Support Agent

Vital signs

Why it's on the table

On the table, Support Agent (Sa) is seat 35 of 58, in the Support & Success family. It is a stable element — the category has settled, choosing is cheap, and switching is rare. Pick a holder and move on; this is not where your decision budget should go. It is marked essential: a company that leaves this seat empty is running with a gap that compounds. It sits in the mid price band — a real line item that should earn its keep visibly.

Support Agent: the top 5 — v2026.Q3

Edition v2026.Q3 · ranking, pricing and status verified 2026-08-06.

1. 1FinIntercom

   $0.99 per resolved outcome · $9.99 per qualification · standalone from $49/mo (50 resolutions) · +$19/seat if you take the Intercom helpdesk

   Best for Any team that wants the category benchmark with transparent per-resolution pricing — on Intercom, Zendesk, Salesforce, or standalone.

   The reference point everyone else is measured against: 76% average resolution rate across 12,000+ customers, ~2M resolutions per week, G2 category leader at 90% satisfaction (Aug 2026). Fin crossed $100M ARR at 350% annual growth, and its outcome pricing pushed Intercom's net revenue retention from 112% to 146% — the clearest evidence yet that pay-per-resolution aligns vendor and buyer.

   Watch Resolution rates are self-reported on Fin's own metric definition — no independent cross-vendor benchmark exists. At scale, $0.99 per outcome plus $9.99 qualifications outruns flat-fee rivals, and Intercom steers hard toward its full helpdesk bundle.

   76% avg resolution across 12,000+ customers; ~2M weekly resolutions (Aug 2026) [src] · Fin ARR >$100M at 350% growth; outcome pricing lifted Intercom NRR 112%→146%; Intercom $400M ARR (Apr 2026) [src] · G2 leader, 90% satisfaction — 8 points above nearest competitor (Aug 2026) [src]
   Site →Docs →

2. 2SierraSierra (Bret Taylor, Clay Bavor)

   Outcome-based enterprise contracts — pay per resolution/conversation, no public list price, multi-year with services bundled

   Best for Enterprises that want conversation quality and outcome-based contracts with white-glove deployment — the Fortune 500's AI-agent vendor of record.

   The enterprise standard-setter: $200M ARR by May 2026 (from $26M end-2024), agents for 40% of the Fortune 50 (SiriusXM, ADT, Cigna, Nubank, Ramp), and the most-funded pure-play — a $950M Series E at ~$15.8B (Tiger Global, GV, May 2026). Ghostwriter (Apr 2026) builds production agents from SOPs and transcripts, compressing months of deployment.

   Watch No self-serve, no public pricing — you negotiate everything. ~79x ARR valuation is priced for perfection, and deployments remain services-heavy. Publishes no aggregate resolution rate, so quality claims rest on references.

   $950M Series E at ~$15.8B post (May 4, 2026; Tiger Global + GV) [src] · $200M ARR (May 2026), up from $26M end-2024; 40% of the Fortune 50 [src] · Ghostwriter agent-building agent launched Apr 2026; acquired YC-backed Fragment Apr 23, 2026 [src]
   Site →Docs →

3. 3DecagonDecagon

   Per-conversation (volume discounts) or per-resolution (premium, charged only on resolve) — enterprise quotes only

   Best for High-volume consumer scale-ups (fintech, marketplaces, subscription) that want the deepest operator tooling: AOPs, simulations, live experiments.

   The operator's platform: Agent Operating Procedures in natural language, QA simulations, and A/B experimentation that CX teams actually run themselves. Case evidence is strong — Chime at 70% chat+voice resolution, Duolingo at 80% deflection — and investors priced it at $4.5B in January 2026 (Coatue, Index), reconfirmed by a March tender offer.

   Watch $35M ARR (Oct 2025) against a $4.5B valuation is a ~128x multiple — steeper than Sierra's. Headline metrics mix resolution and deflection, which are not the same thing, and it fights Sierra for the same enterprise logos with a fraction of the war chest.

   $250M Series D at $4.5B (Jan 2026, Coatue + Index); tender offer completed at $4.5B Mar 4, 2026 [src] · $35M ARR (Oct 2025), >3x YoY; 100+ enterprise customers added in 2025 [src] · Chime: 70% chat+voice resolution; Duolingo: 80% deflection (vendor case studies, Aug 2026) [src]
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4. 4PylonPylon

   Platform $59–139/seat/mo (annual, 3-seat min) · AI agents from $100/mo or $0.50/ticket · AI assistants $50/seat

   Best for B2B startups whose support lives in Slack, Teams, and shared channels — helpdesk, success, and AI agents in one system.

   The B2B-native answer: 1,500+ business customers including Cognition, Linear, Modal, and Airtable, with support agents that investigate across Salesforce, Jira, and Linear rather than just answering FAQs. Relaunched as "the agentic support platform" (Jul 15, 2026) with assist, background, Slack, and support agents on one substrate.

   Watch AI pricing is per-ticket, not per-resolution — you pay whether or not the agent resolves. Young platform vs the enterprise players, and consumer-scale B2C volume is not its game. Post-2024 funding beyond the $17M Series A is not independently confirmed.

   1,500+ B2B customers incl. Cognition, Linear, Airtable (Aug 2026) [src] · Relaunched as the agentic support platform Jul 15, 2026 [src] · $17M Series A, Aug 28, 2024 (Andreessen Horowitz) [src]
   Site →Docs →

5. 5LorikeetLorikeet (Sydney)

   Start $1,500/mo (18k credits/yr) · Scale $4,000/mo (48k credits/yr) · ~1 credit per resolved chat/email ticket · no seat or platform fees

   Best for Regulated fintechs and healthtechs that need 40-step workflows executed correctly — and refuse to pay for unresolved tickets.

   The purest outcome pricing in the category: you're charged only for successfully resolved tickets, and disputed resolutions are free. Built compliance-first (ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA) for complex, high-stakes journeys — customers include Flex, Linktree, Magic Eden, and Eucalyptus — where a wrong answer is a regulatory event, not an inconvenience.

   Watch Small company, small war chest (~$16M disclosed) against billion-dollar rivals. Performance stats (97% faster resolution, 99% accuracy) are vendor-reported without an aggregate resolution rate, and the credit system needs modeling before you can compare cost to $0.99-per-resolution rivals.

   Charges only for resolved tickets; unhappy with a resolution → you don't pay (Aug 2026) [src] · 40+ step workflow execution; ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA certified (Aug 2026) [src] · $5M seed + $11M follow-on disclosed (Apr 2025) [src]
   Site →Docs →

Support Agent: the top 8 compared

Edition v2026.Q3 · ranking, pricing and status verified 2026-08-06.

How to choose your support agent

If you want the proven default and a price you can put in a spreadsheet

Fin at $0.99 per resolved outcome — it runs on whatever helpdesk you already have, and its 76%-average resolution claim is the number every rival gets compared to.

If you're an enterprise buying a multi-year outcome contract, not a tool

Sierra — 40% of the Fortune 50 already did, and Ghostwriter cuts the deployment slog that used to take quarters.

If you're a consumer scale-up doing millions of tickets and your CX team wants to run experiments themselves

Decagon — AOPs, simulations, and A/B tests are the best operator tooling in the category; negotiate per-resolution, not per-conversation.

If your customers are companies and half your support happens in shared Slack channels

Pylon — B2B-native ticketing plus agents that investigate across your CRM and issue tracker, from $59/seat.

If you're regulated (fintech, health) and a hallucinated answer is a compliance incident

Lorikeet — resolved-only billing, HIPAA/ISO 27001/SOC 2, and 40-step workflow execution; or Gradient Labs if you want a financial-services specialist.

Support Agent: the whole field

21 more tools tracked in this category, including 5 dead, renamed, or sunsetting — a reference that hides the graveyard isn't one. Verified 2026-08-06.

Support Agent: the category in numbers

Edition v2026.Q3 · ranking, pricing and status verified 2026-08-06.

• Sierra: $950M Series E at ~$15.8B post (May 2026, Tiger Global + GV) on $200M ARR — the most valuable pure-play support-agent company, at ~79x ARR [src]
• Outcome pricing is now the category norm: Fin $0.99/resolution, Zendesk per-automated-resolution (since Nov 2024), Lorikeet resolved-only credits, Sierra outcome contracts — and it works: Intercom NRR jumped 112%→146% after the shift [src]
• Decagon: $250M Series D at $4.5B (Jan 2026, Coatue + Index), first employee tender at the same mark Mar 4, 2026 — on ~$35M ARR (Oct 2025) [src]
• Consolidation wave: Zendesk closed its Forethought acquisition Mar 26, 2026 (after Ultimate in 2024), Sierra bought Fragment (Apr 2026), Crescendo absorbed BPO PartnerHero, ServiceNow took Moveworks ($2.85B, 2025) [src]
• Incumbent counterattack is data-shaped: Zendesk's Resolution Platform trains on ~20B ticket interactions ('the era of the chatbot is over' — Relate, May 19, 2026); Salesforce claims 18K+ companies on Agentforce (Aug 2026) [src]
• Fin claims resolution rates rise ~1%/month on average as agents learn — the category's compounding-quality thesis in one number (Aug 2026, vendor-reported) [src]

Support Agent: method & sources

Metric discipline: 'resolution' (customer confirmed or no escalation) and 'deflection' (ticket never reached a human) are different numbers, and every headline rate in this category is vendor-measured on the vendor's own definition — no independent cross-vendor benchmark exists (Fin's published head-to-heads are run by Fin). Conflicts resolved: Fin customer count — fin.ai claims 12,000+ (Aug 2026) vs Sacra's ~7,000–8,000 (earlier 2026); we cite the vendor's current figure and flag the gap. Sierra's valuation — TechCrunch says 'above $15B', Sacra pins $15.8B; we use ~$15.8B. Canon order flip: we rank Sierra above Decagon (canon listed Decagon second) because Sierra's $200M ARR vs Decagon's ~$35M and Fortune-50 penetration is a decisive traction gap. Pylon's post-2024 funding (a reported ~$51M Series B) could not be verified from primary sources — only the $17M Series A is cited. Adjacent elements: voice-support infra (Vapi, Retell) and phone-first deployments → Vs (Parloa sits on this border; kept in field for its cross-channel platform); docs/self-serve knowledge that feeds these agents → Dc; employee/IT helpdesk agents (Moveworks, Aisera's ITSM side) are adjacent, not this element. Ranking criteria: verified commercial traction, independent satisfaction surveys, agent benchmarks, and founder-fit (price floor, lock-in, surfaces). Editorial, never paid — the charter. Machine-readable twin: sa.json.

Our take

The most proven agent category in production. Resolution rates, not deflection rates, are the metric that matters.

Combines with

Guides

Best AI support agent for early-stage startups (2026)