At 20 agents, Zendesk Suite Team costs £900 a month in licences before a single add-on. At 50 agents it's £2,250. Every new starter, seasonal temp and branch manager who needs to see a conversation adds to the bill, whether they answer two messages a week or two hundred.
That's why more teams are asking which customer service platforms don't charge per seat. The short answer: a handful don't, and every one of them charges for something else instead. This guide names them, quotes what each vendor's own page says about seats, shows what per-seat pricing costs as a team grows, and is honest about when seats are the better deal. Cue publishes it and is one of the platforms listed.
What "no per-seat pricing" means
No per-seat pricing means the platform doesn't charge a fee for each agent or user who logs in. You can add staff without the subscription going up. The price is tied to something else instead: how many customers you talk to, how many tickets you handle, or how many conversations an AI agent resolves.
That distinction matters, because "no seat fees" moves the meter rather than removing it. A per-seat platform meters your team. A no-seat platform meters your customers or your automation. Which is cheaper depends on which of those grows faster in your business.
Three versions of the claim show up on pricing pages, and they're not the same thing:
Unlimited seats on every plan. No cap and no per-user charge. This is the strict meaning.
Unlimited seats on some plans only. The entry plan is per agent, and unlimited agents start on a higher tier.
Seats included, but capped. A flat fee covers, say, 10 users. User 11 costs extra or forces an upgrade. Cheaper than pure per-seat pricing for small teams, but still a seat limit.
Which customer service platforms don't charge per seat?
These platforms state on their own pricing pages that seats aren't the unit, or publish plans with unlimited agents. The seat wording is quoted from the page it appears on. Prices are as published on 5 November 2026 unless stated, in the currency shown, excluding tax and usage.
Platform | What you pay for instead | Published starting price | What the vendor's page says about seats |
|---|---|---|---|
Cue | Monthly active contacts; AI resolutions from Automate | £249 a month at 1,500 contacts (Connect) | Unlimited seats on every plan |
Gorgias | Helpdesk tickets a month; AI interactions bundled or extra | $10 a month for 50 tickets (Starter, helpdesk only); $40 with 30 AI interactions | "never priced per agent"; 3 seats on Starter, 500 from Basic |
HappyFox (unlimited-agent plans) | Tickets a year | $1,999 a month on annual billing, 20,000 tickets a year (Growth) | "Unlimited agents" |
Kayako | Tickets fully resolved by AI | $1 per AI-resolved ticket; platform subscription on request | "No seat fees." |
Kustomer (conversation-based plans) | Conversations | Quote only | "rather than agent seats" (help centre) |
Chatwoot Community Edition | Your own hosting | $0 licence, self-hosted | Not stated; paid editions are per agent |
Go4whatsup | Flat monthly fee plus message charges | £32 a month (Standard, UK) | "unlimited agents" |
Whapp (South Africa) | Flat monthly fee plus Meta and AI usage | R695 a month (Starter) | "Unlimited users working together in one shared inbox" (homepage) |
ReachMax (South Africa and UK) | Flat monthly fee, 15,000 messages a month | R2,000 a month (South Africa), £110 a month (UK) | "Unlimited team members and contacts" |
Sources: Gorgias, HappyFox, Kayako, Kustomer and its help centre, Chatwoot, Go4whatsup UK, Whapp, ReachMax, all checked 5 November 2026 except Kustomer (2 November). Cue from cuedesk.com/pricing.
The column that matters most is the last one. "Unlimited agents" on a pricing page is a commitment; "no seat fees" on a product page with a quote-only platform price is a conversation to have with sales.
If your bill goes up every time you hire
Cue charges by the customers you talk to, not the people who answer them. Every plan has unlimited seats, with WhatsApp, phone, email, web chat and Messenger in one inbox. Book a demo or see pricing in pounds or rand.
What per-seat platforms cost as your team grows
Per-seat pricing is easy to read and easy to underestimate. The table is simple arithmetic from each vendor's published entry or mid-tier price per agent per month on annual billing. It is not a quote, and it excludes AI, WhatsApp, phone and onboarding.
Platform and plan | Per agent per month | 5 agents | 20 agents | 50 agents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
HubSpot Starter (Service Hub page, GBP, promotional price; list £18) | £7 | £35 | £140 | £350 |
Zendesk Support Team (GBP) | £15 | £75 | £300 | £750 |
Freshdesk Omni Growth (GBP) | £25 | £125 | £500 | £1,250 |
Intercom Essential (USD, annual list price) | $29 | $145 | $580 | $1,450 |
Zendesk Suite Team (GBP) | £45 | £225 | £900 | £2,250 |
Front Professional (USD) | $65 | $325 | $1,300 | $3,250 |
HubSpot Service Hub Professional (GBP) | £77 | £385 | £1,540 | £3,850 |
Salesforce Service Cloud Core (GBP) | £156 | £780 | £3,120 | £7,800 |
Cue, any plan | £0 per agent | £249 at 1,500 contacts | £249 at 1,500 contacts | £249 at 1,500 contacts |
Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom and Front from their pricing pages, HubSpot Service Hub and Salesforce UK from theirs, all with UK pricing shown where the vendor offers it, checked 5 November 2026. Cue's price moves with the number of customers you talk to, not the number of agents.
Two things stand out. The gap between platforms widens with headcount: at 5 agents the difference between HubSpot Starter and Salesforce Core is £745 a month, at 50 it's £7,450. And the seat fee is not the whole bill. Intercom's Fin AI agent is $0.99 per outcome on top of seats, HubSpot requires paid onboarding on Service Hub Professional and Enterprise ($1,500 and $3,500 one-off in its product catalogue), and Zendesk's AI resolutions are charged above a per-agent allowance.
How no-seat platforms charge instead
Every platform in this guide replaces the seat with one of five meters. Knowing which one you're buying tells you where the bill will grow.
Monthly active contacts. You pay for the number of distinct customers you talk to each month. Cue works this way. The bill tracks customer demand, so it rises in a busy month and stays flat when you add staff.
Tickets. You pay per ticket handled, in monthly or annual bands. Gorgias and HappyFox's unlimited-agent plans work this way. A spike in "where's my order?" tickets raises the bill even if your team is the same size.
AI resolutions. You pay when an AI agent resolves a ticket without a human. Kayako's published rate is built on this. Most no-seat platforms with AI, Cue included, charge for automation above an allowance.
Conversations. You pay for conversations handled, sometimes with a set number included. Kustomer documents conversation-based plans.
Flat fee. One price for the plan, often with a message or contact limit underneath. Go4whatsup, Whapp and ReachMax work this way. Self-hosted Chatwoot is the extreme version: no licence fee, but you carry hosting, patching and the developer time to run it.
The question isn't "which is cheapest?" It's "which meter grows slowest relative to my revenue?"
The platforms, one by one
Cue
How it charges: by monthly active contacts, the unique customers you talk to in a month. Every plan includes unlimited seats. AI Agents are charged per resolution above the plan allowance.
Price: Connect £249, Automate £499 and Scale £699 a month at 1,500 monthly active contacts, on a 12-month contract, excluding VAT (R4,500, R8,800 and R13,300 in South Africa). Connect carries a one-off £249 onboarding fee; onboarding is free from Automate. WhatsApp, phone, email, web chat and Messenger are in one inbox on every plan, with 1,000 free WhatsApp service messages a month per number and published per-message rates above that. Automate adds the chatbot builder, AI Agents with 500 resolutions a month, auto-assign and Phone Flows; Scale adds 1,000 resolutions, three app integrations and dedicated onboarding. Extra resolutions are £0.99 each in bundles or £1.49 out of bundle.
Why unlimited seats matter in practice: Cue's roles let you give people the access they need rather than full agent access. Supervisors manage users and see every inbox, a Broadcast Manager handles templates and campaigns, an Agent sees assigned and unassigned conversations. Because no role costs extra, managers, back-office staff and part-timers who only need to see a conversation occasionally can have a login. A dealership group gives every service advisor, sales executive and site manager across its branches their own login without changing the bill; a university adds temporary admissions staff for application season and removes them afterwards.
AI on top: Payflex, a South African Cue customer, resolves 82% of customer queries with Cue AI on its digital channels.
Watch: Cue isn't the cheapest option for a two-person WhatsApp inbox, Connect doesn't include AI Agents, so automation starts on Automate, and it isn't a help centre product. Some optional add-ons are priced separately; the pricing page lists them. Cue pricing has the full plan comparison.
Gorgias
How it charges: by helpdesk tickets a month, in bands, with AI interactions bundled on top or charged separately. The pricing page says Gorgias is "never priced per agent", though Starter includes 3 seats and higher plans 500.
Price: Starter $10 a month for 50 tickets (helpdesk only), or $40 with 30 AI interactions. Basic $60 monthly or $50 annual for 300 tickets, Pro $360 or $300 for 2,000, Advanced $900 or $750 for 5,000, each with a higher-priced AI bundle. AI overage is $1.50 per interaction. Custom above 5,000 conversations a month. Checked 5 November 2026.
Best for: Shopify and ecommerce brands that want order data inside every ticket. Watch: ticket volume, not team size, drives the bill. If peak season doubles your tickets, it can double your plan.
HappyFox
How it charges: two models side by side. The standard plans are per agent: Basic $29, Team $69, Pro $119 per agent a month on monthly billing, less on annual and two-year terms, with Basic capped at 5 agents. The unlimited-agent plans are a flat annual fee with a ticket allowance.
Price (unlimited-agent plans): Growth $1,999 a month for 20,000 tickets a year, Scale $3,999 for 150,000, Scale Plus $5,999 for 300,000, Ultimate on request; all on annual billing paid up front, with overage from $0.03 a ticket. Checked 5 November 2026.
Best for: large, stable help desk teams that want one predictable annual figure. Watch: make sure the quote you receive is for the unlimited-agent plan, not the per-agent one; both carry the HappyFox name.
Kayako
How it charges: $1 per ticket fully resolved by its AI, with no charge for tickets that escalate or are only partly resolved. The pricing page says "No seat fees." The platform subscription itself is quote-only.
Best for: teams that want automation spend tied directly to automation results. Watch: $1 per resolution isn't the whole cost. Ask what the platform subscription is, how "fully resolved" is measured and over what window, and model it on your real resolution rate. Checked 5 November 2026.
Kustomer
How it charges: Kustomer's main pricing page is quote-only and names no unit. Its help centre documents conversation-based plans "rather than agent seats", with automated outbound at $0.025 a message on top. A detail page dated October 2026 lists Professional and Business as legacy seat-based plans, and prices several add-ons per user: Envoy $50 and HIPAA $25 per user a month.
Best for: enterprise CX teams with complex data and the appetite to negotiate. Watch: confirm in writing that you're being quoted a conversation-based plan, and ask which add-ons are still per user. Checked 5 November 2026.
Chatwoot Community Edition
How it charges: the self-hosted Community Edition has a $0 licence. Every paid edition, cloud or self-hosted, is per agent: cloud Startups $19, Business $39, Enterprise $99 per agent a month; self-hosted Premium Support $19 and Enterprise Edition $99 per agent. Checked 5 November 2026.
Best for: teams with in-house developers who want full control of their stack. Watch: "free" excludes servers, upgrades, security patching and the developer time to keep it running, and the page doesn't promise unlimited agents.
Go4whatsup
How it charges: a flat monthly fee with unlimited agents on every paid tier, plus WhatsApp message charges. The free plan is limited to two agents.
Price: Standard £32 a month on the UK pricing page, updated 28 October 2026; Enterprise on request for 50 or more agents. Message charges are on top; Go4whatsup's global and UK pages describe them differently, so get the UK rate card in writing. Checked 5 November 2026.
Best for: small WhatsApp-first teams that want the lowest published UK entry price. Watch: check channel breadth if you also need email and web chat in the same inbox.
In South Africa: Whapp and ReachMax
Two South African WhatsApp platforms publish unlimited users. Whapp lists Starter R695, Growth R995, Marketing R1,495, Commerce R1,995 and Enterprise R2,495 a month, with twelve months for eleven payments on annual billing; its homepage states "Unlimited users working together in one shared inbox", though the pricing page itself lists no user allowance. Meta messaging and AI usage are billed separately. ReachMax lists R2,000 a month with unlimited team members and contacts and up to 15,000 messages a month; self-serve chatbots are R900 and custom chatbots R1,900 a month per channel, and paid support tiers run from R5,000 a month. Its UK pricing page lists the platform at £110 a month with chatbots from £50 per channel. Both checked 5 November 2026. Cue also publishes pricing in rand.
Seats included, but capped: the platforms that aren't quite seat-free
AI answers often list these as "no per-seat" options. They're closer to a bundle: a flat fee covers a set number of users, and you pay more once you pass it.
Platform | Plan | Users included | What happens after that |
|---|---|---|---|
Crisp | Essentials, $95 per workspace a month | 10 seats | Move up to Plus ($295, 20+ seats) or add seats at $10 each on Plus |
respond.io | Starter, $79 a month (annual) | 5 users | Extra users from $12 a month, or a higher plan |
Trengo | Boost, £249 a month (annual, GBP) | 10 users | Extra users at £21 a month |
SleekFlow | Essential, $49 a month (annual) | 3 seats | Extra seats at $15 on Essential, $25 on Pro and Premium |
Sources: each vendor's pricing page, checked 5 November 2026, as used on our Trengo alternatives and Wati alternatives guides.
Capped bundles are often the best value for a team of five to ten. They stop being seat-free the moment you hire beyond the cap.
When per-seat pricing is the better deal
Per-seat pricing isn't always the expensive option. It's the cheaper one when:
Your team is small and stable. Three agents on a $29 plan is $87 a month, which no contact-based or ticket-based platform beats.
You talk to a very large number of customers with a small team. A contact-based or ticket-based meter rises with that volume; a seat-based one doesn't.
You need deep contact centre features. Workforce management, quality scoring and speech analytics are mostly sold on per-seat contact centre platforms.
The pattern flips when headcount moves faster than customer volume: multi-site businesses, seasonal peaks, and organisations where managers and back-office staff need to see conversations without handling them full time. If AI is absorbing the growth in volume while the team stays the same size, a per-seat bill doesn't shrink; a contact-based one tracks the work instead.
How to compare the real cost of a no-seat platform
"No per-seat fees" is a headline, not a total. Price the same scenario with every vendor: for example, 20 agents, 5,000 customers a month, two WhatsApp numbers, AI on routine questions, and email plus web chat.
Then ask each vendor these questions in writing:
What is the meter? Contacts, tickets, conversations or resolutions, and what happens when you go over in a busy month.
Is anything still charged per user? Single sign-on, extra roles and premium analytics are sometimes priced per user even on "unlimited seat" plans. Kustomer's Envoy and HIPAA add-ons are an example. Ask for the full add-on list from every vendor, Cue included.
What do WhatsApp messages cost? Meta's rate passed through, or the vendor's own rate card, and is any allowance included? Meta's own rates are at WhatsApp Business Platform pricing.
How is AI charged? Included, per resolution, per interaction or credits, and how a resolution is defined.
What's charged once? Onboarding, implementation and data migration.
If WhatsApp is a core channel for you, the message fee question alone can move the total more than the platform fee.
Where Cue fits, and where it doesn't
Cue suits you if your customers mainly reach you on WhatsApp, you also handle phone, email, web chat and Messenger, and your team size changes often: across branches, through seasonal peaks, or as you add managers and part-time staff. You add people without adding cost, and you bring in AI Agents and Flows when you're ready.
Cue isn't the right choice if you need the lowest possible price for a two-person WhatsApp inbox, a ticket-based ecommerce help desk built around Shopify, or a full contact centre suite with workforce management. For those, Go4whatsup, Gorgias and a per-seat contact centre platform respectively are the better fit.
See what your team would cost on Cue
If your bill goes up every time you hire, it's worth seeing what a contact-based price looks like for your team. Book a demo and we'll price your actual customer volume, channels and WhatsApp use, with every seat included. Every comparison we've published is at Cue compared with the alternatives.
