How much does outsourced customer service cost for an online store?
The cost of outsourced customer service depends on five things: your ticket volume, the channels, the response time you agree on, opening hours and languages, and the share AI resolves. How each of those five moves the price, which pricing models agencies use, and how to compare fairly with an in-house hire, is below.
Five factors that decide what you pay
Two stores with the same number of orders can have a very different customer service bill. The difference almost always sits in one of these five.
- Ticket volumeThe number of conversations per month is the base of every price. Add up emails, chats and DMs per calendar month and look at the peaks. A store with strong seasons pays differently from a store with flat volume.
- ChannelsWith email nobody has to be standing by, so it is the cheapest per conversation. Live chat and phone need someone ready at the moment the customer reaches out, and that costs more. Social DMs sit in between.
- Response time (SLA)A first response within eight hours needs a different roster than within three hours. The shorter the agreed response time, the more capacity has to be ready.
- Opening hours and languagesBeing reachable in the evening and on Saturday, and helping customers in several languages, decide how many people with which skills you need. Our team is available Monday to Saturday from 07:00 to 23:00 CET and helps in every language.
- The share AI resolvesThe more routine questions ("where is my order", "how do I return") AI handles directly and correctly, the lower the cost per ticket. Across our clients that share averages around 64%, but it differs per store. A good knowledge base and clear policies make the biggest difference here.
Work outside the inbox counts too: building and submitting payment disputes, processing returns, producing reports. Ask every quote what is included. This is how disputes run with us.
How agencies charge for customer service
You will meet four models in the market. None is cheaper by definition; they split the risk of fluctuating volume differently between you and the agency.
| Model | How it works | Fits | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per ticket | You pay per resolved conversation, sometimes with volume tiers. | Stores with fluctuating or growing volume. | What counts as one ticket? A thread of five emails should not be five tickets. |
| Per hour | You pay for the hours agents work. | Complex, time-consuming questions where tickets are hard to compare. | You pay for time rather than outcome. Ask for visibility into tickets per hour. |
| Per FTE or dedicated agent | You hire one or more fixed agents, usually per month. | Enough tickets to keep someone busy full time. | At low volume you pay for idle time, at peaks you run short. |
| Subscription with a bundle | A fixed monthly fee for a bundle of tickets, with a rate per extra ticket. | Stores that want predictable costs. | Check what happens below and above the bundle and whether it moves with you. |
At Backbone every store gets one custom proposal, based on the five factors above. We do not publish standard rates, because a rate without context says little about what you end up paying and getting.
Count honestly: the full cost of an in-house hire
When comparing outsourcing with an in-house hire, most people look only at gross salary. There is more to it than that. On top of gross salary come employer contributions, holiday pay and pension. Then there is the time when nobody is doing tickets: holidays, sick leave, turnover and onboarding a replacement. Software costs money too, because a helpdesk like Zendesk charges per agent per month, and AI tooling, telephony and Shopify integrations come on top.
The biggest hidden line is management. Someone has to maintain macros, check answers, pick up escalations and report, and in most stores that someone is the owner. And one employee is not there in the evening, on Saturday or during holidays, while your customers still write in.
A worked example in hours
Say your store receives 800 tickets a month. At 8 tickets per hour that is 100 hours of work, at 6 tickets per hour 133 hours. That is well over half to almost a full FTE, before any coverage outside office hours and before management. How many tickets per hour is achievable depends heavily on how well your knowledge base, macros and Shopify integration are set up.
Outsourcing is usually the better deal when you do not have enough tickets to keep someone busy full time, when you want to be reachable in the evening and on Saturday, when you help in several languages, or when you do not want to carry the setup of Zendesk, AI and reporting yourself. With a large, stable volume in one language during office hours, an in-house team can work out well.
What is always included at Backbone
After a free intro call and one intake form we write one proposal, based on your ticket volume, the channels, the SLA and how deeply we integrate AI into your workflows. Whatever the size, this is always in:
- a fully configured Zendesk Enterprise environment, included, with every Shopify order connected
- four real-time dashboards: ticket dashboard, ticket portal, refunds overview and disputes overview
- a fixed team of agents working inside your rules and tone of voice, with you having the final say
- handling of payment disputes for Shopify Payments, PayPal, Stripe, Klarna, Whop, Ocean Payments and other payment providers
- your own Slack channel with the team and direct contact with the founders
- automatic reports on refunds, dispute rates and contact reasons, and a monthly conversation about what is causing disputes and refunds
This is exactly what we take over for Shopify stores, or book a free call to discuss your proposal.
Frequently asked questions about the cost of outsourcing customer service
How much does outsourced customer service cost per ticket?
Is outsourcing cheaper than hiring a customer service employee?
What happens to the cost when my volume fluctuates?
How do I compare quotes from customer service agencies fairly?
Do I have to pay for a Zendesk license myself?
Why don't you publish standard rates?
Related pages
Curious what this looks like for your store?
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