long_horizon_case, is designated by contract and has no derived test.
A discriminator is only worth publishing if you can apply it yourself. Every test below can be checked against the action records for your own conversations, and you should reach the same class we did.
Class prices the outcome. It never gates access. What your agent can do is set by the tools and
integration scopes you have connected, applied at the point of action. The class is worked out
afterwards and used only to price what happened. No class has to be purchased, unlocked or
entitled.
The seven classes
Worked examples of each
knowledge — $0.35
knowledge — $0.35
“What’s your return window?” → answered from the knowledge base. Nothing queried, nothing changed.
read — $0.50
read — $0.50
“Where’s my order?” → agent reads the order record and the carrier’s tracking status, then reports back.
write_simple — $0.70
write_simple — $0.70
Customer is locked out → agent resets the account state in the identity provider; customer logs back in.
write_financial — $0.95
write_financial — $0.95
Damaged item → agent verifies the order and issues the refund at the processor; the refund settles.
orchestrated — $1.90
orchestrated — $1.90
Enterprise account escalation → agent writes to the CRM, the billing system and the ticketing system in a single resolution.
long_horizon_case — case fee
long_horizon_case — case fee
A months-long claim, dispute, onboarding or collections case with negotiated milestones and a terminal state.
compliance_gated in detail
Three properties of the discriminator, stated because each is a common misreading:
It is set by a successful mutating call, not by whether a gate passed. The class attaches to what was done, not to which controls ran.
A blocked action does not produce this class. If a compliance gate blocks an action, that action never executed — so the resolution is classified by what it actually achieved, most often knowledge or read.
A regulated read stays read. The premium attaches to acting on regulated data, not to looking at it.
pci attaches only when Tied’s own action handles cardholder data. A refund executed at a
payment processor is write_financial at $0.95, not compliance_gated — the processor holds the
card number and Tied refunds against a token, so no cardholder data is in Tied’s scope. Ordinary
refunds never derive compliance_gated, and neither does any other action where the card data
stays with the processor.long_horizon_case in detail
This class is assigned by contract, not derived. A case is designated under an Enterprise
contract, and the audit trail is never used to decide that a conversation is a case. No derivation
test is published for it because none exists, and a test invented for it would be a label rather
than a test.A conversation inside a designated case does not bill as a resolution at all. No class fee, no
orchestration fee. The case is the billing unit instead. A conversation is billed either as a
resolution or inside a case, never both. See Long-horizon cases.
Two class rules
Rule 1 — the highest class reached wins, and it bills once. A resolution that reads an order,
checks a policy, and then issues a refund is one
write_financial resolution at $0.95. Not a
read plus a write_financial. Not three charges.Rule 2 — a failed write does not move the class in either direction. Every test is evaluated
over calls that actually succeeded.An attempted refund that errors at the processor is not a
write_financial. The failed attempt
also does not disqualify the resolution from a lower class: a resolution that looked something up
and then tried unsuccessfully to write is a read, and prices as one.Evaluation order
Only successful calls are considered
Every test runs over calls that succeeded. A write attempted and not completed moves the class in
neither direction.
The highest class reached wins
compliance_gated → orchestrated → write_financial → write_simple → read → knowledge.Contract designation sits outside the derivation
long_horizon_case is never derived. A conversation inside a case designated by contract bills
inside the case, not as a resolution, so no class is derived for it.The class is derived, not asserted
Tied does not label a resolution’s class by judgement, by model output, or by anyone’s assessment after the fact. Six of the seven classes are derived mechanically from the action audit trail — the signed record of every read and write the agent performed, which system it touched, and whether it succeeded. The seventh,long_horizon_case, is set in your Enterprise contract rather than derived.
The agent emits the audit references. It does not emit a class, does not see the class it will be assigned, and structurally cannot influence its own price tier.
The six derived discriminators above are therefore not descriptions of how classification is attempted. They are the predicates actually evaluated, in the order listed.
The consequence: the class on an invoice is derivable from the receipt without asking Tied. If the trail shows no successful monetary write, write_financial cannot be billed.
Class is a price key, never a permission. No authorization path reads the class to decide
what a tenant may do. Capability is gated by tool scope, at the point of
action. The class is worked out afterwards and used only to price what already happened.
Plan availability
Tools gate capability; class only prices the outcome. The one enforceable gate is your per-tenant tool and integration scope, applied at the point of action: if a system is not connected, or is connected read-only, the agent cannot act there and the attempt never happens.
Read the middle column as scopes rather than entitlements. A class is reachable because the tenant holds the scopes named; buying a plan does not buy a class, and granting a scope is what makes a class reachable.
orchestrated is not an Enterprise class. It is reachable at Advanced, because it is three or
more of the writes Advanced already holds. A twelve-person brand with Shopify, Stripe and Loop
connected reaches three providers on one routine “refund this, cancel the subscription, update my
address.”Approvals are not part of the discriminator. While an approval limb existed, switching on an
approval chain raised the price of every approved action — a governance control acting as a price
increase. It was removed. orchestrated is purely a count of distinct providers successfully
written. Approval chains remain an Advanced capability and do not change what a resolution costs.On Enterprise, the discriminators are a starting point
If moves money or regulated data means something specific in your industry, that definition is written into your contract. Once written, it is evaluated against the audit trail the same mechanical way — a negotiated definition is still a discriminator, not a judgement call. Negotiated per-class rates are applied as an override after the published-rate lookup. The published rate table stays free of tier and contract data, and no enterprise per-class figure appears on any customer-facing surface.Long-horizon cases
Some work is not a resolution. A claim, a dispute, a complex onboarding, a collections process, a multi-week investigation: these run for weeks or months, across many conversations, with progress rather than completion for most of their life. Long-horizon cases are billed as cases, not as resolutions.Void windows
A billed resolution is not final. Two triggers void it and credit it back automatically:- The same issue reopens within 30 days.
- Negative feedback, retroactively, with no time limit. A rating given long after the resolution still voids it.
Worked examples
Four end-to-end walkthroughs. Model costs shown are illustrative of real magnitudes; the receipt carries the exact figure.A knowledge answer on Starter — $0.3521
A knowledge answer on Starter — $0.3521
Conversation. “How long do I have to return something?” The agent answers from the
knowledge base with the return window, condition requirements and how to start a return.
Customer: “Perfect, thanks.”
A read on Business — $0.5047
A read on Business — $0.5047
Conversation. “Where’s my order? It was supposed to be here Tuesday.” The agent reads the
order record and the carrier’s tracking status, and replies with the real status, revised
delivery date and a tracking link. The customer opens the tracking link and does not reply
again.
A financial write on Advanced — $0.9613
A financial write on Advanced — $0.9613
Conversation. “My order arrived damaged, I want a refund.” The agent reads the order,
reads the returns policy, confirms eligibility, and issues a $48.00 refund at the payment
processor. The refund settles. No chargeback follows.
Does not bill: the customer abandoned — $0.0039
Does not bill: the customer abandoned — $0.0039
Conversation. “I need to change the shipping address on order 4471.” The agent reads the
order, confirms it has not shipped, and asks the customer to confirm the new address before
writing it. The customer never replies. The address is never changed.
Why an unbilled resolution still shows a model cost
The two numbers are independent. The orchestration fee is what Tied charges for resolving something. It is $0.00 in the fourth example because nothing was resolved. The model cost is what the provider charged for tokens the conversation consumed. Those tokens were consumed regardless of outcome. On Tied-supplied keys that passes through at the provider rate with no orchestration fee on top; on BYOK the provider bills you directly and it does not appear on a Tied invoice at all. A real provider charge is not zeroed out to make the receipt tidier — the receipts are the audit surface, and one that omits a cost that was incurred is not auditable.Next
What counts as a resolution
The four signal tiers, the ten never-billable conditions, and the void windows.
The money-back guarantee
What triggers an automatic credit, when it arrives, and why there is no cap.
How Tied compares
What other per-resolution vendors publish, with sources and check dates.
How pricing works
The full mechanism, including reconciliation and zero-balance behaviour.
Actions and tools
The audit trail the class is derived from.
Plans
The tool scopes that decide which classes are reachable.