For solo founders under €5K MRR running 20-80 customer-service tickets per week in 2026, the cheap stack (shared inbox host + Claude Pro at €20/month + a copy-paste prompt-pack, total under €40/month) is structurally cheaper than the dedicated AI helpdesks (Intercom Fin, Crisp AI, Tidio Lyro) until ticket volume sustains above ~200/week. Above that threshold, the per-resolution and per-conversation pricing on the dedicated platforms starts to compete; below it, the cheap stack wins on cost AND on operator experience. The volume threshold is the procurement signal, not the vendor pitch.

Sibling to OPS-033 (parent SMB customer service piece), OPS-034 (solo founder email triage), OPS-003 (Claude Pro vs ChatGPT Plus). Verified primary sources: Fin.ai pricing ($0.99/outcome with own helpdesk; $0.99/outcome + $29/seat with Intercom helpdesk; 14-day free trial; Lightspeed customer evidence: 65% end-to-end resolution per Angelo Livanos, VP Global Support); Crisp pricing (€0/€5/€25/€75 AI credits across Free/Mini/Essentials/Plus tiers; explicit refusal of consumption billing; EU-hosted by default which matters for NL/DE/FR operators); Tidio pricing (Starter $24.17/mo with 100 billable conversations; Lyro AI add-on starting at $32.50/mo for 50 conversations; Premium custom-priced with guaranteed 50% Lyro resolution rate). The 200-tickets-per-week threshold is order-of-magnitude derived from per-ticket time savings (90 sec average) against per-outcome and per-conversation pricing economics. Per-platform deflection-rate evidence cited from vendor-published customer evidence; verifies on a quarterly cadence given vendor pricing churn.