---
title: "An Agentforce action costs 10 cents, a conversation $2: how AI agents are billed now"
summary: "How five vendors price AI agents by action, conversation, credit, token and seat, from their own price pages as they stood on 1 September 2026, with a month's bill worked through"
url: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/how-ai-agents-are-billed-credits-actions
format: Analysis
desk: "SaaS & business software"
published: 2026-09-02
facts_checked: 2026-09-02
author: TechBag (The TechBag Journal)
tags: ["AI agents","pricing","Salesforce Agentforce","Flex Credits","Microsoft Copilot Studio","Copilot Credits","Zoho Zia Agents","Gemini Enterprise","ServiceNow","GST","contracts"]
cover: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/covers/how-ai-agents-are-billed-credits-actions.png
---

# An Agentforce action costs 10 cents, a conversation $2: how AI agents are billed now

*How five vendors price AI agents by action, conversation, credit, token and seat, from their own price pages as they stood on 1 September 2026, with a month's bill worked through*

Analysis · SaaS & business software · By TechBag · Published 2026-09-02 · Facts checked 2026-09-02 · Canonical: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/how-ai-agents-are-billed-credits-actions

The short version

- An AI agent is now billed for what it does, not for who uses it. Salesforce charges US$0.10 an Agentforce action or US$2 a conversation; Microsoft charges 5 Copilot Credits an agent action, at US$200 for 25,000; Zoho charges nothing for the agent and US$1 per million tokens past a free 30 million a month; Google sells Gemini Enterprise at US$21 or US$30 a seat; ServiceNow puts a pool of AI tokens inside its tiers and publishes no rates.[1][4][7][9][10]
- The seat survived, and it now decides who gets metered. A Microsoft 365 Copilot seat makes an employee’s agent use free of credits; Salesforce’s US$125 add-on is unmetered for the user who holds it. Against US$0.10 an action, that add-on pays off only above 1,250 actions a user a month.[1][4]
- Our worked month for a 400-person Indian firm comes to ₹3,35,226 with 18% GST. Billed per conversation instead, its customer agent alone would cost ₹11,39,400 before tax. Before signing, ask for a hard cap, rollover and overage at the contracted rate: neither Salesforce nor Microsoft rolls unused credits over.[1][5]

Salesforce reported on 26 August that Agentforce annual recurring revenue had passed US$1.5 billion, up more than 240 percent, and said in the same release that the metric now also counts its other AI offerings, Slackbot and Headless 360.[2] Behind numbers like that, agents are sold by the action, the conversation, the credit and the token, often on top of a seat, and each vendor defines its unit differently. The question for whoever signs the next renewal is practical: what will an agent cost in a month, how do you forecast it, and which contract terms stop a busy month from becoming a surprise?

## Five vendors, five meters: action, conversation, credit, token, seat

Salesforce offers three routes on its Agentforce price page. Flex Credits cost US$500 per 100,000, and each action, which Salesforce defines as “a specific function that an AI agent executes on the platform, such as updating a record, summarizing a complex case, answering a product inquiry”, draws 20 credits: US$0.10. A voice action draws 30, or US$0.15. The alternative is US$2 a conversation for customer-facing agents, whatever happens inside it. The two cannot run in the same org.[1]

Microsoft sells Copilot Studio as tenant-wide packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at US$200 a month, as a pay-as-you-go meter billed through an Azure subscription at month end, or as a one-year prepurchase plan that saves up to 20 percent.[3] [5] Its rate table charges 1 credit for a scripted answer, 2 for a generated one, 5 for an agent action and 10 for grounding an answer in the company’s Microsoft Graph data; a reasoning model adds 10 credits per 1,000 tokens.[4]

Zoho meters only the model. Its pricing page says Zia Agents are free; agents on Zoho-hosted models get 30 million tokens a month at no charge on the standard tier and 20 million on the pro tier, then pay US$1 or US$3 per million tokens from a prepaid wallet. External models are billed at the model vendor’s rate.[7] Google prices the Gemini Enterprise app by the seat, US$21 a month for Business and US$30 for Standard or Plus, with agents built in its no-code designer running inside the seat’s quota. A pay-as-you-go edition with a $0 seat fee, for 20 or more seats, bills tokens, memory, compute and storage at standard rates; Google says it is “gradually rolling out”.[9]

ServiceNow moved every product to three tiers, Foundation, Advanced and Prime, on 9 April. Each combines per-seat licensing with meters such as assets under management and storage, plus a pool of AI tokens, and the ServiceNow executive who presented it declined to disclose prices.[10]

**Figure: The same 1,000 customer chats cost from US$6 to US$2,000 depending on the meter**

*Price of 1,000 customer chats of three agent steps each, at each vendor's list rate, US$, as of 1 September 2026*

Salesforce, per conversation

US$2,000

Salesforce Flex Credits, voice

3 voice actions

US$450

Salesforce Flex Credits

3 actions

US$300

Microsoft Copilot Credits

pack rate

US$136

Zoho Zia Agents

past the free tokens

US$6

|  | Value (US$) |
| --- | --- |
| Salesforce, per conversation | 2,000 |
| Salesforce Flex Credits, voice | 450 |
| Salesforce Flex Credits | 300 |
| Microsoft Copilot Credits | 136 |
| Zoho Zia Agents | 6 |

Source: Salesforce Agentforce pricing (1 Sep 2026); Microsoft Copilot Studio pricing (30 Aug 2026) and billing rates (3 Aug 2026); Zoho Zia Agents pricing (12 Jun 2026); TechBag calculation · as of 1 September 2026 · units differ by vendor; Google and ServiceNow are not charted because the first prices employee seats and the second publishes no rate

TechBag countHow we priced the 1,000 chats

Each chat is three steps: find the customer, fetch the order, answer from the knowledge base. Salesforce: 3 actions × 20 credits × 1,000 = 60,000 credits at US$0.005, US$300; voice at 30 credits, US$450; or 1,000 conversations at US$2. Microsoft: 3 agent actions × 5 credits plus one generated answer × 2 = 17 credits, 17,000 in all at the pack rate of US$0.008, US$136 (a pack is 25,000, so the invoice is US$200). Zoho: our assumption of 6,000 tokens a chat gives 6 million tokens, free inside the 30 million allowance and US$6 beyond it.

## The seat survived, and now it decides who gets metered

No vendor has dropped the per-user price. Salesforce sells Agentforce add-ons for Sales, Service and Field Service at US$125 a user a month, US$150 for its industry clouds, both described as “Unmetered Agentforce usage for employees”. Agentforce 1 Editions start at US$550 a user a month with the add-on and 2.5 million Flex Credits per org a year. For staff without a full CRM licence there is a US$5 Agentforce User License that “Requires Flex Credits”: a seat that opens the meter rather than replacing it.[1]

Microsoft draws the same line by licence. Its rate table has a column headed “Used by Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed user”, and its rows for answers, actions and grounding read “No charge”, within fair-use limits, when an employee with a Copilot seat uses an internal agent under their own identity. A colleague without the seat who asks the same agent the same question spends credits.[4] Microsoft 365 Copilot is US$30 a user a month paid yearly; Copilot Business, for up to 300 users, lists at US$21, discounted to US$18 for the first year on purchases made from 1 July to 31 December 2026. Even inside the seat, Copilot Cowork, the long-running task agent, is marked “Metered”.[3] [6]

**Figure: Salesforce's flat US$125 add-on beats paying per action only above 1,250 actions a user a month**

*Monthly cost per employee of Agentforce on Flex Credits (US$0.10 an action) against the flat add-on, US$, by actions a month, list prices as of 1 September 2026*

|  | Flex Credits | Flat add-on |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 0 | 0 | 125 |
| 250 | 25 | 125 |
| 500 | 50 | 125 |
| 750 | 75 | 125 |
| 1,000 | 100 | 125 |
| 1,250 | 125 | 125 |
| 1,500 | 150 | 125 |
| 1,750 | 175 | 125 |
| 2,000 | 200 | 125 |

Source: Salesforce Agentforce pricing (1 Sep 2026); TechBag calculation · as of 1 September 2026 · excludes the underlying Sales or Service Cloud seat, which both routes need

TechBag countWhere the seat pays for itself

Salesforce: US$125 ÷ US$0.10 = 1,250 actions a user a month, about 57 a working day over 22 days. Salesforce’s own case-management example, three cases a day at three actions each for 20 days, is 180 actions, or US$18 a user. Microsoft: a question answered from Graph data is 12 credits, US$0.096 at the pack rate, so the US$30 seat breaks even at about 312 such questions a month.

A seat, in other words, is now insurance against the meter: worth buying for the few people who use agents all day, while the long tail runs on credits.

## One month, worked through: ₹3.35 lakh with GST

Take a 400-person Indian services firm. It runs Salesforce Service Cloud for 40 service reps and Microsoft 365 for everyone, with 50 managers on Copilot seats. Those seats are last year’s budget line; the question is the new metered one. Three agents run in a month, on assumptions that are ours.

TechBag countOur assumptions and arithmetic

- A customer service agent on the website, on Salesforce Flex Credits, pay-as-you-go: 200 chats a day for 30 days, three actions each. 200 × 30 × 3 × 20 credits = 3,60,000 credits at US$0.005, US$1,800.
- The 40 reps using Agentforce on Flex Credits rather than the add-on: three cases a day for 22 days at three actions a case. 40 × 3 × 22 × 3 × 20 = 1,58,400 credits, US$792.
- An IT and HR help agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat for the 350 staff without a Copilot seat: ten questions each at 12 credits, Microsoft’s own figure for a grounded answer. 42,000 credits, bought as two packs of 25,000, US$400.

At ₹94.95 to the dollar, the European Central Bank’s reference rates for 1 September,[11] the month is US$2,992, or ₹2,84,090, plus ₹51,136 of GST at 18 percent: ₹3,35,226.[12] The 50 Copilot users ask the same help agent at no charge.[4]

**Figure: Six of every ten rupees before tax go to the customer-facing agent**

*A worked month of agent usage for a 400-person Indian firm, ₹ at ₹94.95 per US$, list prices as of 1 September 2026*

- Customer service agent (Flex Credits)₹1,70,910 51%
- Service reps' agent actions (Flex Credits)₹75,200 22%
- Employee help agent (Copilot Credits)₹37,980 11%
- GST at 18%₹51,136 15%

|  | Value (₹) | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Customer service agent (Flex Credits) | 1,70,910 | 51% |
| Service reps' agent actions (Flex Credits) | 75,200 | 22% |
| Employee help agent (Copilot Credits) | 37,980 | 11% |
| GST at 18% | 51,136 | 15% |

Source: Salesforce Agentforce pricing (1 Sep 2026); Microsoft Copilot Studio pricing (30 Aug 2026) and billing rates (3 Aug 2026); ECB reference rates (1 Sep 2026); TechBag calculation · as of 1 September 2026 · assumptions are TechBag's and stated in the text; excludes the Service Cloud and Microsoft 365 seats and any Data 360 credits

The meter is the risk. If the customer chats average six actions instead of three, that line doubles to US$3,600, ₹3,41,820 before tax. The same 6,000 chats on conversation pricing would be US$12,000, ₹11,39,400, and the 40 reps on the flat add-on US$5,000, ₹4,74,750. On the Microsoft side, 8,000 of the 50,000 credits go unused and lapse; and if usage reaches 125 percent of prepaid capacity, 62,500 credits, Microsoft disables the custom agents until capacity is added, unless a pay-as-you-go meter is linked.[1] [4] [5]

## Six terms to put in the order form

The price pages already say what happens at the edges, and the edges are where a metered bill goes wrong. These are the terms we would ask for, in order of what they protect.

Salesforce’s FAQ: “Unused Flex Credits do not roll over into subsequent subscription terms,” and “There is no overage penalty. If you exceed your entitlement, your rate is your contracted rate billed monthly in arrears.”[1] Microsoft’s licensing page: “Copilot Studio enforces purchased capacity monthly, and unused Copilot Credit don’t carry over to the next month.”[5] Each of those sentences is a term to negotiate rather than accept.

**Figure: A metered contract needs six answers in writing before the first invoice**

*Contract terms to request for agent credits, tokens and actions, TechBag's sequence, drawn from vendor terms as of 1 September 2026*

Step 1 of 6

1. A hard cap, per agent

Alerts are not a cap. Microsoft lets admins set a monthly credit limit for each agent; Salesforce’s Digital Wallet sends threshold alerts. Ask for a ceiling in the order form above which agents stop or need approval.

Source: Salesforce Agentforce pricing FAQ (1 Sep 2026); Microsoft Learn, billing rates and licensing (3 Aug 2026); Zoho Zia Agents pricing (12 Jun 2026); TechTarget (10 Apr 2026) · as of 1 September 2026

Our view

Our view: the price per action matters less than the multiplier per task. A vendor that will not commit in writing to how many units a typical task consumes is asking you to forecast its bill for it.

If you are buying this in India

Salesforce’s Agentforce price list on 1 September was published in US dollars, euros, Australian dollars, British pounds, yen and Swedish kronor, and not in rupees; Zoho prices its over-limit tokens in US dollars too.[1] [7] That puts currency risk on an Indian buyer of credits. On the European Central Bank’s reference rates, a dollar cost ₹88.20 on 1 September 2025 and ₹94.95 on 1 September 2026, so the same credit cost 7.7 percent more in rupees than a year earlier without any vendor changing a price.[11]

On tax, a GST-registered business that buys a service from an overseas supplier pays the 18 percent IGST itself under reverse charge and claims it back as input tax credit; a vendor or reseller invoicing from India charges it on the invoice.[12] Either way the worked month above carries 18 percent on top, and because the base moves with usage, so does the GST. Zoho says its pro-tier model is available on request only in its US and Indian data centres, which matters to a firm keeping customer conversations in India.[7]

The action for an Indian buyer: forecast agent usage in units, convert at a stated rate with a currency buffer, and ask the reseller to invoice in rupees at a rate fixed for the quarter.

How we did this

Figures as of 2 September 2026

Prices are the vendors’ list prices from their own pages in versions dated or archived on or before 2 September 2026: Salesforce’s Agentforce page as archived on 1 September, Microsoft’s Copilot pages as archived on 30 August and its Learn pages last updated 3 August, Google’s Gemini Enterprise page as archived on 1 September, and Zoho’s Zia Agents pricing as archived on 12 June. ServiceNow publishes no AI prices; its April packaging is cited to TechTarget. The rupee rate is the ECB’s INR rate divided by its USD rate for the same day. The 1,000-chat comparison, the break-even points and the worked month are TechBag arithmetic on assumptions stated in the text; the 6,000 tokens a chat for Zoho is our assumption, not Zoho’s. Negotiated discounts, seat licences, Data 360 credits and implementation costs are excluded. Microsoft’s pay-as-you-go price per credit was not on the pages we used, so the pack rate is used throughout.

Spotted an error? Write to us; corrections are published at the foot of the piece.

Sources

1. [Salesforce, Agentforce Pricing: Flex Credits, Conversations, add-ons, Agentforce 1 Editions, User License, buying models and FAQ](https://www.salesforce.com/agentforce/pricing/) — version of 1 September 2026 Internet Archive copy of 1 September 2026; the page states it is subject to change.
2. [Salesforce, press release: Salesforce Announces Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 Results](https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2026/09/03/fy27-q2-earnings/) — 26 August 2026
3. [Microsoft, Copilot Studio plans and pricing (Microsoft 365 Copilot US$30; Copilot Credit packs US$200 for 25,000; pay-as-you-go; prepurchase)](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/pricing/copilot-studio) — version of 30 August 2026 Internet Archive copy of 30 August 2026.
4. [Microsoft Learn, Billing rates and management, Microsoft Copilot Studio (Copilot Credit rates, licensed-user inclusion, overage enforcement)](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/requirements-messages-management) — last updated 3 August 2026
5. [Microsoft Learn, Standard harness licensing, Microsoft Copilot Studio (pay-as-you-go, prepurchase plan, capacity enforcement)](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/billing-licensing) — last updated 3 August 2026
6. [Microsoft, Microsoft 365 Copilot plans and pricing for business (Copilot Business US$21, US$18 offer 1 July to 31 December 2026; Copilot Cowork metered)](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/pricing) — version of 30 August 2026 Internet Archive copy of 30 August 2026.
7. [Zoho, Zia Agents pricing (agents free; 30 million and 20 million free tokens a month; US$1 and US$3 per million over the limit; Agent Wallet)](https://www.zoho.com/agents/pricing.html) — version of 12 June 2026 Internet Archive copy of 12 June 2026; no later copy before 2 September exists.
8. [TechBag, Salesforce Agentforce intel page (pricing models: per conversation, Flex Credits, per user)](https://www.thetechbag.com/salesforce/salesforce-agentforce) — version of 2 September 2026
9. [Google Cloud, Gemini Enterprise app: editions and pricing (Business US$21, Standard and Plus US$30 a seat; pay-as-you-go edition)](https://cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise) — version of 1 September 2026 Internet Archive copy of 1 September 2026.
10. [TechTarget (Beth Pariseau): ServiceNow AI pricing change takes on enterprise ROI struggles](https://www.techtarget.com/searchitoperations/news/366641692/ServiceNow-AI-pricing-change-takes-on-enterprise-ROI-struggles) — 10 April 2026
11. [European Central Bank, euro foreign exchange reference rates (INR and USD), 1 September 2025 and 1 September 2026](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/policy_and_exchange_rates/euro_reference_exchange_rates/html/index.en.html) — 1 September 2026 ₹110.0485 and US$1.1590 per euro on 1 September 2026; ₹103.3225 and US$1.1715 on 1 September 2025.
12. [India Briefing, Digital services in India: OIDAR, GST applicability and reverse charge](https://www.india-briefing.com/news/tax-digital-services-oidar-in-india-gst-applicability-and-compliance-22465.html) — updated 29 September 2023

Related on TechBag: the [Salesforce Agentforce page](https://www.thetechbag.com/salesforce/salesforce-agentforce) tracks its pricing models[8]; the [Microsoft Copilot page](https://www.thetechbag.com/microsoft/microsoft-copilot) covers the seat and Copilot Studio; the [Zoho CRM page](https://www.thetechbag.com/zoho/zoho-crm) carries the rupee editions that Zia Agents run on.

**Disclosure.** TechBag is a software reseller: it earns a margin when a reader buys through it, including from vendors named here. The analysis is TechBag’s own; no vendor paid for or saw this piece before publication. Facts are labelled reported, TechBag count or our view.

Go deeper on TechBag

- [Salesforce Agentforce](https://www.thetechbag.com/salesforce/salesforce-agentforce) — pricing models: per conversation, Flex Credits and per user
- [Microsoft Copilot](https://www.thetechbag.com/microsoft/microsoft-copilot) — the Copilot seat and Copilot Studio agents
- [Zoho CRM](https://www.thetechbag.com/zoho/zoho-crm) — rupee editions that Zia Agents run on