yet.
Related: Improve E-Commerce Support Workflows · Cut LiveChat Response Times