> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.tied.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Long-horizon cases > Work that runs for weeks across many conversations, waits on the outside world, and is billed on milestones rather than resolutions. A mortgage application. An insurance claim. A warranty repair that goes out to a third party. An enterprise onboarding with six approvals in it. None of these is a long conversation. Treating them as one is the mistake — and it is why Tied models a case as its own thing rather than stretching the conversation model until it breaks. ## A case is not a conversation | | Conversation | Case | | - | - | - | | **Lifespan** | Minutes to hours | Weeks to months | | **Structure** | The root object | The **parent** — many conversations belong to one case | | **Waiting** | The agent is thinking | The agent is **waiting on the world**: a document, an underwriter, a third party | | **Initiative** | Responds to the customer | **Schedules its own check-ins** | | **Completion** | One outcome | **Milestones**, tracked individually | **"Waiting on the world" is the property that breaks the conversation model.** A conversation blocked for eleven days on an underwriter is not slow, not stalled, and not abandoned — it is in the state it is supposed to be in. Any system that treats silence as a signal will get every one of these wrong. ## What the agent does across a case What has been submitted, what is outstanding, who it is with, what the next milestone is — across every conversation in the case, not just the current one. A blocked case records what it is blocked on and who owns it, rather than looking idle. Not only when something happens. If a third party has had a document for nine days, that is itself the reason to make contact. "Underwriting has your income documents and we're waiting on the valuation" — not a status code. Each milestone is a recorded fact with evidence behind it, and milestones are what the commercial model keys on. ## Billing is different, on purpose The billing unit for a case is **not a resolution**. **Case work is not priced as resolutions.** Charging per resolution inside a case would bill you repeatedly for progress on work already priced at the case level. Long-horizon cases are designated and priced under your Enterprise contract, on negotiated terms. A case is billed as a **fixed case fee, drawn at milestones, plus a fixed completion bonus**. **The completion bonus is a fixed amount, not a percentage.** Its trigger is reaching the defined terminal milestone, which is a provable fact rather than something to negotiate after the fact. ## Availability Long-horizon cases are an **Enterprise capability**, negotiated per contract. They are the only part of Tied's commercial model that is not published self-serve pricing — because the structure genuinely varies by vertical, by legal regime and by what a milestone means in your business, and a published number would be wrong for almost everyone. **A case-shaped workload is worth a conversation before you start building for it.** The distinguishing question is simple: does one customer problem span several conversations over several weeks, with external parties in the middle? If yes, it is a case, and modelling it as a long conversation will cost you more to unwind later than to do properly now. ## Next The scheduled check-in mechanism cases build on. The connected systems a case tracks state across. The per-resolution model cases sit outside. What Enterprise includes. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.