AI agent comparison database
Twelve agent types on one grid. Cost bands are illustrative monthly run costs (model + channel only) at the volume stated, computed from the price basis on the costs page; they exclude build, hosting, BSP platform fees and people. Risk class reflects what a wrong action costs, not how often it happens.
| Type | Job | Channels | Autonomy | Tools | Volume | Cost band / month | Risk | Integrations | Fits | Avoid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer support (tier 1) | Resolve FAQs, order/status queries, policy questions; hand off the rest | WhatsApp, Web chat, Email | Act with confirmation | knowledge search, order lookup, ticket create, handoff | 3,000 conversations/month | US$40–150 Text within 24 h windows is free on WhatsApp; model cost dominates | Medium Wrong answers at scale; sensitive data in transcripts | WhatsApp Cloud API, helpdesk, CRM, knowledge base | High-volume repetitive questions with a written policy | No documented answers; regulated advice |
| Appointment booking | Offer slots, hold, confirm, remind, reschedule | WhatsApp, Voice, Web | Act with confirmation | availability, create/cancel booking, reminder template, handoff | 1,000 bookings/month | US$25–60 ≈US$0.025 model + US$0.004 reminder template per booking | Low Writes are reversible; confirmation gate before commit | Google/Microsoft calendar, practice/salon software, WhatsApp templates | Clinics, salons, workshops, tutors, test centres | Bookings needing clinical triage or deposits without a payments rail |
| Sales qualification & follow-up | Qualify inbound leads, answer product questions, book demos, chase quotes | WhatsApp, Email, Web forms | Act with confirmation | CRM read/write, product catalogue, quote generator, calendar | 800 leads/month | US$20–80 Adds US$0.0225 per marketing template if you re-engage outside the window | Medium Over-promising, discount hallucination, spam classification of templates | GoHighLevel/HubSpot/Zoho, WhatsApp templates, Paynow for deposits | Businesses with a price list and a clear qualification rule | Negotiated B2B deals with bespoke pricing |
| Voice — inbound reception | Answer calls, route, take messages, book | Phone (PSTN/SIP) | Act with confirmation | directory, calendar, transfer, SMS/WhatsApp follow-up | 1,000 minutes/month | US$120–950 Telephony dominates: international carriers charge ≈US$0.86/min to Zimbabwe mobiles; a local SIP trunk changes the band entirely | Medium Latency and accent/language coverage; callers cannot see what was booked | Twilio/Vonage or local operator SIP, STT/TTS, calendar | Businesses missing calls after hours | Callers on poor networks; regulated intake |
| Voice — outbound reminders & confirmations | Call to confirm appointments, deliveries, payments due | Phone | Act | dial list, calendar, record outcome | 2,000 calls × 1.5 min | US$250–2700 Same telephony problem; WhatsApp utility templates do the same job at US$0.004 | Medium Consent for automated calls; nuisance perception | CRM, telephony, WhatsApp fallback | Only where recipients are not on WhatsApp | Anywhere a WhatsApp template works |
| Internal operations assistant | Answer staff questions from policies, draft reports, chase approvals | Slack/Teams, Email, Internal web | Assist | document search, spreadsheet read, report draft, approval request | 5,000 queries/month | US$30–200 No channel fees; cost scales with document size in context | Low Internal audience; read-mostly | SharePoint/Google Drive, HRIS, ERP read APIs | Organisations with lots of written policy and slow email | Where source documents are stale or contradictory |
| Finance — invoices & reconciliation | Match invoices to payments (EcoCash/bank), flag exceptions, prepare FDMS-ready invoices | Email, Internal | Act with confirmation | invoice parse, bank/EcoCash statement read, ledger propose, FDMS submit (gated) | 3,000 documents/month | US$60–300 Document tokens (OCR/PDF) drive cost; batch API halves it | High Money and tax filings; errors compound silently | Sage/Xero/QuickBooks/Pastel, Paynow/EcoCash reports, ZIMRA FDMS API | Volume reconciliation with a human approving postings | Unsupervised posting or filing |
| Research & monitoring | Track tenders, prices, regulations, competitors; summarise with citations | Email digest, Internal | Assist | web fetch, search, document store, digest writer | 200 reports/month | US$40–250 Long inputs; Opus-class models for synthesis raise the top of the band | Low Misinformation risk is contained if citations are mandatory | RSS/web, gazettes, internal docs | Teams drowning in sources | Decisions taken directly from summaries without checking sources |
| Payment reminders & collections | Remind, take promise-to-pay, send Paynow link, log outcome | WhatsApp, SMS, Voice | Act with confirmation | ledger read, payment link, promise log, handoff | 4,000 reminders/month | US$30–120 Utility templates at US$0.004 each ≈ US$16; model cost small | High Tone, harassment law, disputes; must never threaten | Paynow, WhatsApp templates, accounting | Recurring bills (school fees, subscriptions, rentals) | Disputed debts; anything adversarial |
| HR & IT helpdesk | Leave balances, payslip questions, password resets, onboarding | WhatsApp, Teams, Email | Act with confirmation | HRIS read, ticket create, reset (gated), policy search | 2,000 requests/month | US$20–90 Small prompts; mostly cached policy text | Medium Personal data of employees; identity verification | HRIS/payroll, identity provider, ticketing | Organisations >150 staff | Where identity cannot be verified on the channel |
| Field & site operations (mining, agri, logistics) | Shift reports, incident capture, stock/fuel queries, dispatch updates via WhatsApp voice notes and photos | WhatsApp (text, voice notes, images) | Assist | transcribe, form fill, ERP read, alert | 6,000 messages/month | US$50–350 Audio/image inputs cost more than text; offline gaps need queueing | Medium Safety-critical context; connectivity gaps; no clinical/safety advice | ERP/fleet systems, WhatsApp media, SCADA read-only | Dispersed sites with WhatsApp-first workers | Safety-critical control actions |
| Procurement & quoting | Turn RFQs into structured quotes, check stock, request supplier prices | Email, WhatsApp | Act with confirmation | catalogue, stock read, quote draft, supplier email | 600 RFQs/month | US$20–100 Attachments (PDF/XLSX) add input tokens | Medium Pricing errors; commitments made in writing | ERP, email, e-signature | Distributors with a stable price book | Bespoke engineering quotes |
Methodology
- Model cost: per-conversation estimates from the demo trace (≈925 uncached input, ≈35,000 cached input, ≈635 output tokens across 8 calls) scaled by the conversation shape of each type, at Claude Sonnet 5 list prices (US$2 / US$10 per million tokens; cache reads at 0.1×) for the top of the band and Haiku 4.5 (US$1 / US$5) for the bottom. Document- and audio-heavy types use higher input estimates.
- WhatsApp cost: replies inside the 24-hour service window at US$0; utility templates at US$0.0040 and marketing templates at US$0.0225 per delivered message to +263 (Rest-of-Africa rate card effective 1 July 2026 as published by SleekFlow).
- Voice cost: Twilio Zimbabwe rate US$0.8641 per minute to mobiles; STT ≈US$0.0048/min and TTS/agent runtime ≈US$0.08/min as reported by third parties. A local SIP trunk would change the voice rows materially; obtain operator rates.
- Risk class: Low = reversible actions, no money or sensitive data; Medium = personal data or reputational exposure; High = money, tax, employment or health consequences. Under the Cyber and Data Protection Act, High-class agents should keep a person on any decision with significant effect.
- Last reviewed 2026-09-14. Rates change; the costs page lists every source. Reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.