Plain vs Thena
A side-by-side comparison of Plain and Thena on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
1 of the 15 capabilities tracked on both differs. Plain starts at $35/seat/mo, Thena at $29/seat/mo.
| Measure | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $35/seat/mo | $29/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | Sidekick credit allowance, no rate published | tickets/month allowance, no rate published |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 1 capability |
Capability by capability
1 of the 15 capabilities tracked on both products differs.
Channels
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| Included2 email addresses on Foundation, 10 on Horizon, 25 on Frontier | IncludedStarter. | |
| Live chat | IncludedListed on the integrations page and available from Foundation | IncludedStandard, $79/user/month billed annually. Listed as "AI web chat". |
| Slack Connect | Included25 Slack channels on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon and Frontier. Slack Enterprise Grid is Frontier only. | IncludedStarter, $29/user/month billed annually. |
| Microsoft Teams | IncludedHorizon and above. Not available on Foundation. | IncludedEnterprise only. Listed under "Everything in Standard +" on the $119/user/month card. |
| Community forum | IncludedUnknown. A Discourse integration is listed on the compare table, but the per-plan checkmarks are images and could not be read. Plain ingests an existing forum rather than hosting one. | IncludedStandard. |
Ticketing
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| SLA policies | IncludedSLAs and business hours start on Horizon | IncludedStarter. |
| Business hours | IncludedHorizon and above | IncludedMulti-level working hours, used by auto-responders and SLA calculation. |
| Macros / saved replies | IncludedDocumented as Snippets, with full API read and write on all plans | IncludedSnippets. A documented product feature with no endpoint anywhere in the API reference, so saved replies cannot be extracted. |
| Custom fields | Not published | IncludedTicket, account, contact and custom object fields, with a custom fields API and custom object events. |
| Custom objects | Not published | Included |
| Ticket forms | Not published | IncludedCascading forms with conditional field visibility, usable from web, Slack, the API and the customer portal. The form reorder endpoint is standard and enterprise only. |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| Workflow builder | IncludedUp to 5 workflows on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon and Frontier | IncludedStandard. The comparison table leaves the Workflows row blank on Starter. |
| Escalation rules | IncludedEscalation paths start on Horizon | IncludedEscalation on SLA breach, sentiment or urgency, and rule-based routing of tickets to groups or members. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedAri, the customer-facing AI agent, is free on all workspaces and consumes no credits. Bring-your-own AI agent is Frontier only. | IncludedStandard, where AI auto-responses and the AI agent studio appear. Unlimited AI agents are Enterprise. |
| Handoff to human | Not published | IncludedHandoff is one of the agent flow actions, and the AI logs tab records fallbacks to a human when the agent defers on policy or confidence. |
AI assist
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| Summarization | Not published | IncludedStarter. Listed as "AI ticket summaries". |
| Auto-tagging | Not published | IncludedStarter. Listed as "AI tagging". |
| Sentiment analysis | Not published | IncludedAI prompts on a Slack source predict sentiment and urgency and generate the ticket title and description. |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | Not publishedKnowledge bases are plan-limited (1 on Foundation, unlimited above) and a Help center API section is documented, but nothing states whether they are publicly hosted. The headless portal starts on Horizon. | IncludedStarter, capped at two help centers per the homepage plan card. The pricing page comparison table prints "Unlimited" and "2" on the Help centers row without aligning either to a column. |
| Custom domain | Not published | IncludedPer help center, with a dedicated custom domain endpoint in the Help Center API. |
| AI answers over KB | Not published | IncludedStandard RAG over uploaded PDFs and DOCX files up to 100MB each, plus public URLs that are crawled to their linked sub-pages. Pages behind a login are skipped. |
Reporting
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| Raw data export | Not published | IncludedNo tier condition is stated on the export documentation, so it appears to be on every paid plan. |
| CSAT / NPS | Not published | IncludedStarter. |
Collaboration
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| Internal notes | Not published | IncludedPrivate notes plus internal threads, which are separate side conversations on a ticket that sync bidirectionally with a Slack channel. |
Enterprise
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | IncludedFrontier only. Neither publicly priced plan includes SSO. | Not publishedNot named on the security page, in the DPA, in the terms or anywhere in the documentation. The only SSO reference is customers signing in to the portal with a provider such as Google, which is consumer login rather than enterprise SAML. |
| SCIM provisioning | IncludedFrontier only | Not publishedNot named on any vendor page. |
| Role-based access control | Not published | IncludedThe comparison table prints "Unlimited" and "Limited" on the RBAC row without saying which tier gets which. |
| Custom roles | IncludedUnknown. A Custom roles row exists on the compare table but the per-plan checkmarks are images and could not be read. | Not publishedFive fixed roles are documented. Nothing describes defining a role of your own, and there is no roles endpoint in the API reference. |
| SOC 2 | IncludedUnknown. A SOC2 Type II Report row sits under Services and compliance; per-plan gating is not readable. A live trust center is published with dated subprocessor notifications. | IncludedNo gate stated. Annual independent third-party SOC 2 Type II audits, monitored with Vanta. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated. A DPA is published at /legal/dpa, and the terms forbid training AI models on Subscriber Data without written consent. | IncludedNo gate stated. A full DPA is published rather than offered on request, with named EU and UK representatives. |
Developer
| Capability | Plain | Thena |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | Not publishedOnly a GraphQL API is documented. No REST surface appears in the docs navigation. | IncludedStandard. The comparison table leaves the API row blank on Starter, prints "Limited" for Standard and "Unlimited" for Enterprise. |
| GraphQL API | IncludedAll three plans. Plain is built on the same GraphQL API it exposes. | Not published |
| Webhooks | IncludedWebhooks and Events are shown on all three plans | IncludedStandard. Blank on Starter in the comparison table. |
| App framework | Not published | IncludedCustom apps appear on the Apps row of the comparison table. |
| Published rate limits | NoNo rate-limit figure on the GraphQL Introduction or Authentication pages, and no rate-limit page in the docs navigation. | Included60 requests per minute per user, org and IP on the standard tier, custom on enterprise, with X-RateLimit headers on every response and a documented 429. |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What Plain costs
$35/seat/month
2 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
$35/month - Free tier
No, 7-day trial - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
Sidekick credit - Human handoff
Not billed - Reopened chat
Refunded - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Partial
2 of 9 not published by Plain, checked
What Thena costs
$29/seat/month
3 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
$29 /user/month - Free tier
No - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
tickets/month - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Partial
4 of 9 not published by Thena, checked