What does AI customer service cost for an SME?

"So what does it actually cost?" It is usually the first question anyone asks the moment AI and customer service land in the same sentence. Fair enough. So let's use use real numbers, pulled straight from statistics online.

What human customer service costs

Start with one full-time support agent. Their gross salary is only half the picture: once you add employer contributions of around 25%, plus holiday pay, 13th-month pay and insurance, you quickly reach 130 to 140% of the gross. All in, that agent costs an employer €45,000 to €55,000 a year.

Call it roughly €35 for every hour they spend on the phone or in the inbox.

A big share of those hours goes to the same questions. Opening hours, where-is-my-order, returns, "do you also do X". Every single day.

What Sarrai costs

Sarrai starts at €149 a month. That covers up to 500 conversations, which works out to about €0.30 a conversation.

That rate stays flat, no matter how many conversations you have. Should you exceed the conversations provided in your tier, you'll pay the same €0.30 per extra conversation. There's no surprise at the bottom of your invoice, and there is no penalty for exceeding your limits. If you steadily increase in volume, you can always pick a higher support plan, up to €699 a month for 5,000 conversations.

The two costs side by side

Sarrai does not replace your team. It takes the repetition off their plate, and that is where real costs can be saved!

Take one routine question. An agent spends about six minutes on it: reading, finding the answer, writing back. At €35 an hour that is €3.50 a question. The same question costs about €0.30 with Sarrai. More than ten times less, for work that re-occurs every day.

This adds up fast. Let's say you have 500 questions per month, of which half are routine questions. That is 25 hours a month of repetitive work, worth around €875. With Sarrai, the total cost of those repetitive questions equals €149. What is left, more than €700 a month or over €8,000 a year, is time your people can put back into the cases that actually need them. Customers get an answer faster, day and night, and your inbox is a lot lighter on Monday morning.

Run the numbers yourself

Every business has different numbers. So we built a simple calculator where you enter your own volume, your own hourly cost and your own share of routine questions. You see straight away what it frees up.

Calculate your savings using our cost savings calculator →

Rather see Sarrai answer your own questions first, on your own content? Book a short demo.