Pulse
Pulse confidence threshold tuning
When Pulse isn't sure, it should hand off — not guess. The confidence threshold decides where that line sits. Here's how to set it without over- or under-handing-off.
Colin LawlessCo-founder, CTO5 min readUpdated Apr 18, 2026On this page
What confidence is
Every Pulse answer comes with a confidence score between 0 and 1. The score blends retrieval similarity (how close the source matched the question) with answer coherence (how much of the answer is grounded in the source). Below the threshold, Pulse hands off — to a lead form, a callback request, or a transfer to LARA.
The default threshold
The default is 0.62. We landed on it after looking at thousands of sessions. It hands off about 8–12% of questions for a typical home-services site.
Don't push it too high
Tempting move: "only answer when you're really sure." The result is Pulse handing off 30%+ and visitors bouncing. Confident-sounding wrong answers are rare; over-handoff is common.
How to tune it
Tune from data, not vibes. Open /pulse/sessions and filter by Confidence < 0.7. Read 20 of them and answer two questions:
- Of the answers Pulse gave at 0.5–0.7, how many would you have wanted handed off?
- Of the handoffs Pulse triggered at 0.4–0.6, were they real questions worth a human, or just visitors typing nonsense?
If most 0.5–0.7 answers were fine, lower the threshold to 0.55. If a chunk of them were misleading, raise to 0.7.
Pick the right fallback
What Pulse does below the threshold matters more than the threshold itself. Three options:
- Lead form — "I'm not 100% sure on that one. Want a tech to call you back? Drop your number." Best for service inquiries.
- Live transfer to LARA — opens a voice call straight from the chat. Best for urgent questions during business hours.
- FAQ deflect — Pulse offers the 3 most-related FAQ links. Best for high-volume info questions.
Monitor the rate
Track two metrics in /pulse — handoff rate and answered-with-confidence rate. Healthy ranges:
- Handoff rate: 8–15%. Below 5% suggests Pulse is over-confident; above 20% suggests under-served knowledge.
- Answered-with-confidence rate: 75%+. Lower than that — add knowledge sources before tweaking the threshold.
Threshold isn't the first lever
If your handoff rate is high, the fix is usually "add the missing FAQ to the knowledge source," not "lower the threshold." Threshold tuning is for the last 10% — the questions you can't answer in writing.