Plain vs Unthread
A side-by-side comparison of Plain and Unthread on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
Plain starts at $35/seat/mo, Unthread at $50/seat/mo.
| Measure | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $35/seat/mo | $50/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | Sidekick credit allowance, no rate published | conversations/month allowance, no rate published |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 0 capabilities |
Capability by capability
Nothing we track differs between them.
Channels
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| Included2 email addresses on Foundation, 10 on Horizon, 25 on Frontier | IncludedEmail inboxes feed the same conversation model, and a Slack thread reply with /unthread send appended is delivered to the customer by email. | |
| Live chat | IncludedListed on the integrations page and available from Foundation | IncludedIn-app chat widget that routes into Slack, plus an embedded customer portal. |
| Slack Connect | Included25 Slack channels on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon and Frontier. Slack Enterprise Grid is Frontier only. | IncludedThe core motion. A shared Slack Connect channel maps to a Customer record; anyone outside your email domain posting in it is classified a customer and opens a tracked conversation, anyone in your Slack workspace is an agent. Role overrides per channel are available. Threads are one conversation each; top-level messages group by a configurable time gap defaulting to one hour; conversations can be merged and split afterwards. |
| Microsoft Teams | IncludedHorizon and above. Not available on Foundation. | IncludedNot stated on the pricing page. The vendor labels the integration beta: "This feature is currently in beta and actively being developed." |
| 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. | Not published |
Ticketing
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | Not published | IncludedA Slack inbox and a web inbox with a Kanban board over the same conversations. |
| SLA policies | IncludedSLAs and business hours start on Horizon | IncludedSLA policies and instances have full CRUD in the API, unlike automations. Policy writes need a workspace owner or admin service account. |
| Business hours | IncludedHorizon and above | Not published |
| Macros / saved replies | IncludedDocumented as Snippets, with full API read and write on all plans | IncludedTemplates under Outbound, inserted with a slash command, supporting rich formatting, images, buttons and embedded surveys. No API endpoint, so they do not export. |
| Merge & split | Not published | IncludedConversations can be merged or split after tracking, which is what makes grouped top-level Slack messages recoverable when the grouping guesses wrong. |
| Custom fields | Not published | IncludedTicket types carry custom fields, and both have API endpoints. |
| Ticket forms | Not published | IncludedTicket types with checklists and input fields, which AI can pre-fill when the intake setting is "Engage AI Agent". |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| Workflow builder | IncludedUp to 5 workflows on Foundation, unlimited on Horizon and Frontier | Included"AI automation builder" is listed only on Enterprise. The docs add that automations must be enabled for trial accounts and that custom actions must be enabled for the tenant. |
| Escalation rules | IncludedEscalation paths start on Horizon | Not published |
AI resolution
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Not published |
AI assist
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-tagging | Not published | IncludedAI applies tags at conversation creation only, and manual changes override. AI also sets ticket type, generates titles and posts a two to three sentence summary into the triage channel on close. |
| Sentiment analysis | Not published | IncludedNumerical sentiment score per conversation. |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | IncludedUnthread's own documentation site runs on it and carries a "This site is powered by Unthread. Get your own support portal" footer. |
| AI answers over KB | Not published | IncludedNo AI feature is named on the Basic card. Pro is described as having "AI automation at the core"; the "AI automation builder" and "Self-learning documentation" lines appear only on Enterprise. |
Reporting
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| Raw data export | Not published | API onlyCursor-paginated JSON over the API for conversations, messages, attachments, customers, users, tags, ticket types, surveys and knowledge base articles, plus a CSV download from the analytics dashboard. No single-click account export and no archive file. |
| Data warehouse sync | Not published | IncludedA Snowflake integration exists and connects with a dedicated service user, scopable read-only or read-write per table or schema. The documentation covers authentication and RBAC scoping and does not enumerate which Unthread objects are written, on what cadence, so this is not a documented full egress path the way a published warehouse schema would be. |
| CSAT / NPS | Not published | Included"NPS & CSAT surveys" is listed on Pro, not Basic. |
Collaboration
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| Approvals | Not published | IncludedApproval requests are a first-class object with create and list endpoints, assignable to a user or a group. |
Enterprise
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | IncludedFrontier only. Neither publicly priced plan includes SSO. | Included"Single sign-on (SSO)" is listed only on the Enterprise card. |
| SCIM provisioning | IncludedFrontier only | Included"HRIS integration & directory sync" is listed only on Enterprise. |
| Role-based access control | Not published | IncludedRole-based access control is described on the security page with no gate; "Custom RBAC permissions" is an Enterprise line on the pricing card. |
| 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 published |
| Audit logs | Not publishedNo row on the compare table, no docs page and no API object. | IncludedEnterprise only. Verbatim: "Note: this feature is only available on the Enterprise plan." |
| HIPAA / BAA | Not publishedNo claim on /pricing, the trust center notices or the help center. | Included"HIPAA & BAAs" appears only on the Enterprise card. The security page states BAAs are available without naming a tier, so the pricing page is the stricter and more specific source. |
| 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. SOC 2 Type II, report available under NDA through the trust centre. |
| 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. |
| Data residency | Not publishedNo published policy. The documented endpoint is core-api.uk.plain.com, which points to UK hosting, but no multi-region option is published and the data-residency help article returns 404. | IncludedNot stated. "Dedicated hosting" is an Enterprise line on the pricing card and the security page describes residency as "isolated, dedicated database instances", which reads like the same product, but the vendor does not join them. |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | Not published | IncludedBy email request: "In order to request a copy or deletion of your personal data, please contact support+data@unthread.io". No self-serve deletion control is documented. |
Developer
| Capability | Plain | Unthread |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | Not publishedOnly a GraphQL API is documented. No REST surface appears in the docs navigation. | Included"Basic integrations & API" is listed on Basic, the cheapest paid plan. |
| 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 | IncludedHMAC-SHA256 signed, four event types: conversation_created, conversation_updated, conversation_deleted and message_created. Retried up to four times, auto-disabled after 100 consecutive failures or a 410. |
| Published rate limits | NoNo rate-limit figure on the GraphQL Introduction or Authentication pages, and no rate-limit page in the docs navigation. | Not publishedNo rate limit anywhere in the API reference. The only ceiling stated is a 100-record page limit on list endpoints. |
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 Unthread costs
$50/seat/month
2 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
$50 per agent / month on the annual toggle - Free tier
No, 14-day trial - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
conversations/month - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Not offered
4 of 9 not published by Unthread, checked