Pricing models

What is per-seat pricing?

Also known as: per-agent pricing, seat licence

Published September 10, 2026 · Reviewed by the Fidiora team

Definition

Per-seat pricing charges a fixed recurring fee for each agent licence, regardless of how many tickets that agent handles. It is the default model for traditional helpdesk software. Cost scales with headcount rather than with customer demand, which is why it rewards small teams and penalises broad access.

Why it matters

Per-seat pricing quietly shapes how a company runs support. Because every additional login costs money, teams restrict access, which pushes engineers and account managers to ask support to relay information rather than looking it up themselves. The licence fee is visible, the coordination tax it creates is not.

What to know

  • Cost is disconnected from value delivered. A quiet month and a brutal month cost exactly the same.
  • Seat pricing usually stacks: a base licence, then an AI or automation add-on, then per-channel charges.
  • It penalises exactly the behaviour you want, which is giving more of the company visibility into customer problems.
  • Annual seat commitments are hard to unwind when a team shrinks, so the floor is sticky.
  • It is the easiest model to forecast, which is its genuine advantage and the reason finance teams like it.

How to calculate it

Monthly cost = seats x seat price + add-on fees

An example

Example: five agents at ninety-nine dollars a month is 495 dollars, plus an AI add-on billed separately per resolved conversation, plus a charge for adding WhatsApp. The advertised price was the first number and the invoice is the sum of all three.

Common mistakes

  • Comparing seat prices without adding the AI and channel add-ons
  • Buying seats for peak season and paying for them all year
  • Restricting logins to save licence cost and creating a relay tax
  • Assuming the seat price is the whole bill
Where Fidiora fits

Fidiora has no seat fee. Add the whole company at no cost, because the bill is driven by genuine resolutions rather than by how many people can log in. That removes the incentive to keep customer context locked away from the rest of the business.

See Pricing
FAQ

Questions

Is per-seat pricing bad?
Not inherently. It is predictable and simple, which suits a stable team with steady volume. It becomes expensive when volume is seasonal, when you want broad internal access, or when the AI capability is sold as a separate metered add-on on top.
How do I compare per-seat to per-resolution pricing?
Convert both to a cost per resolved issue at your real volume. Include every add-on line item in the seat model. That single number is the only fair comparison and it often surprises people.
What are the hidden costs of per-seat pricing?
The common ones are AI or copilot add-ons priced separately, per-channel surcharges, annual commitments that outlast a team, and the internal coordination cost created by rationing licences.

Related terms

Per-conversation pricing Per-conversation pricing charges a fee for each customer conversation the tool handles, regardless of whether the issue ... Per-resolution pricing Per-resolution pricing charges only when a customer issue is genuinely resolved. Abandoned chats, timeouts, and conversa... Usage-based pricing Usage-based pricing charges according to consumption rather than a fixed licence count. In support software the metered ... Cost per resolution Cost per resolution is the fully loaded cost of genuinely solving one customer issue, including agent salaries and benef...
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