Intercom alternatives and what each costs a startup

Startups usually look at Intercom alternatives once the bill has more than one line. Every teammate who answers customers needs a paid seat, and Essential costs $19 or $29 a seat a month billed yearly, because Intercom is testing two prices. Fin, its AI agent, then adds $0.99 for each outcome, and a customer who leaves without asking for more help counts as one. There’s no free plan to fall back on, so when the 14-day trial ends, Intercom and Fin stop until you subscribe. And the Early Stage programme that makes year one $65 a month rises to $451.50 a month in year two and $677.25 in year three.

Below are nine alternatives, with each one’s free plan, its first paid plan with live chat, the AI that answers for it and any offer it makes to startups. Every figure was read on the vendor’s own pages on 23 September 2026, and each price links to the page it came from. Intercom’s Early Stage and Pro prices were read again on 10 October 2026, after both moved.

We’ve put Deacon first. It’s our product, and it’s built for startups where a founder still answers support. It’s an AI customer support agent that answers your customers in seconds from your own docs, with no helpdesk underneath, and shows you what they’re stuck on and what they want next. There’s a free plan, and it needs no card.

Nine Intercom alternatives for a startup

Intercom is the last row, so you can see what you’d be leaving.

How an Intercom bill adds up

Intercom is a full AI helpdesk, with the Messenger for your site, a shared inbox, tickets and a help centre, and Fin answering customers across its channels. It’s built for a team. These are the lines a startup’s bill picks up, read from Intercom’s pricing page and help centre.

Seats come first. Essential needs at least one full seat, and on yearly billing it’s $19 or $29 a seat a month, depending on which of two prices Intercom’s current test shows you, or $29 or $39 month to month. Advanced is $85 a seat billed yearly, or $99 monthly, and includes 20 free Lite seats. Expert is $132 a seat billed yearly. Intercom’s branding only comes off the Messenger on Advanced and Expert, its workspace settings article says.

Fin comes on every plan at $0.99 an outcome, charged at most once a conversation. An outcome includes a customer who confirms the answer helped, and one who leaves without asking for more help. Nothing is charged when the customer asks for a person, and a conversation that reopens gets its charge back. How that meter runs is in Fin AI pricing, and Intercom pricing prices the whole bill for a team of one to three.

Then the add-ons. Copilot, the assistant for your own team, is $29 an agent a month billed yearly, or $35 monthly. Pro, which brings topics, trends and Intercom’s CX Score, is $100 a month for 500 conversations. Proactive Support Plus is another $99 a month for 500 messages, and WhatsApp, SMS and phone are billed as you use them.

There’s no free plan. The trial lasts 14 days, needs no card and includes everything, and Intercom’s pricing FAQs say that when it ends you can’t use Fin or Intercom until you start a paid subscription.

What Early Stage costs after year one

Intercom’s Early Stage programme takes 93% off in year one, for startups with up to $10M in funding and fewer than 15 employees that aren’t already Intercom customers. It’s a bundle of 6 Advanced seats, 6 Copilot seats, Pro and Proactive Support Plus, and its help article sets out how the price and the included Fin outcomes change each year. Outcomes past the allowance are charged at the list price of $0.99.

You can’t drop below the six seats, and each seat you add is discounted at the bundle’s rate for that year. Once you leave the programme, the help article prices Essential at $39 a seat a month, or $29 billed yearly.

Deacon

Deacon is an AI customer support agent for startups where a founder handles support. It needs no helpdesk and no support team. You add one script tag, point it at your docs, and it answers your customers in seconds, day and night, in the language they write in.

It answers only from your content. When your docs don’t cover something, it says it doesn’t know rather than making something up, and asks for the visitor’s email. When they leave it or ask for a person, you get an email, and you reply from Deacon’s dashboard. While they still have the chat open, your reply appears there under your first name and your company’s.

Every question your docs missed gets an Answer this button. Your answer becomes part of what Deacon knows, and Save & check shows you the reply it now gives and how many other open questions the answer covers. The more you answer, the better Deacon gets, and the less it needs you.

You also see what your customers need, on every plan. Every conversation is kept and searchable by what visitors asked. Topics group their questions, count how many people asked and label most of them as a bug report, a feature ask, a how-to and so on, where Intercom keeps topics and trends for its Pro add-on. The same script counts your visitors, sources, goals and funnels, and a short list called Worth knowing points out what stands out.

A startup doesn’t have to qualify for anything. Every feature is on every plan, the free one included, and the plans differ only in answers, knowledge, pages from your website and seats, with the seats included in the price. Free is 50 answers a month and 1 seat, with room for about 67 pages of docs, no card and no end date. Starter is $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers a month and 3 seats. Growth is $150 a month, or $120 a month billed yearly, for 4,000 answers a month and 10 seats.

There’s no charge for each resolution, nothing is billed past your plan’s answers, and no plan upgrades itself. If a month’s answers run out, visitors get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into it right now and are asked for their email, unless they’ve already left it, and you can still answer every conversation yourself. There’s no “powered by” line on any plan.

Help Scout

Help Scout is a shared inbox and help centre built for teams that live in email. It charges per user, and its free plan covers 5 users with one inbox and one Docs site, though not live chat. Chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger start on Standard, at $30 a user a month, or $25 billed yearly.

AI Answers costs $0.75 for each conversation it resolves, with nothing charged when the customer asks for more help, and you can cap what it spends in a month. A new account gets three months of it free from the day it’s created. Hiding “Powered by Help Scout” takes Plus, at $54 a user a month or $45 billed yearly. Help Scout for Startups gives six months of Plus, with AI Answers, free to new customers that are incorporated tech startups under two years old with under $1M in annual recurring revenue. There’s more in Help Scout pricing and Help Scout vs Intercom.

Zendesk

Zendesk is the helpdesk to choose if you expect a support team to grow into it. Chat, messaging and the help centre start on Suite Team, at $69 an agent a month, or $55 billed yearly, and Support Team, from $19 an agent a month billed yearly or $25 monthly, has no messaging or live chat.

AI agents come with every plan. The pricing page includes 5 automated resolutions an agent a month on Suite Team, then charges $2.00 each as you go, or $1.50 if you commit in advance. Zendesk’s help centre describes a newer allowance in dollars, $2 an agent a month on Suite Team, for accounts on its resolution tiers, so ask which one yours gets. Taking the Zendesk logo off the messaging widget needs Suite Enterprise, which has no public price. Zendesk for Startups gives a 6-month trial of the Suite for up to 50 agents, and up to two years free through its funding partners. Intercom vs Zendesk sets the two side by side, and Zendesk pricing goes through every plan.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is the helpdesk from Freshworks, and its Free Program lets 2 agents use it at no cost for 6 months once the 14-day trial ends. That’s Freshdesk on its own, with email and social tickets and a knowledge base, but no AI sessions included.

For the AI to answer chat, you need Freshdesk Omni, whose Growth plan is $35 an agent a month, or $29 billed yearly. Each paid plan includes 500 AI sessions once, and more cost $49 for each 100, where a chat session covers a visitor’s next 24 hours with the AI. When the sessions run out, the AI stops answering and chats go to your agents, unless you’ve switched on auto-recharge. There’s more in Freshdesk pricing and Freshdesk alternatives.

Front

Front is a shared inbox built around email, with Front Chat for your site. Starter is $35 a seat a month, or $25 billed yearly, for up to 10 seats, but it runs one channel type, so you choose email, Front Chat or SMS. Mixing channels, and hiding “Powered by Front” on the chat, start on Professional, at $85 a seat or $65 billed yearly.

Its AI, Autopilot, is an add-on billed by outcome, $0.89 when it resolves a conversation and $0.39 when it hands one to your team, per Front’s help centre. Copilot is another $20 a seat. There’s no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no card. Front pricing works through every plan, Autopilot’s three rates and what one, three or five seats cost.

Crisp

Crisp gives a startup the Intercom shape, a chat widget in front of a shared inbox, priced for the workspace rather than per seat. Mini is $45 a month with 4 seats, and Hugo, its AI agent, is included from there with $5 of credits a month, which Crisp puts at around 90 automated conversations. The free plan has 2 seats and no AI.

When Hugo’s credits run out, it stops and conversations go to your team, unless you switch on Pay-As-You-Go. The watermark comes off on Plus, at $295 a month. Crisp’s Startup Program gives 30% off Essentials and Plus to companies new to Crisp that have raised under $1M and are under three years old. There’s more in Crisp chat alternatives, and Crisp vs Intercom goes through the two plan by plan.

Tidio

Tidio charges by conversations instead of seats, with 10 seats on the free, Starter and Growth plans, which suits a startup where several people dip into the chat. Starter is $29 a month, or $24.17 billed yearly, for 100 conversations your team answers.

Its AI, Lyro, is bought separately, from $39 a month for 50 AI conversations, or $32.50 billed yearly, and every account gets 50 free ones once. Tidio publishes no startup discount on its pricing page, and taking its branding off needs Growth plus an add-on, $20 a month or $16.67 billed yearly. There’s more in Tidio alternatives and Tidio vs Intercom.

HubSpot

HubSpot is the pick if your startup already runs its CRM and sales there. The free plan gives 2 users live chat with HubSpot’s branding, and Starter removes it at $10 a seat a month, or $7 billed yearly, marked down from $20.

Its AI, Customer Agent, needs Service Hub Professional, from $90 a seat a month billed yearly, or $100 billed monthly on a yearly commitment, with a one-time onboarding fee of $1,500, and each resolution costs $0.50. HubSpot for Startups takes up to 90% off new Professional or Enterprise products in year one, then 50% in year two and 25% in year three. HubSpot vs Intercom sets HubSpot’s Customer Agent against Fin, startup offers included.

Chatwoot

Chatwoot calls itself an open source alternative to Intercom and Zendesk, and you can host its Community Edition yourself for free. The hosted Startups plan is $19 an agent a month, with every channel but voice and 300 Captain AI credits a month, and Chatwoot gives that plan free to open source projects. The free Hacker plan covers 2 agents and 500 conversations a month on live chat, with no AI and 30 days of data kept.

Which one fits your startup

Start from who will be answering customers a year from now.

If you’re hiring a support team, Zendesk and Freshdesk are built for it to grow into. If your support lives in email, Help Scout and Front are made around the inbox. If you want Intercom’s shape without paying per seat, Crisp and Tidio price by workspace and by conversation. If your CRM is HubSpot, keep it in one place. If you’d rather host it yourself, Chatwoot is open source. And if you qualify for Early Stage and can budget for year two, Intercom’s first year is hard to beat. Zendesk, HubSpot and Crisp run startup programmes too, which customer support for startups compares, and the best customer service software for startups ranks eleven products by what three people pay. If it’s Drift you’re leaving rather than Intercom, Drift alternatives covers what replaces it.

If a founder answers support, Deacon is the one built for you. It answers your customers from your docs in seconds, brings you only the conversations that need you, and shows you what customers are stuck on and asking for. Every feature is on the free plan, and it needs no card.

Questions about Intercom alternatives

Is there a free alternative to Intercom?

Yes. Deacon’s free plan gives you 50 answers a month from your docs, with every feature, no card and no end date. Help Scout’s free plan covers 5 users on email, Tidio’s covers 50 conversations a month with 10 seats, Crisp’s gives 2 seats a shared inbox, and HubSpot’s gives 2 users live chat. Chatwoot is free to host yourself, and Freshdesk’s Free Program runs for 6 months. Intercom has no free plan at all.

Is there an open-source Intercom alternative?

Chatwoot is the one built for it. Its Community Edition is free to run on your own server, without Captain, its AI, or your own branding, and its hosted plans start free for 2 agents. Deacon isn’t open source. It’s a hosted service with a free plan.

Is Intercom the same company as Fin now?

Yes. The company renamed itself Fin, after its AI agent, and Intercom is now the name of its helpdesk. Intercom pricing explains how Intercom and Fin are sold now. Salesforce completed its purchase of Fin on 10 September 2026, and says Fin will keep serving its customers. Fin, the agent, is also sold on other helpdesks, and Fin AI alternatives looks at it on its own.

Who can join Intercom’s Early Stage programme?

The programme page asks for up to $10M in funding, fewer than 15 employees and a startup that isn’t already an Intercom customer, so apply before you start paying. A free trial doesn’t rule you out, and Intercom’s help article says a startup that has already started one can still apply if it meets those terms. The same article says the programme is only on Intercom’s Advanced plan.

Can Deacon message visitors first, like Intercom?

No. Deacon never starts a conversation. The widget opens only when a visitor clicks it or your site calls Deacon.open(), and there are no product tours, banners or campaigns. It answers what people ask, and hands you the conversations that need a person.

Can I move from Intercom to Deacon?

Yes, by adding your content again, since there’s no import from Intercom. If your help centre is public, add its articles by their links, or on a paid plan crawl the whole help centre and tick the articles you want. You can also upload PDF, Word (.docx), Markdown, text, CSV or HTML files of up to 10 MB each, paste text in, or add question and answer pairs with Add Q&A. Then replace the Messenger’s snippet with Deacon’s one script tag.