What Intercom does best, and who should stay
A messaging-first support platform built around an in-app chat widget and the Fin AI agent. Each plan builds on the one below:
- Essential, $29 per seat: Shared inbox, Fin AI agent, messenger, basic help centre.
- Advanced, $85: Workflow builder, multiple team inboxes, round robin, multilingual help centre, 20 free lite seats.
- Expert, $132: SSO, HIPAA, SLAs, multibrand, 50 free lite seats. Monthly self-serve is listed for Essential and Advanced only.
The reason most people start looking is the Fin line, not the seat. Fin AI agent: $0.99 per outcome, which counts a resolution, a completed procedure or a handoff. A handoff counts, so a conversation Fin passes to a person is billed as an outcome and then answered by a seat you already pay for.
If Fin settles enough conversations that its outcomes cost less than the people it saves, Intercom is doing its job and the alternatives below are a step sideways. The full model, with worked monthly bills, is on Intercom pricing. In September 2026 Intercom was testing a lower Essential price ($19 on annual billing) with some visitors, so the price you see may differ from the list price here.
How each alternative charges for AI, and whether it does chat
Seat prices per month on yearly billing. AI terms quoted from each pricing page.
| Tool | Seat from | How AI is charged | Customer chat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intercom (what you have) | $29 Essential | Fin AI agent: $0.99 per outcome, which counts a resolution, a completed procedure or a handoff. | Messenger included from Essential |
| 1. Zoho Desk | $7 Express | Generative AI uses your own OpenAI key. No per-resolution fee. | Live chat from Standard, $14 |
| 2. Zendesk | $19 Support Team | Copilot add-on $50 per agent per month, Suite Professional and up. AI resolutions past the 5 to 10 included per agent cost $1.50 to $2.00 each. | Messaging and live chat from Suite Team, $55 |
| 3. Help Scout | $25 Standard | AI Answers: $0.75 per resolution, with a monthly spending cap available. | Email-first shared inbox |
| 4. Missive | $14 Starter | AI runs on Missive credits (the model provider’s price plus 25%) or on your own API key. Productive and Business start with $5 of credits. | Email-first shared inbox |
| 5. Hiver | $25 Growth | AI agents and copilot are listed in the Growth plan; no per-outcome fee is published. | Email, inside Gmail |
| 6. Front | $25 Starter | Copilot $20 per seat a month; Smart QA $20; Smart CSAT $10. Autopilot, charged per conversation: $0.05 to triage, $0.39 per handoff, $0.89 per resolution. | One channel type on Starter; omnichannel from Professional |
| 7. Moorline | $9 a month | No per-resolution charge. | None: email only |
Seat-priced is not the same as flat. Three of these meter AI by result, as Intercom does: Zendesk per resolution past an allowance, Help Scout per AI Answers resolution, and Front per Autopilot conversation. Zoho Desk runs its AI on your own key, Missive on credits or your own key, and Hiver lists its AI in the plan. The honest comparison is your volume against each meter, not the seat price alone.
What a year of seats costs
| Plan, per year | 1 person | 3 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Desk Standard | $168 | $504 | $1,680 |
| Missive Starter | $168 | $504 | Not offered |
| Help Scout Standard | $300 | $900 | $3,000 |
| Hiver Growth | Not offered | $900 | $3,000 |
| Front Starter | $300 | $900 | $3,000 |
| Intercom Essential | $348 | $1,044 | $3,480 |
| Zendesk Suite Team | $660 | $1,980 | $6,600 |
| Intercom Advanced | $1,020 | $3,060 | $10,200 |
For a team of 3 that needs chat, Intercom Essential is $1,044 a year in seats, Zoho Desk Standard $504 and Zendesk Suite Team $1,980. “Not offered” means the plan’s seat limits rule that team size out.
Seats only. Fin outcomes, Zendesk’s extra resolutions, Help Scout’s AI Answers and Front’s Autopilot all come on top and grow with volume, not headcount. Moorline is not in the table because it has no seats to multiply: one person, $9 a month, $108 over a year.
Each alternative, and who should pick it
1. Zoho Desk: chat without a per-outcome meter
Best at: A conventional ticketing help desk, priced well below its rivals and bundled into an unusually wide suite of business software. Standard, at $14, is the rung for an Intercom team. Unlimited users, 5 channels, knowledge base, live chat and 5 workflow rules per module. And AI is yours to run. Generative AI uses your own OpenAI key. No per-resolution fee.
The catch: It is a ticketing help desk with live chat, not a messaging-first platform. Express caps you at 5 users and a single workflow rule, and leaves out the knowledge base, live chat and extra channels that the Standard plan at $14 adds. Multi-department routing starts at Professional, $23. The free plan covers one email channel only. Free for up to 3 users on one email channel.
Pick it if you want live chat and predictable AI costs, and can work in tickets rather than conversations.
2. Zendesk: the other platform with chat built in
Best at: A full customer-service platform: ticketing, routing, SLAs, reporting, voice, and a workforce to run it. Suite Team, at $55, is the plan to compare with Intercom. Messaging and live chat, AI agents, telephony and omnichannel routing.
The catch: Chat starts at the Suite. Support Team has no messaging or live chat, no AI agents, no telephony, no SLAs and a single ticket form. AI is metered too. AI resolutions past the included ones: $1.50 each committed, $2.00 pay as you go. Copilot: $50 per agent a month on annual billing, Suite Professional and up only.
Pick it if you want chat, messaging and phone in one platform and would rather pay per seat plus an allowance than per outcome. The two are set side by side in Zendesk vs Intercom.
3. Help Scout: email-first, with a free plan
Best at: A shared inbox for support teams who want their replies to look like ordinary email rather than tickets. It also has a free plan with no end date. Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools.
The catch: It is built around email, not an in-product messenger, and its AI is metered as well. AI Answers: $0.75 per resolution, with a monthly spending cap available. Standard has no AI drafts or summaries, basic workflows only, no round robin and no Salesforce, Jira or HubSpot integration.
Pick it if most of your customers email you and Intercom was more chat than you used. The plan-by-plan view is in Help Scout vs Intercom.
4. Missive: a shared inbox with AI on your own key
Best at: A shared inbox and team chat in one app, built around drafting replies collaboratively. AI has no per-outcome price. AI runs on Missive credits (the model provider’s price plus 25%) or on your own API key. Productive and Business start with $5 of credits. It connects your existing mailbox over IMAP and has an Electron desktop app for Mac and Windows.
The catch: Its chat is for the team, not for customers: it is an email-first shared inbox. Starter caps you at 5 users and leaves out rules, integrations and API access, which is most of what people upgrade for. Those arrive on Productive at $24.
Pick it if your support is email, your team drafts replies together, and you want AI costs you can see coming.
5. Hiver: AI in the seat, inside Gmail
Best at: Meeting a Gmail team where it already works. Growth, at $25 a user, puts a shared inbox inside Gmail or Hiver’s own web app, with AI agents, a copilot and rules included in the plan rather than sold per outcome.
The catch: It is email, not an in-product messenger. Growth has no customer portal, no SLAs, no CSAT and no API access. Every plan has a minimum of 2 users. Hiver replaced its earlier plan line-up with Growth, Pro and Elite, and the free plan left its pricing page in September 2026.
Pick it if your team runs on Google Workspace and wants AI in the price of the seat.
6. Front: a collaborative inbox, with metered AI
Best at: A collaborative inbox where a team drafts, comments on and assigns replies together in real time. Professional, at $65, adds omnichannel, macros, more workspaces and SSO.
The catch: Starter caps the team at 10 seats and one channel type, and leaves out macros, advanced analytics, extra workspaces and SSO. Its AI is sold per seat and per conversation, so leaving Intercom for Front swaps one meter for another. Copilot $20 per seat a month; Smart QA $20; Smart CSAT $10. Autopilot, charged per conversation: $0.05 to triage, $0.39 per handoff, $0.89 per resolution.
Pick it if several people draft and review replies together and that, more than chat, is what your support runs on.
7. Moorline: only if the team is one person
Best at: One person answering their own customers by email on a Mac. It reads the mailbox you already have (Gmail or Google Workspace, iCloud, Fastmail, Zoho Mail or another IMAP host), replies from your own address, and keeps each customer on a list until the work is handled and they have been told. Snippets and optional read-only Stripe context come with it, at $9 a month flat with no per-resolution charge.
The catch: It is for one person and nothing else: no seats, no shared inbox, no assignment, and no chat widget, so it cannot replace Intercom’s messenger. It does not connect to Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com mail, it needs macOS 15 or later, and there is no free plan or trial, only a 30-day refund.
Pick it if you are a solo founder whose customers email you and the Fin bill was the reason to look. The honest comparison is in the Intercom alternative without per-resolution pricing.
Questions people ask
What is a cheaper alternative to Intercom?
For chat, Zoho Desk: Standard is $14 per agent with live chat included and AI on your own OpenAI key, against $29 per seat for Intercom Essential plus Fin outcomes. For email, Missive Starter is $14 per user. All prices on yearly billing.
Is there a free alternative to Intercom?
Not for chat. Intercom's own offer is a trial: 14 days, no card needed. No free plan. The free plans among the alternatives are built for email. Zoho Desk: Free for up to 3 users on one email channel. Help Scout: Free for up to 5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts helped a month, with no AI tools.
How much does Intercom Fin cost?
Fin AI agent: $0.99 per outcome, which counts a resolution, a completed procedure or a handoff. That is on top of the seat, which starts at $29 on Essential with yearly billing. Fin Voice: $1.99 per voice outcome.
Does Zendesk charge per resolution like Intercom?
Yes, past an allowance. AI resolutions past the included ones: $1.50 each committed, $2.00 pay as you go. The difference is that Zendesk includes some AI resolutions with each agent seat every month, while Intercom lists no included allowance for Fin, only its price per outcome.
Which Intercom alternatives have live chat?
From the plans compared here: Zendesk, from Suite Team at $55 per agent (Support Team has none), and Zoho Desk, from Standard at $14. Help Scout, Missive, Hiver and Front are built around email and a shared inbox, so a team whose customers write in from a chat bubble inside the product has fewer real options than most lists of Intercom alternatives suggest.
Prices read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 27 September 2026, including Intercom’s.