Written by the vendor, with the trade-offs left in

Richpanel alternatives in 2026: where each one beats us.

Every page ranking for this query was written by a competitor who put itself first. So here is ours, written by Richpanel, with the awkward parts kept in. Eight alternatives, scored against pricing and product documentation read from each vendor's own pages in July 2026, including the four that publish no pricing at all. A named situation where each one is the better buy than Richpanel, and four situations where Richpanel is simply the wrong choice. If phone is your primary channel, skip to those four. We do not host telephony, and that is the honest answer.

By Amit RG, Founder, Richpanel Published 2026-07-28 Last updated July 28, 2026 ~15 min read
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Amit RG is the founder of Richpanel, the AI-native helpdesk serving 3,000+ brands. He sits in the bake-offs where these eight platforms get compared, including the ones Richpanel loses, so the columns below are the ones that actually decide those deals rather than the ones that flatter us. Source data: 69 recorded buyer demos (April to May 2026), production telemetry from live Richpanel deployments, and each vendor's own pricing and product documentation as of July 2026. On X: @realamitrg.
Start here

Eight alternatives, and the columns that decide it.

The short answer

The best Richpanel alternative depends on one decision you make before you look at any vendor: are you replacing the helpdesk, or only adding an AI agent on top of the one you have?

Gorgias if you want the widest ecommerce app marketplace and the strongest peer word of mouth in DTC. Zendesk if you want maximum platform breadth beyond ecommerce and the safest choice for a committee. Intercom Fin if you want the most-deployed AI agent and are happy to keep your current helpdesk. eesel AI if you want an AI layer with no migration, no seats and no monthly minimum. Gladly if voice is your highest-value channel and you sell premium retail. Help Scout if you are a small team that mostly needs a shared inbox and docs at the lowest price. Decagon if you are an enterprise that wants the deepest agent simulation and QA tooling. Sierra if you want one outcome-priced agent that includes native voice.

Richpanel is the right buy in one specific shape: you want the helpdesk and the AI agents as one product, on one meter, with the AI resolving refunds, tracking, cancellations and subscription changes end to end, and you want that guaranteed in writing. Everywhere else on this page, someone else wins.

Five columns decide it, and they are defined operationally in the next section so two people scoring the same vendor would land in the same place: what it is best for, what it costs to start, what one AI-handled conversation costs, whether the AI resolves or only assists, and whether choosing it means replacing your helpdesk.

The comparison, as of July 2026. Order reflects how often each option is the real cross-shop for a team evaluating Richpanel, not a quality ranking. Every price below came from the vendor's own pricing or product page this month; each platform name links to the page it was sourced from.

Platform Best for Starting price AI unit cost Resolves or assists Replaces your helpdesk? Where it beats Richpanel
Gorgias Shopify stores wanting the widest ecom app ecosystem Ticket-metered plans, 50 to 5,000 tickets a month, never per agent $0.90 per resolved interaction, $1.00 on Starter, $1.50 overage Resolves, with deep native Shopify actions Yes Marketplace breadth and peer word of mouth
Zendesk Large orgs standardizing one platform across many functions $19 to $115 per agent per month, annual Per automated resolution over a plan allowance; neither figure published Resolves; real-world autonomous rates on unfiltered ecom tickets run well under the marketed ceiling Yes 1,800+ app marketplace, governance, committee safety
Intercom Fin Teams that want a proven agent without changing helpdesk Per-seat plans, or no seat cost in standalone mode $0.99 per outcome, charged once per conversation Resolves over knowledge plus structured actions Optional Install base, and it runs on your current helpdesk
eesel AI Adding AI to the helpdesk you already have No platform fee, no seat fee, no monthly minimum $0.40 per regular task, such as a ticket or chat session Resolves inside your existing helpdesk No Zero migration, lowest commitment to try
Gladly Premium retail brands where phone is a primary channel Not published Not published Resolves; positioned as engagement rather than deflection Yes Voice as a first-class channel in one conversation history
Help Scout Small teams that mainly need a shared inbox and docs Free to 5 users, then $25 / $45 / $75 per user monthly $0.75 per AI Answers resolution, with a spending cap AI Answers resolves from your docs; it does not take actions Yes Lowest price and simplest setup at small scale
Decagon Enterprises wanting the deepest agent tooling Not published, contact sales Not published Resolves No, sits on top Simulations at scale, always-on QA, self-improving agent
Sierra Enterprises wanting one outcome-priced agent including voice Not published, outcome-based Not published Resolves No, sits on top Native voice inside the same agent, pay only for outcomes
Richpanel (the baseline) Teams that want the helpdesk and the AI agents as one product $99 per seat per month, annual, plus a $200 per month AI minimum ~$0.20 per AI-resolved conversation, single meter Resolves end to end; collaborative draft mode optional Yes, it is the helpdesk See the two sections below, including where it does not

AI unit costs are not directly comparable to each other. A Gorgias resolution, a Fin outcome, an eesel task, a Help Scout resolution and a Richpanel conversation are five different units with five different definitions, so treat the column as a shape and model your own monthly volume against each meter before deciding. Prices verified against each vendor's own pages in July 2026; vendor pricing moves, so re-check before you sign.

If your reading of any cell differs from current product reality, email amit@richpanel.com and we will correct it. Being wrong in our own favor on a page like this costs more than it earns.

This is the Richpanel-anchored cut of a bigger comparison set. For the category-level view, read the pillar AI customer service agent comparison. For the incumbent-anchored cuts, read Best Gorgias alternatives and Best Zendesk alternatives. For our own numbers in full, Richpanel pricing explained.

The scoring rules, stated before the scoring

Five columns, defined so you could score them yourself.

A comparison is only worth reading if the criteria were fixed before the vendors were slotted into them. Here are the five, each with the question that settles it. If you disagree with a cell below, one of these definitions is where the disagreement lives.

01

Best for (the shape of buyer, not the feature list)

The team profile where this platform is the obvious first pick, not merely workable. A tool that is workable for everyone is best for nobody, so this column is deliberately narrow.

02

Starting price (published only)

The lowest price a real buyer could pay, as published by the vendor. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the cell says so rather than repeating a third-party estimate. Four of the eight publish nothing, which is itself information: it usually signals an enterprise sales motion with a floor well above self-serve.

Ask: what is the all-in first-year cost including implementation, and what is the annual minimum commitment?
03

AI unit cost (and what the unit actually means)

What one AI-handled conversation costs, plus the vendor's own definition of the billable unit. Resolutions, outcomes, tasks, sessions and conversations are counted differently and cannot be compared on sticker price alone.

Ask: define your billable unit in one sentence, then model my real monthly volume against it and show me the total, including any charge on the same conversation from a second meter.
04

Resolves or assists (the honest one)

Of 100 real inbound tickets, how many close with no human touch and a confirmed outcome, rather than a help-center article the customer ignored? An agent that answers from documentation is doing a different job from one that issues the refund, cancels the order or pauses the subscription. Marketed ceilings assume ideal conditions.

Ask: run your agent on 100 of my past tickets and report confirmed resolutions, split from deflections. A vendor that will not is selling a demo, not production.
05

Replaces your helpdesk (the decision that halves the list)

Whether adopting this means moving your team into a new interface, or adding an agent on top of the one they already use. Most buyers make this call implicitly. Making it explicitly removes half the shortlist in one move.

Ask: what breaks in my current workflows on day one, and what does my team have to relearn?
The honest triggers

Why do teams look for a Richpanel alternative?

Four situations where Richpanel is genuinely the wrong buy, and one misunderstanding we have earned by not correcting it loudly enough. A comparison page whose author cannot name its own disqualifiers is an advertisement.

Phone is your primary channel.

Richpanel integrates with Aircall, Dialpad and JustCall. It does not host telephony. If you want voice resolved by the same AI agent in the same pane, no amount of channel coverage elsewhere compensates. This is the single most common reason a team that fits on every other axis buys something else.[1] Look at Gladly, Sierra, or Zendesk's contact center product.

Your helpdesk is fine.

If your contract has eighteen months left and your only complaint is that the AI answers badly, replacing the platform is a larger action than the problem requires. An agent layer on top is the more direct fix. eesel AI, Decagon, Sierra and Fin in standalone mode all do exactly that job.

Your evaluation scores vendor scale.

Zendesk has been shipping since 2007 and lists 1,800+ apps, partners and integrations.[2] Decagon and Sierra are funded well beyond us. Above roughly $30,000 in annual contract value, "will I get fired for picking this" is a different question from "does it work", and we lose the first one on the facts.[1]

Your system of record is a heavy ERP.

The action library is deepest and most turnkey on Shopify. Custom OMS, NetSuite and ERP write-back all work, but they are more integration work and a longer timeline than a Shopify store. Price that in rather than assuming parity.

There is a fifth, smaller one worth naming: at very low volume the arithmetic goes against us. A three-person team on a $25 per seat inbox with a $0.75 per-resolution AI add-on will pay less than $99 seats plus a $200 monthly AI minimum. We are built for teams where repeat volume is the problem, and below that line someone else is the better buy.

Then there is the misunderstanding. A fair number of comparison pages still describe Richpanel as a self-service portal with an agent-assist copilot, sometimes with a multi-hour training process attached. That described an earlier product. The current customer-facing agent resolves conversations end to end using validated, policy-bounded tool calls, and a CX Manager AI does the configuration work other vendors bill as a professional-services engagement. This page is written on the assumption that you would rather have the current facts than the flattering ones, in either direction.

The named case for each one

Where each alternative beats Richpanel.

One specific situation per platform where it is the better buy. Not a hedge, not a "depends on your needs", a situation. If yours matches, take it seriously.

Gorgias

The default Shopify helpdesk and the most common incumbent in any DTC bake-off. Its plans are metered on tickets rather than seats, scaling from 50 to 5,000 tickets a month, and Gorgias states plainly that the helpdesk is "never priced per agent".[3] The AI Agent is a separate meter at $0.90 per resolved interaction on most plans, $1.00 on Starter, with a $1.50 per interaction overage rate across paid tiers.[3] Gorgias also states that an automated interaction is one where the AI "fully resolves a ticket with no human in 72 hours, and also counts as one helpdesk ticket", so a resolved conversation is billed on both meters. Only a handoff escapes the AI fee. Choose Gorgias over Richpanel if your buying decision turns on ecommerce app-marketplace breadth, or if your peer network is unanimous. That second one is not a soft factor. In deals we have lost, "everyone I know uses Gorgias" has beaten a materially lower price more than once, and a buyer who will spend two years defending the choice internally is rational to weight it.

Zendesk

The broadest platform here by a wide margin, spanning customer support, IT service and internal help desks. Suite Team is $55 and Suite Professional $115 per agent per month on annual billing, with Support Team at $19; Copilot is a $50 per agent per month add-on and the Workforce Engagement bundle another $50.[2] Autonomous AI agents are now included in every Suite and Support plan, billed on automated resolutions above a plan allowance that Zendesk does not publish, and the per-resolution rate is not published either.[2] Choose Zendesk over Richpanel if you are standardizing one vendor across functions well beyond customer support, or if your evaluation includes a security and procurement committee that will treat vendor longevity as a scored criterion. Its 1,800+ integrations and mature governance tooling are real advantages that a focused platform cannot match. The honest caveat is on the other side of the ledger: on unfiltered ecommerce tickets, real-world autonomous resolution commonly lands well below the ceiling implied by marketing, so budget for the gap.[1]

Intercom Fin

The most-deployed AI agent in this comparison. Fin is $0.99 per outcome, and Intercom is explicit that "you're only charged once per conversation, even if multiple questions are answered".[4] The important structural fact is that Fin runs standalone on other helpdesks including Salesforce, with no seat costs and no setup, integration or platform fees, subject to a minimum monthly commitment.[4] Choose Fin over Richpanel if you want a proven agent this quarter and are not ready to change the helpdesk underneath it, or if you already run Intercom for product messaging, where adding Fin is the lowest-friction path available to anyone. One thing to price into a multi-year decision: Salesforce announced an agreement in June 2026 to acquire Intercom's Fin business for about $3.6 billion, with the deal signed and not yet closed. It is not a reason to avoid Fin, but roadmap questions are fair game in your evaluation. We wrote up what it means for support teams in the Fin and Salesforce explainer, and the broader field in Best Intercom Fin alternatives.

eesel AI

The cleanest expression of the layer-instead-of-replace option. eesel charges no platform fee, no per-seat fee and no monthly minimum, billing per task instead: light tasks are free, a regular task such as a support ticket or chat session is $0.40, and heavy tasks such as a drafted blog post are $4.00. New accounts get $50 in free usage, an annual commitment above $300 a month takes 25% off, and there is a $1,000 per month enterprise tier that adds SSO, HIPAA, a BAA and dedicated support.[5] It connects to Zendesk, Freshdesk, Shopify and a range of knowledge sources, and it runs alongside your existing tools rather than replacing them. Choose eesel over Richpanel if migration is the thing you are actually trying to avoid, or if you want to route a small slice of volume to AI as a test before committing to anything. At low volume with no seats and no minimum, it is genuinely cheaper to start than we are, and pretending otherwise would be insulting to anyone who can do arithmetic.

Gladly

Voice-led premium retail, and the clearest case on this page where Richpanel is structurally the wrong choice. Gladly describes itself as "customer experience AI purpose-built to engage customers rather than deflect them", and its model carries "a customer's lifelong conversation history across channels" whether that is "voice, chat, SMS, email, or social".[6] Its named customers skew to recognizable retail and consumer brands. Pricing is not published, which puts it in an enterprise sales motion. Choose Gladly over Richpanel if phone is a primary channel rather than an overflow one, and you want one platform that treats a call, a chat and an email as the same continuing conversation with the same person. We integrate with voice providers. Gladly builds around the phone. If that is your business, that difference decides it.

Help Scout

The simplest and cheapest way to run support well at small scale. Free up to 5 users, then Standard at $25, Plus at $45 and Pro at $75 per user per month on monthly billing, with roughly 16% off for annual.[7] AI Assist, AI Drafts and AI Summarize come with the paid plans; AI Answers is an add-on at $0.75 per resolution, defined as "a single conversation that is resolved by AI Answers without human assistance", with a monthly spending cap that disables AI Answers automatically once you hit it.[7] Be precise about the limitation: Help Scout's Shopify sidebar does let a human agent refund and cancel, so the accurate claim is narrower than "it cannot do ecommerce". Its AI answers from your documentation rather than taking actions. Choose Help Scout over Richpanel if you are a team of three to eight people whose volume is mostly questions rather than order operations, and a hard spending cap on AI matters more to you than resolution depth. Our $200 per month AI minimum plus $99 seats is more than that team needs.

Decagon

The most serious enterprise agent layer in the comparison. Decagon positions itself as "the AI concierge for every customer" and ships a deep tooling stack around the agent: AOPs, which are agent workflows written in natural language, Experiments for live A/B testing, "simulations at scale" for testing and QA, Watchtower for always-on QA, and Duet Autopilot, described as "the self-improving agent for conversational AI".[8] Pricing is not published; the only call to action is a demo. Choose Decagon over Richpanel if you are running a large support organization that wants to test agent behaviour by simulation before it ships and audit it continuously afterwards, and you have the budget and the internal team for an enterprise engagement. To be accurate about a claim we have seen made carelessly: Decagon is not a vendor-locked black box on evaluation. Its self-improvement and QA tooling is the closest analogue in the market to what our CX Manager AI does, narrower in scope but real, and it is well funded. This is a fair fight, not a walkover.

Sierra

The outcome-priced enterprise agent. Sierra calls itself "the leading conversational AI platform for businesses" and prices on outcomes, in its own words: "Ensure you only pay for the value Sierra delivers with outcome-based pricing."[9] Concrete figures are not published, so expect an enterprise sales process. The capability that matters most for this comparison is channel coverage: Sierra deploys "a single agent across chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice, and ChatGPT", voice included.[9] Choose Sierra over Richpanel if you want voice resolved by the same agent as everything else and you would rather pay per successful outcome than per conversation. Two things to check rather than assume: Sierra's agent testing is authored largely by Sierra with customer review, which is a different arrangement from owning the test cases yourself, and outcome pricing with a platform component can land above a per-conversation meter once volume is high. Both are questions for their team, not conclusions from us.

The baseline, in current numbers

What Richpanel actually is, and what it actually costs.

Since this page exists so a buyer can compare against us accurately, here is the current version rather than the one third-party pages tend to carry.

What it is. An AI-native helpdesk. Three layers run side by side: AI agents that resolve customer conversations end to end, human agents who handle the exceptions with an AI copilot in the same inbox, and a CX Manager AI that reads the business, drafts the SOPs, wires up the tools and writes the QA rubric, which is the setup work most vendors bill as a services engagement. The customer-facing agent runs refunds, order tracking, cancellations, subscription changes and policy questions as validated, policy-bounded tool calls, targeting 70 to 80 percent autonomous resolution at maturity. It does not tell a customer how to start a return. It starts the return.

What it costs. Two line items and no platform floor. Human seats are $99 per seat per month on an annual commitment, $119 billed monthly and $129 on demand. AI is metered per conversation at about $0.20 per AI-resolved conversation with a $200 per month minimum, and you choose the model and the token budget. Self-Service Portal, QA Agent and Social Media Agent are included on every plan. Returns and Exchanges is an ecommerce-only paid add-on starting at $99 per month. Full breakdown in Richpanel pricing explained and on the pricing page.

The structural pricing difference, stated narrowly enough to be true: several platforms here charge for the helpdesk on one meter and the AI on a second, so a resolved conversation touches both. Richpanel charges the AI meter once, at about $0.20, with no separate per-resolution AI fee stacked on a per-ticket helpdesk charge. That is a difference in structure, not a claim that we are cheaper for everyone. At small volume, Help Scout and eesel start lower, as the table shows.

What is guaranteed. 50 percent resolution in 30 days, or a full refund. Money back, not unused credits. We buy out up to 100 percent of your remaining contract term when you switch from an incumbent, and your current helpdesk stays live until the Richpanel setup is verified, then you cut over once. Time to value runs in three stages: a 30-minute proof of concept built live on your data during the demo call, a two-week paid pilot, then four-week full deployment.

What is verifiable. SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA-audited and GDPR-audited by third parties, with the reports available on request through our trust portal.[10] 3,000+ paying brands, profitable, backed by Sequoia Capital and Surge, founded in 2020. Shopify App Store 4.8 stars across 115 reviews; G2 4.7 stars across 94. In production, a wellness brand has the AI sending 63% of every customer message at 4.39 out of 5 CSAT, above its own human team, with 529 conversations closed end to end with no human touch.[11] And on the ecommerce question: Richpanel is strongest on Shopify because most of the install base is DTC, and Returns is genuinely ecommerce-only, but the platform is not. Live deployments and active evaluations include semiconductor, manufacturing, federal, auto parts and B2B lighting, plus brands on custom order-management systems, WooCommerce and NetSuite.[1]

The fork that halves your shortlist

When should you pick an AI layer instead of a new helpdesk?

Four of the eight options here sit on top of your existing helpdesk (eesel AI, Decagon, Sierra, and Fin in standalone mode). Four replace it (Gorgias, Zendesk, Help Scout, Gladly), as does Richpanel. Deciding this first eliminates half the list before you sit through a single demo.

Add a layer if your helpdesk is working, your complaint is narrowly about answer quality, you are inside a contract you cannot exit, or you want to route a small slice of volume to AI as a controlled test. The advantage is speed and reversibility: nothing about your team's daily workflow changes, and you can switch the agent off.

Replace the platform if the AI cannot take the actions your customers need because the helpdesk underneath will not expose them, if you are paying two meters for one resolved conversation, or if the binding constraint is a platform limitation such as multi-brand support or reporting rather than the AI itself. A layer will not move any of those.

The honest trade is that a layer is faster to try and slower to fix the economics, because you keep paying for the helpdesk underneath plus the agent on top. If your problem is genuinely the bill, a layer usually adds to it. If your problem is genuinely answer quality, a layer usually solves it. Diagnose which one you have before you shortlist, and read AI chatbot versus AI agent if the resolve-or-deflect distinction is where you are stuck.

Whichever fork you take, run the same test on every finalist. Our 40-question vendor RFP template is the long version. The short version is four questions: run the agent on 100 of my real tickets, split confirmed resolutions from deflections, show me the all-in cost of one resolved conversation on my actual volume, and show me my data after import.

A decision tree, not a verdict

Match your situation to the shortlist.

There is no best Richpanel alternative. There is a best one for your channel mix, your contract, and whether you are willing to move platforms. Find your line.

Seven lines, seven different answers. If one name had appeared on every line, you would be reading an advertisement again, which is the thing this page was written to avoid.

How this comparison is limited

What this guide cannot tell you.

Three limits, named rather than buried.

The narrow claim this page will stand behind: the fork between replacing your helpdesk and layering an agent on top decides your shortlist before any vendor does, and confirmed resolution measured on your own historical tickets decides the winner within it. Everything else, including which company wrote this page, is downstream of those two.

Frequently asked

Richpanel alternatives, in plain English.

What are the best Richpanel alternatives in 2026?

It depends on which part of Richpanel you are replacing. If you want the widest ecommerce app marketplace, Gorgias. If you want maximum platform breadth and the safest committee choice, Zendesk. If you want the most-deployed AI agent and it can run on your current helpdesk, Intercom Fin. If you want an AI layer with no migration at all, eesel AI. If voice is your highest-value channel, Gladly or Sierra. If you are a very small team that mostly needs a shared inbox and docs, Help Scout. If you are an enterprise that wants the deepest agent tooling and simulations, Decagon. Rank them by whether you are replacing the helpdesk or only adding an agent on top, because that single decision eliminates half the list.

Why do teams look for a Richpanel alternative?

Five reasons come up repeatedly, and four of them are legitimate. Voice is the biggest: Richpanel integrates with Aircall, Dialpad and JustCall but does not host telephony, so a team that runs phone as its primary channel is better served by a voice-native platform. Second, some teams are happy with their helpdesk and only want an AI layer, which makes an agent that sits on top a more direct fit than replacing the platform. Third, deep ERP or custom order-management write-back is more integration work with Richpanel than a Shopify-native flow. Fourth, buyers managing career risk sometimes want the biggest brand or the biggest balance sheet in the room. Fifth, and this one is usually a misunderstanding, buyers assume Richpanel is a self-service portal with an agent-assist copilot, which describes an earlier product rather than the current AI agents.

How much does Richpanel cost in 2026?

Two line items. Human seats are $99 per seat per month on an annual commitment, $119 billed monthly and $129 on demand. AI is metered per conversation at about $0.20 per AI-resolved conversation with a $200 per month minimum, and you choose the model and the token budget. There is no $500 per month platform floor and no separate per-AI-resolution charge stacked on a per-ticket helpdesk fee. Self-Service Portal, QA Agent and Social Media Agent are included at no extra cost on every plan. Returns and Exchanges is an ecommerce-only paid add-on starting at $99 per month. Third-party comparison pages carrying older or incorrect Richpanel figures are common, so check richpanel.com/pricing rather than a competitor listicle.

Is Richpanel only for Shopify and ecommerce brands?

No. Richpanel is strongest on Shopify because most of its install base is DTC, and Returns and Exchanges is genuinely an ecommerce-only add-on. The rest of the platform is vertical-agnostic. Live deployments and active evaluations include semiconductor, manufacturing, federal, auto parts and B2B lighting, and brands running custom order-management systems, WooCommerce and NetSuite. The fair version of the ecommerce critique is narrower than it usually gets stated: the deepest, most turnkey action library is the Shopify one, so if your system of record is a custom OMS or a heavy ERP, expect more integration work than a Shopify store would need.

Does Richpanel's AI resolve tickets on its own, or does it only assist agents?

It resolves. The customer-facing agent runs refunds, order tracking, cancellations, subscription changes and policy questions end to end as validated, policy-bounded tool calls, targeting 70 to 80 percent autonomous resolution at maturity. A separate Copilot AI assists human agents on the exceptions, and a QA AI reviews closed conversations, but those are additional layers rather than the whole product. Descriptions of Richpanel as a self-service portal with an agent-assist copilot, or of setup taking a multi-hour training process, describe an earlier version of the product. In production a wellness brand has the AI sending 63 percent of every customer message at 4.39 out of 5 CSAT, above its own human team, with 529 conversations closed end to end with no human touch.

Should I replace my helpdesk or just add an AI layer on top?

Add a layer if your helpdesk is fine and your only complaint is answer quality, if you are inside a contract you cannot exit, or if you want to test AI on a small slice of volume with no migration. eesel AI, Decagon, Sierra and Fin in standalone mode all do this. Replace the platform if you are paying twice for the same resolved conversation, if the AI cannot take actions because the helpdesk underneath will not let it, or if a platform limitation such as multi-brand is the actual constraint. The honest trade is that a layer is faster to try and slower to fix the economics, because you keep paying for the helpdesk underneath plus the agent on top.

Does Richpanel support voice and phone support?

Richpanel integrates with voice providers including Aircall, Dialpad and JustCall. It does not host telephony itself. If phone is a secondary channel and you are happy keeping your existing voice provider, that integration is usually enough. If voice is your highest-volume or highest-CSAT channel and you want it resolved by the same AI agent in the same pane, this is a genuine gap and you should look at Gladly, Sierra or Zendesk's contact center product instead. This is the single most common reason a deal that fits Richpanel on every other axis goes elsewhere, and pretending otherwise would waste your evaluation time.

Sources & references

Where the claims come from.

Inline citations [1]–[11] map to the entries below. Every vendor figure in the matrix was read from the linked vendor page in July 2026.

  1. Richpanel buyer demo dataset (April to May 2026), plus the live deal record through July 2026. 69 recorded inbound demo calls. The native-voice loss pattern, the resolve-versus-deflect observations, the real-world autonomous-resolution range on unfiltered ecommerce tickets, the vendor-scale trust pattern above roughly $30,000 ACV, and the non-ecommerce vertical list are drawn from this dataset. Underlying call data is confidential; aggregate observations are publishable. Methodology available on request via amit@richpanel.com.
  2. Zendesk pricing (public, July 2026). Support Team $19, Suite Team $55, Suite Professional $115 per agent per month on annual billing; Copilot $50 per agent per month; Workforce Engagement Bundle $50; Contact Center $83. AI agents included in every Suite and Support plan, billed on automated resolutions above an unpublished plan allowance at an unpublished rate. 1,800+ apps, partners and integrations. zendesk.com/pricing
  3. Gorgias pricing and AI Agent pricing (public, July 2026). Helpdesk plans metered on tickets from 50 to 5,000 a month and "never priced per agent"; AI Agent at $0.90 per resolved interaction on most plans, $1.00 on Starter, $1.50 per interaction overage across paid tiers; an automated interaction is defined on their pricing page as one where the AI "fully resolves a ticket with no human in 72 hours, and also counts as one helpdesk ticket", so a resolved conversation bills on both meters; only handoffs escape the AI fee. gorgias.com/pricing and gorgias.com/blog/ai-agent-pricing
  4. Intercom Fin pricing (public, July 2026). $0.99 per outcome, "you're only charged once per conversation, even if multiple questions are answered"; standalone on other helpdesks including Salesforce with no seat costs and no setup, integration or platform fees, subject to a minimum monthly commitment. intercom.com/pricing. The Salesforce agreement to acquire the Fin business for approximately $3.6 billion was announced in June 2026 and is signed, not closed.
  5. eesel AI pricing (public, July 2026). No platform fee, no per-seat fee, no monthly minimum; light tasks free, regular tasks such as a support ticket or chat session $0.40, heavy tasks $4.00; $50 free usage to start; 25% off on an annual commitment above $300 a month; $1,000 per month enterprise tier adding SSO, HIPAA, BAA and dedicated support. eesel.ai/pricing
  6. Gladly product positioning (public, July 2026). "Customer experience AI purpose-built to engage customers rather than deflect them"; voice, chat, SMS, email and social carried on "a customer's lifelong conversation history across channels". No pricing published. gladly.ai
  7. Help Scout pricing (public, July 2026). Free up to 5 users; Standard $25, Plus $45, Pro $75 per user per month on monthly billing, about 16% off annual. AI Answers $0.75 per resolution, defined as "a single conversation that is resolved by AI Answers without human assistance"; monthly spending cap disables AI Answers for the remainder of the cycle when hit. helpscout.com/pricing
  8. Decagon product pages (public, July 2026). "The AI concierge for every customer"; AOPs as natural-language agent workflows, Experiments for live A/B testing, "simulations at scale" for testing and QA, Watchtower for always-on QA, Duet Autopilot as "the self-improving agent for conversational AI". Pricing not published; demo-gated. decagon.ai
  9. Sierra product pages (public, July 2026). "The leading conversational AI platform for businesses"; outcome-based pricing, "Ensure you only pay for the value Sierra delivers"; "Deploy a single agent across chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice, and ChatGPT". No figures or deployment timelines published. sierra.ai
  10. Richpanel third-party audits. SOC 2 Type II (Percilchofe CPA LLC, May 1 to October 31 2025, unqualified opinion), HIPAA readiness assessment against NIST SP 800-66 Rev 2 and GDPR assessment across 55 controls (both Scrut Automation, December 2025). Reports available under NDA via richpanel.com/trust.
  11. Richpanel production case study (wellness brand). AI sends 63% of every customer message (5,753 of 9,138), closing 529 conversations fully autonomously with no human touch, at 4.39/5 CSAT against a team-wide 4.33. richpanel.com/case-studies/wellness

Version history, v1.0 (2026-07-28): initial publication. Matrix cells and pricing are a snapshot of public vendor documentation as of July 2026. Last updated July 28, 2026.

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