Oct 1, 2026

8 Best Forethought Alternatives and Competitors in 2026

Forethought made its name as the AI agent that plugged into whatever help desk you ran: Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshworks, Kustomer and dozens more. On March 28, 2026, Zendesk finished buying it, and it’s now sold as “Forethought AI agents by Zendesk.”

If you run it on Salesforce Service Cloud or Freshdesk, your AI agent now comes from a company that competes with your help desk. If you’re evaluating it fresh, there’s still no price on the page.

The quick answer: The best Forethought alternative for support that comes in by phone and text is Carly. Carly Phone puts an AI agent on your business number that answers calls and texts from your own FAQs, documents and website, looks up the returning customer, books and reschedules on a real calendar, and hands the conversation to a teammate in one shared inbox. Carly connects to thousands of apps, including Zendesk, Salesforce and Freshdesk, so your phone line isn’t tied to one help desk’s roadmap. Try Carly. For chat and email: Zendesk’s native AI agents if you’re staying on Zendesk, Fin or Agentforce on Salesforce, Decagon, Sierra or Ada for an enterprise bake-off, and eesel for published prices on your current help desk.

Forethought alternatives compared

Prices checked against each vendor’s US site on October 1, 2026. Four of the nine don’t publish a price at all.

Tool	Pricing	Voice agent	How you buy	Best for
Carly	AI agents from $35/mo	Answers calls and texts on your number, books, transfers	Sign up and connect your number	Support that arrives by phone, text and email, on any help desk
Forethought (for reference)	Not published; platform fee plus outcome-based charges	On the Professional plan and up	Zendesk Sales; Proof of Value instead of a trial	Enterprise teams with deep ticket history
Zendesk AI Agents	Suite Team $55/agent/mo annually; $1.50 to $2.00 per automated resolution past the allowance	Telephony in Suite; generative AI for voice on Enterprise	Self-serve or sales	Teams staying on Zendesk
Fin (formerly Intercom)	$0.99 per outcome; 50 a month minimum on other help desks	Fin Voice, $1.99 per voice outcome	Free trial on Intercom’s help desk; sales on others	Teams on Salesforce, HubSpot or Freshworks that want a visible price
Salesforce Agentforce	$2 per conversation, or Flex Credits	Agentforce Voice	Salesforce sales; free starter edition	Service Cloud teams
Decagon	Not published; sales quote	Decagon Voice	Enterprise sales	Consumer brands running an enterprise bake-off
Sierra	Not published; outcome-based	Inbound and outbound, 55+ languages	Enterprise sales, 12-month contract	The very largest brands
Ada	Not published; sales quote	Voice plus chat, email and messaging	Enterprise sales	Global, multilingual support teams
eesel	$299/mo for 500 credits, up to $1,899 for 5,000	Not listed	Self-serve, 100 trial credits	Teams that want a published price on their current help desk

Want to test the Carly row before your Forethought renewal call? Set up Carly on your support line and call it yourself.

Why teams leave Forethought

The vendor changed hands. Zendesk closed the deal on March 28, 2026, and started selling “Forethought AI agents by Zendesk” on June 4. Its help center says Forethought “can operate independent of the Zendesk platform” and still integrates with other help desks. Purchases now go through Zendesk Sales, at a company that also sells its own native AI agents.
No price until a Proof of Value. Team, Professional and Enterprise all say “Get a Quote.” Pricing is “a blend of platform access fees and an outcome-based pricing cost,” and extra usage charges may apply past your plan’s limits. Instead of a free trial, you get a Proof of Value run on your data with the sales team.
Voice and email sit on the middle tier. Team covers AI agents for chat and mobile. Email, voice and Slack agents start on Professional. Discover, the Analytics API and Multibrand are add-ons, and Zendesk’s product guide lists Assist, Triage and the QA tools as add-ons on top of Solve.
It takes ongoing tuning. Forethought holds a 4.3 on G2 across 166 reviews, praised for its Salesforce integration and custom workflows. G2’s own summary of the complaints: a higher-than-expected learning curve, a web interface that “sometimes experiences latency,” and slow turnaround on changes.
Customers get stuck with the bot. Forethought’s Trustpilot score is 2.5 from just 8 reviews, mostly from end customers of brands that use it, with titles like “Infinite loop with a useless chatbot, unable to get through to support.” It’s a small sample, but the common thread is customers who can’t reach a person.

Here’s the math for Claire, who runs support for a 25-location fitness studio chain on Salesforce Service Cloud. Forethought handles website chat on the Team plan, while 3,000 calls and texts a month (class times, bookings, membership freezes, billing) still land on her team. Adding Forethought’s voice agent means moving up to Professional, on a quote now negotiated with Zendesk. For scale, published per-resolution rates in this category run from $0.99 (Fin) to $1.99 (Fin Voice) to $2 (Agentforce, and Zendesk’s pay-as-you-go rate), so 2,000 automated conversations a month is roughly $2,000 to $4,000 in usage before Forethought’s platform fee. Claire needs the phone answered, the class booked and the billing question handed to a person with the transcript. If that’s your line too, get started with Carly.

1. Carly: best Forethought alternative for phone and text support on any help desk

Carly is an AI assistant for businesses, and Carly Phone gives it a business line: a new local number or the one you already have. Its voice agent answers from your own FAQs, documents and website (opening hours, return policy, what a plan includes), looks the customer up, books or reschedules them on a real calendar while they’re on the line, texts a link with their consent, or transfers them to a teammate. Texts to the same number get the same answers, and Carly reads the photo a customer texts in, saves their details and books the next open slot. More in our AI receptionist and SMS appointment booking guides.

Questions about a specific order, refund or account go to your team with the transcript and summary attached, so nobody asks the customer to start over. That’s the fix for the loop Forethought’s Trustpilot reviewers describe. Calls and texts land in one shared inbox per number, with transcripts, summaries, outcomes and voicemail recordings. Threads can be assigned and marked open, closed or unread, and a “Carly replies / Human replies” switch lets a person take over the moment it matters. Try Carly and call your own number as a frustrated customer.

Forethought learns from your past tickets. Carly is the same assistant that already works your email, calendar and CRM, so when Josh calls about the quote you emailed him on Tuesday, Carly looks him up and already has that thread. Completed calls log to HubSpot, Salesforce or Dynamics 365, plus Carly’s built-in CRM.

The rest of the setup:

One number for calls and texts, with STOP and HELP opt-outs handled automatically.
Call routing that rings your team all at once or in order, with business-hours and after-hours rules, phone menus and voicemail with transcripts.
An email agent on your own domain, such as support@yourcompany.com, with a draft-for-review mode while you build trust.
Thousands of apps. Carly connects to thousands of apps, including Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshdesk, Intercom, Gorgias, HubSpot, Shopify, Stripe and Slack. Whichever help desk you renew, the phone line stays the same.

Best for: Support teams whose customers call and text, who want an AI agent on the line without a platform contract or a help desk migration. Pricing: Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. Setup: Connect your business number in Carly (the one you already have or a new one), then give it your knowledge, routing and handoff rules. The Carly team can help with setup. Set up Carly on your support line.

2. Zendesk AI Agents

If you run Zendesk, the simplest path is the one Zendesk is building: native AI agents, with Forethought as a sales-assisted add-on. AI agents come with every Suite and Support plan and bill per automated resolution, counted only when the AI agent resolves the request without escalating to a human. More in our Zendesk alternatives and AI automation tools for Zendesk.

Best for: Teams committed to Zendesk for the long run. Pricing: Suite Team $55 an agent a month billed annually ($69 monthly), Suite Professional $115 ($149). Each plan includes an allowance of automated resolutions, then $1.50 each committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. The Forethought add-on is a sales quote. Watch out for: Seats and resolutions are two bills that both grow, and it deepens your bet on a single vendor.

3. Fin (formerly Intercom)

Fin is the closest thing to Forethought’s “works on any help desk” pitch with a price on the page. It runs on Intercom’s help desk or on Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshworks, Front, Zoho, Gorgias, Dixa and Sprinklr, and Fin says setup takes under an hour. Salesforce closed its roughly $3.6 billion purchase of the company in September 2026, so this swap doesn’t take you out of acquired-vendor territory. See our Intercom pricing breakdown and Intercom alternatives.

Best for: Teams on Salesforce, HubSpot or Freshworks that want a published price. Pricing: $0.99 per outcome, charged at most once per conversation, with a 50-outcome monthly minimum on another help desk. Fin Voice is sold through sales at $1.99 per voice outcome. Watch out for: Procedure handoffs and self-serve routings bill at the same $0.99 as resolutions, so the invoice tracks usage more than solved problems.

4. Salesforce Agentforce

For Forethought customers on Service Cloud, Agentforce puts the AI agent next to the case and customer record you already keep, and Agentforce Voice extends it to the phone.

Best for: Service teams standardized on Salesforce. Pricing: $2 per conversation for customer-facing agents, or Flex Credits at $500 per 100,000, where a standard action uses 20 credits and an Agentforce Voice action 30. A free Salesforce Foundations edition lets you start building. Watch out for: Each action is metered individually, so a multi-step call burns several. Model it against your real call flows first.

5. Decagon

Decagon is the independent enterprise bid to put next to Forethought. Its agents follow Agent Operating Procedures written in plain language across voice, chat and email, and Chime is a named Decagon Voice customer. Bloomberg reported a $4.5 billion valuation in January 2026. Background in what is Decagon AI and Decagon vs Sierra.

Best for: Consumer brands with enterprise volume and a procurement team. Pricing: Not published; sales quote. Watch out for: The same enterprise motion as Forethought: a sales cycle, a custom contract and an implementation project. More in our Decagon AI alternatives.

6. Sierra

Sierra builds one agent across chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email and voice, with voice in over 55 languages and payments taken on the call. It bills on agreed outcomes, such as a resolved conversation or a saved cancellation, and by its own count one in four of its customers has revenue over $10 billion.

Best for: Very large brands with huge contact volume. Pricing: Not published. Its AWS Marketplace listing sells a 12-month contract priced by private offer. Watch out for: It’s built for the top of the market. Our Sierra AI alternatives page covers the trade-offs.

7. Ada

Ada is a long-running AI customer service platform for global, multilingual teams, working across chat, email, messaging and voice. It says it’s trusted by 350+ global enterprises, Pinterest and Barnes & Noble among them.

Best for: Large support teams serving customers in many languages. Pricing: Not published. Ada’s pricing page goes straight to a demo booking. Watch out for: Like Forethought, you won’t see a unit price until you’re through a sales process. See our Ada alternatives.

8. eesel

eesel is the self-serve option: connect your help desk (Zendesk, Freshdesk and others), point it at your docs and see real drafts before you pay. It prices by credits, and a ticket or chat counts as one however long it runs.

Best for: Teams that want to keep their help desk and see the bill before they commit. Pricing: 100 free trial credits, then $299 a month for 500 credits, $499 for 1,000, $999 for 2,500 and $1,899 for 5,000. No platform fee or per-seat price, cancel any time, two months free on annual. Watch out for: Credits don’t roll over, and agents pause when you run out unless you turn on overage at $0.80 a credit. More in our eesel alternatives.

Matching the replacement to how your team uses Forethought

Customers call and text, and you want the phone answered, appointments booked and a person pulled in with context: Carly. It runs on your number, looks up the customer and works with whichever help desk you end up on. Try Carly, or compare it with other AI answering services.
You run Zendesk and plan to stay: Zendesk AI Agents, with Forethought as an add-on if you want it.
You run Salesforce Service Cloud: Agentforce, or Fin for a per-outcome price.
You run Freshdesk, HubSpot or Front: Fin, or eesel for a fixed monthly credit bundle.
An enterprise bake-off with an enterprise budget: Decagon, Sierra or Ada, with Ada strongest across languages.

Before your Forethought renewal call, pull last month’s contacts and count how many came in by phone or text, and how many of those were hours, policies, a booking or a reschedule. That’s the share an AI agent on your line can answer today, whatever your help desk. Get started with Carly and point it at those calls first. For the wider field, see our best AI agents for customer support and AI customer service agent guides.

FAQ

What is the best alternative to Forethought?

For support that comes in by phone and text, Carly: its AI agent answers your business line and texts from your own knowledge, looks up the returning customer, books appointments and hands off to a teammate in a shared inbox, on any help desk. For chat and email at enterprise scale, Decagon and Fin are the closest matches. Try Carly on your own number.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Forethought?

Forethought doesn’t publish prices, but several alternatives do. Fin is $0.99 per outcome, Zendesk’s native AI agents are $1.50 to $2.00 per automated resolution past the allowance, and eesel starts at $299 a month for 500 credits. Carly starts with free Zapier-style workflows, and AI agents start at $35/month. Get started with Carly.

Is Forethought still available if I don’t use Zendesk?

Yes, according to Zendesk. Its help center says Forethought “can operate independent of the Zendesk platform,” and Forethought’s integrations page still lists Salesforce, Freshworks, Intercom, Kustomer and 70+ connectors in all. Purchases go through Zendesk Sales. To keep your phone line independent of that decision, set up Carly on your support line.

How much does Forethought cost?

Forethought doesn’t publish prices. Team, Professional and Enterprise are all quote-only, priced as a platform access fee plus outcome-based charges, with possible extra usage charges past your plan’s limits. Voice and email agents start on Professional, and there’s a Proof of Value instead of a free trial.

Forethought vs Decagon vs Ada: which is better?

All three are enterprise AI support platforms sold by quote. Decagon is the newer, independent challenger with voice, chat and email agents. Ada is the multilingual specialist. Forethought’s edge is its long list of help desk integrations, now with Zendesk behind it. If most of your volume is calls and texts, try Carly alongside any of them.

Ready to automate your busywork?

Carly schedules, researches, and briefs you—so you can focus on what matters.

See the prompt

Set up Carly so you can handle my email, calendars, and files for me: every Gmail and Outlook account at once, plus scheduling, follow-ups, and workflows that keep running after this chat is closed.

1. Add the Carly MCP server (https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/) and sign me in. Use the one that matches you:
- Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http --scope user carly https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/ (then I run /mcp, pick carly, and authenticate)
- Codex: codex mcp add carly --url https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/ then codex mcp login carly
- Claude (claude.ai, Claude Desktop, or Cowork): Customize > Connectors > Add custom connector, paste the URL, and sign in. Carly is also in Claude's connector directory at claude.ai/directory/carly.
- ChatGPT: open Plugins, search for "Carly" and add it (or click + and paste the URL), then sign in.
- Cursor: add {"mcpServers": {"carly": {"url": "https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/"}}} to ~/.cursor/mcp.json, then sign in to carly from Customize.
- Muse: I will create a Carly API key at carlyassistant.com/integrations (Advanced > API Keys > Create a new key, with Select all scopes). Build a custom connector to https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/ using an API key as a bearer token, and ask me for the key in your secure credential prompt.
- Grok: go to grok.com/connectors, choose New Connector, then Custom, paste the URL, and sign in.
- Grok Bot: open Plugins, add a custom remote MCP server named carly with the URL, then I approve it and sign in.
- Perplexity: Settings > Connectors > Custom connector > Remote, paste the URL, and sign in.
- Anything else: add a remote MCP server (streamable HTTP) named carly with the URL. It signs in with OAuth.
I sign in with my Carly account, or create one at carlyassistant.com.

2. Walk me through connecting my accounts at https://carlyassistant.com/integrations. Under Accounts, I type each email address I use and click Add Email. On each new address, I click Connect Gmail or Connect Outlook, tick what Carly can reach (Email, Calendar, Contacts, Drive or OneDrive), then click Connect with Google or Connect with Microsoft and grant access. For an address that is already connected, I open Manage access and click Connect next to anything missing. Repeat for every address. Carly connects to thousands of apps, so ask which other tools I want in too (CRM, Slack, Notion, and so on).

3. Check it worked: list my connected mailboxes and calendars and tell me every account you can see.

4. Then ask me what to hand off first, for example: "Check all my inboxes for anything that needs a reply today."

See what people say

"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.

Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.

On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."

Gus Ibrahim, Founder & Director, IHR