Ada vs Forethought
A side-by-side comparison of Ada and Forethought on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
2 of the 14 capabilities tracked on both differ.
| Measure | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Sales-gated | Sales-gated |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 1 capability |
Capability by capability
2 of the 14 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| IncludedThe Ada Email Channel bills as an Email Conversation with a 72-hour inactivity window. | IncludedProfessional and above. The email agent is not part of Team. | |
| Live chat | IncludedChat is the default channel and the default billed unit. This is bot chat with escalation, not a human live-chat console. | IncludedTeam and above. The vendor's wording is "AI agents for chat and mobile". |
| Voice | Included | IncludedProfessional and above. The voice agent is not part of Team. |
Ticketing
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | Not published | NoForethought is an overlay that runs on an existing help desk rather than a ticketing system of its own. Its integration page names 23 help desks and CRMs it plugs into, and Zendesk markets it as needing no migration. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedUnknown. No plans are published. | IncludedTeam and above. |
| Resolution over knowledge base | IncludedKnowledge is ingested from the customer's existing systems rather than migrated: Zendesk Guide, Salesforce Knowledge, Genesys, GuruKB, Helpjuice, Paligo, Contentful, Docusaurus and GitHub are all listed as content sources. | Not published |
| Action-taking (API calls) | IncludedAPI tools, code tools and MCP tools are documented, and tool invocations appear in the conversation export as used_mcp with an outcome_status. | IncludedTeam and above. Listed as "Custom actions". |
| Handoff to human | IncludedEscalation is a first-class contractual concept: an Automated Resolution is defined as a conversation that is not escalated, and the export carries is_escalated. Handoff blocks are documented separately. | IncludedProfessional and above for "custom handoff models". Whether a default handoff exists on Team is not published. |
| Guardrails & citations | IncludedCitations only. Each conversation records used_articles with article id, name, url and source. Guardrails are not published as a named feature, so the guardrail half of this attribute is Unknown. | Not publishedGuardrails are published at policy level only: "strict security, privacy, and bias-mitigation controls to manage AI risks". The technical mechanics and citation behaviour are not documented. |
| Multilingual AI | IncludedMultilingual support, language switching and manual translations are documented, and the conversation export carries an ISO-639-1 language field. Ada publishes no supported-language count, so the number is Unknown. | IncludedTeam and above. Listed as "multilingual support". The list of supported languages is not published. |
AI assist
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| Summarization | IncludedThe conversation export carries inquiry_summary and a machine-written automated_resolution_classification_reason. | Not published |
| Auto-tagging | IncludedThe conversation object carries classifications, topics and intents alongside the Ada-generated automated_resolution_classification. | IncludedTeam and above. |
AI voice
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | IncludedVoice Services are governed by their own Service Specific Terms with a separate billed unit and unpublished Fair Use Limits. | Not published |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| Automated QA coverage | Not published | IncludedTeam and above. Listed as "AI QA". |
Reporting
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | Not published | IncludedTeam and above for the "Insights dashboard". AI-surfaced insights are Professional and above. |
| Raw data export | IncludedBulk, cursor-paginated conversation and message export endpoints returning JSON, on a self-serve API key. | Paid add-onEnterprise. The Analytics API, described as conversation-level data access, is an Enterprise plan feature and is also sold as a paid add-on. Neither price is published. |
| CSAT / NPS | IncludedCSAT score, style and free-text feedback plus CES and NPS all sit on the conversation object. There is no separate analytics or report export endpoint. | IncludedTeam and above. "CSAT collection" only; NPS is not mentioned on the pricing page. |
Enterprise
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| Role-based access control | IncludedUnknown. No plans are published, so no role is known to be tier-gated. | Not published |
| Audit logs | IncludedUnknown. No plans are published. | Not publishedEnterprise is described as adding enterprise security and governance controls, but audit logging is not named and AI audit logging is not addressed. |
| Multi-brand | Not published | IncludedProfessional and above for multi-brand management. A separate Multibrand add-on covers up to 20 brands with personalised experiences, at an unpublished price. |
| SOC 2 | IncludedUnknown. No plans are published. | IncludedSOC 2 Type II. No plan gate is stated. |
| ISO 27001 | NoNot listed in the trust center. Ada states its security program follows CIS Controls v8.0 rather than ISO. | IncludedClaimed on the security page. No plan gate is stated. ISO 42001 is not mentioned. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated. | IncludedReflected in the DPA, which also covers CCPA. No plan gate is stated. |
| Data residency | IncludedUnknown. Europe is an opt-in enrollment rather than a default; whether enrollment carries a price is not published. | Not publishedThe security page names no region and offers no residency choice. EU-only inference, VPC and on-premise deployment are not addressed. |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | IncludedA bulk end-user deletion API with a pollable deletion job, plus a Data Compliance API for deleting chatter data that the docs now mark deprecated. | Not published |
Developer
| Capability | Ada | Forethought |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedREST with JSON, rotatable API keys, opt-in versioning for breaking changes, cursor-based pagination and a downloadable OpenAPI 3.1 spec. | IncludedEnterprise. Solve API and Analytics API. |
| Webhooks | IncludedWebhook endpoints are listable via the API, plus documented end-user created, end-user updated and audit log event webhooks. | Not published |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What Ada costs
- Billing unit
Per conversation - Free tier
Not published - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
Conversation - Human handoff
Still billed - Reopened chat
Billed again - AI billing window
1d of inactivity - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Full
2 of 9 not published by Ada, checked
What Forethought costs
- Billing unit
Two-part and entirely unpriced - Free tier
Not published - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
outcome-based pricing cost - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Not published - Automation export
Not published
7 of 9 not published by Forethought, checked