Assembled vs Surfboard
A side-by-side comparison of Assembled and Surfboard on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
1 of the 4 capabilities tracked on both differs.
| Measure | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $25/seat/mo | No longer sold |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Not published |
| AI billed at | $0.65 per conversation | Not published |
| Included, where the other says no | 1 capability | 0 capabilities |
Capability by capability
1 of the 4 capabilities tracked on both products differs.
Channels
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| IncludedAI Agents work across phone, chat and email. The channel itself belongs to the connected help desk; Assembled layers on top rather than owning the inbox. | Not published | |
| Live chat | IncludedSame posture as email: AI Agents operate on the chat channel of the connected desk rather than providing a widget. | Not published |
| Voice | IncludedPhone coverage comes through AI Voice or through a connected CCaaS platform, not through a WFM plan. | Not published |
Ticketing
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | Not published | NoNo inbox. Surfboard read volume out of the ticketing and telephony systems and scheduled against it. |
| Ticket queues | Not published | NoNo ticket object of its own. |
| SLA policies | Not published | IncludedPro and above, as SLA driven capacity planning: the forecast was built to hit a service level rather than to fill a rota. |
| Business hours | Not published | IncludedAll plans. Timezone management was listed in Scalers, which matters for the distributed support teams this was built for rather than for a single-site contact centre. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedAI Agents, a separately purchased product metered at $0.65 per conversation. | NoNothing customer-facing. |
| Multilingual AI | IncludedLanguage detection and translation are claimed; the set of languages is not published, and the UI language list is Unknown. | Not published |
AI assist
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | IncludedAI Copilot, $35 per agent per month, purchased separately. | Not published |
| Translation | IncludedAI Copilot. | Not published |
AI voice
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | IncludedAI Voice, sold on a custom quote only. No price, rate or minute allowance is published. | Not published |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | Not published | NoNo knowledge base product. Surfboard ran its own product help centre, now offline with the domain. |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation QA scoring | Not published | NoNo quality management at all, which separated Surfboard from Playvox and from the contact centre suites. It scheduled and forecast; it did not score conversations. |
| Agent scorecards | IncludedAssembled does not grade conversations itself. The Agent Scorecard combines QA scores ingested from Klaus, Rippit (formerly MaestroQA), evaluagent and Observe.AI with its own adherence and productivity data. | Not published |
| Forecasting | IncludedMarked available at Core, Pro and Enterprise alike in the published comparison table. | IncludedPro and above for anything driven by real demand. The forecasting comparison lists unlimited ticketing platform integrations, forecast by custom channel or inbox, SLA driven capacity planning, forecast versus actuals comparison, manual forecast adjustments, custom shrinkage levels, concurrency calculations and scenario planning tools. |
| Scheduling | IncludedMarked available at Core, Pro and Enterprise alike. | IncludedAll plans, and the deepest part of the product. Reusable shift plans, rotating patterns, automated round robins, time off in lieu, split shifts, compliance with contracted hours, draft and publish control, overtime scheduling, availability collection, shift swap and change requests, and break scheduling. |
| Adherence tracking | IncludedMarked available at Core, Pro and Enterprise alike. | IncludedSplit by plan. Tracking agent adherence as time-on-task appears in the reporting comparison at the lower tiers; "Real-time adherence and productivity" and real-time management dashboards were Enterprise only. |
Reporting
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | IncludedMarked available at Core, Pro and Enterprise alike. | Not published |
| Custom reports | Not published | IncludedPro and above for performance and schedule analytics. The reporting set covered shrinkage, coverage accuracy analysis, agent utilisation and productivity alongside adherence. |
| Raw data export | Not published | IncludedTimesheet exports on every plan including Scalers. Custom data exports on Enterprise only. |
| Data warehouse sync | Via partnerWarehouse egress runs through a Fivetran connector that Assembled attributes to Fivetran rather than to itself. No first-party warehouse sync is published. | Not published |
| Real-time reporting | IncludedReal-time adherence monitoring is the live view; no separate real-time analytics product is named. | Not published |
Enterprise
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | Not publishedNot named on the security page or in the published feature comparison. | IncludedEnterprise only, described as "Enterprise grade security including SAML SSO" with no provider list. |
| Role-based access control | Included"Restricted site permissions - Specify user permissions and control data access for any BPO vendors", alongside a BPO billing report. Whether a restricted BPO user consumes a paid agent seat is not published. | Not published |
| SOC 2 | IncludedNo plan gate stated. SOC 2 Type II, attested by The Cadence Group. | Not publishedNo certification claim appears on the archived pricing page, and the site is gone, so nothing can be confirmed. "Enterprise grade security" at the top tier is marketing language rather than an attestation. |
Developer
| Capability | Assembled | Surfboard |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | Included"API - Create custom workflows, integrations, or automations atop a modern tech stack", with API docs linked from the nav and footer. No readable reference was reached, so endpoint coverage is Unknown. | Not publishedNo API was advertised anywhere on the pricing page, and the archived captures reference no developer documentation. Unlike Playvox, which promoted a public API in writing, nothing here establishes that one existed. |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What Assembled costs
$25/seat/month
5 published plans, billed monthly- Billing unit
The pricing page contradicts itself - Free tier
No - AI pricing
$0.65 per conversation - Vendor calls it
conversation - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Not published - Automation export
Not published
5 of 9 not published by Assembled, checked
What Surfboard costs
- Billing unit
No price published - Free tier
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Not published
2 of 4 not published by Surfboard, checked