“Unlimited seats”? A help desk where seats are never priced
You're searching for a help desk that stops charging per seat. The stronger shape: a plan that's flat. Team includes 10 seats, Studio 25 - never priced per seat, so the bill doesn't move when you invite someone.
inrelay doesn't do per-seat pricing at all. The Team plan is one flat $79/month with 10 seats included, Studio 25 - never priced per seat, never tiered. Solo ($19/month, with a free-forever tier) is for one person; inviting your first teammate is the move to Team. The one thing that counts is AI credits: every plan includes a monthly pool, and only you decide to add more.
Per-seat pricing is the default in this category, and it's the single most-cited reason teams switch tools. This page is the argument for the other model - with the arithmetic.
Per-seat pricing taxes teamwork
A help desk bill that scales with headcount punishes exactly the behaviour good support needs: getting more of the company close to customers. On per-seat plans, every choice becomes a licensing question. Should the warehouse lead see order complaints? That's $25/month. Should the founder keep an eye on tone? Another seat. A seasonal hire for the holiday rush? Two more, annualised in the contract.
So teams do what the pricing trains them to do - share logins, forward screenshots into Slack, and keep support sealed inside the smallest possible group. The tool designed to make customer conversations shared ends up rationing who's allowed to see them.
What per-seat actually costs.
The same support team at three sizes, on the pricing models this category uses. Volume assumptions identical throughout.
| Typical per-seat ($25/agent) | Zendesk Suite Team ($55/agent) | inrelay Team ($79 flat) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 people | $75/mo | $165/mo | $79/mo |
| 8 people | $200/mo | $440/mo | $79/mo |
| 10 people | $250/mo | $550/mo | $79/mo |
| Hire two more (eight to ten) | +$50/mo | +$110/mo | +$0 |
| AI answers included | usually an add-on | +$1.50–$2.00/resolution | included - you set the AI budget |
Competitor list prices as of August 2026 - sources in pricing and the comparison pages.
Where the limits actually are
“Unlimited” usually hides a footnote, so here are ours, stated plainly. We don't promise unlimited - we don't price seats at all. Solo ($19, with a free-forever tier) is for one person; the day you invite a teammate is the day you move to Team, and Team includes 10 seats at $79 flat; Studio includes 25. The one dial is AI credits: every plan includes a monthly pool, you can always see it, and when it runs out the AI pauses while the inbox keeps working. No overage fee, no per-resolution fees. Ever. No silent upgrades.
Even Crisp - the other flat-price incumbent - caps seats at 4, 10 or 20 by tier and prices each one. Team includes 10 seats, Studio 25 - never priced per seat, because a teammate reading conversations costs us nothing.
Support stops being a walled room
- Everyone who should see customers, can. Founders, ops, the developer debugging a complaint - a seat is an invite, not a purchase order, and Team includes ten of them.
- Seasonal help without contract math. Staff up for the rush, wind down after. The bill was $79 the whole time - flat, even in Q4.
- No login sharing. Real accounts for everyone means real collision detection, real assignment, and an audit trail that names people.
- The tool's incentive matches yours. We earn nothing when you hire. We keep you by keeping your inbox calm - the approval model is built on the same alignment.
Bring the whole team.
Solo is $19 flat for one person; Team is $79 flat with 10 seats included, Studio 25 - never priced per seat. The math up there is the whole pitch.