Cost per ticket calculator for customer support
Cost per ticket is the monthly cost of your support team and tools divided by the tickets it handles. Enter your numbers to find yours, then try the AI what-if to see what a share of tickets answered without an agent would do to it.
Cost per ticket
$11.08
Support cost per month
$27,695
Tickets per agent per month
500
People are
99% of the cost
($27,500 for people + $195 for tools + $0 other) ÷ 2,500 tickets.
What if an AI answered some of them?
Blended cost per ticket
$8.41
Difference per month
$6,674 less
Assumes agent time falls in step with the tickets the AI takes over, which is optimistic: headcount rarely drops in a straight line, and the AI only finishes the tickets it can answer well. Treat it as an upper bound on the saving.
Questions
How do you calculate cost per ticket?
Add up what support costs in a month (agents' fully loaded pay, help desk and other tools, outsourced help) and divide by the tickets handled in that month. A team of 5 costing $27,500 in people and $195 in tools that handles 2,500 tickets pays about $11.08 a ticket.
What should count as an agent's cost?
Everything you pay to have them work: salary, benefits, payroll taxes, equipment, and the share of a manager's time that goes to supporting the team. Salary alone understates it.
Should I count every message or every ticket?
Use whichever unit you can count consistently. Tickets (one customer conversation) is the usual choice. Counting messages makes long threads look expensive, and counting only closed tickets hides the ones still open.
Is a lower cost per ticket always better?
No. You can push it down by rushing customers, and pay for that later in repeat contacts and churn. Read it next to CSAT, first response time and the share of tickets reopened.
How is the AI what-if calculated?
It takes your current cost per ticket for the tickets people still handle, adds the AI's cost for the ones it finishes, and averages over all tickets. It assumes agent time falls in step with the tickets the AI takes over, so treat the saving as an upper bound.
Link to this page
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<a href="https://flatdeskfinal.vercel.app/free-tools/cost-per-ticket-calculator">Cost per ticket calculator</a>Guides that go with this tool
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- Support cost per customer: how to work it out and what to do with itHow to calculate what support costs per customer, what share of revenue is healthy, and the levers that bring it down.
Running support on a small team?
Flatdesk is $49 per agent per month, with 100 AI resolutions per agent included. Try it free for 14 days, no card.
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