Why people leave Intercom
Intercom built an impressive product. The unified messenger, email marketing, help desk, and AI assistant work well together. But that power comes at a cost that keeps climbing. Let's look at why teams consider alternatives.
The pricing complexity
Intercom's pricing page looks simple: $29, $85, or $132 per seat per month. But then you add Fin AI Agent at $0.99 per resolution, email outreach charges, Product Tours add-on, Surveys add-on... suddenly a 5-person team is at $600/month and rising.
For teams who primarily use one feature, paying for the whole platform doesn't make sense. If email is your main channel, dedicated email marketing tools cost a fraction.
Feature overlap you're paying for
Intercom bundles chat, email, help desk, and automation together. Great if you use everything. Wasteful if you mainly need email marketing and occasionally use chat. You're paying enterprise prices for a focused use case.
AI costs are a moving target
Fin AI Agent is impressive technology. But at $0.99 per resolved conversation, your monthly bill depends on how many conversations AI handles. Handle 1,000 AI conversations and that's $990 added to your bill. Budgeting becomes guesswork.
The alternatives, honestly
If email is your main use case: Sequenzy
If you use Intercom primarily for email sequences, onboarding automation, and marketing campaigns, Sequenzy is built specifically for that. AI generates entire email sequences from simple descriptions. Stripe integration syncs customer data automatically.
No live chat, no help desk - just really good email for SaaS at $19/month for 10k emails instead of $500+. See our Intercom comparison for a detailed breakdown.
If you want Intercom-like features cheaper: Crisp
Crisp offers live chat, shared inbox, knowledge base, and chatbots at roughly $95/month for 10 seats. That's what you'd pay for just one seat on Intercom's Advanced plan. The AI features are included, not per-conversation. Check our Crisp comparison for details.
Not quite as polished as Intercom, but 80% of the features at 20% of the price.
If PLG automation is the priority: Customer.io
Customer.io matches Intercom's behavioral automation power for email, push, SMS, and in-app messaging. If you're a product-led growth company that needs sophisticated triggers based on user behavior, Customer.io delivers. See our Customer.io comparison.
No live chat though. If you need both chat and automation, you'd need to pair Customer.io with a separate chat tool.
If support is the focus: Freshdesk or Help Scout
If you use Intercom as a help desk more than a marketing tool, dedicated support platforms like Freshdesk ($15/agent) or Help Scout ($20/user) are better and cheaper. Better ticketing, knowledge base tools, and agent workflows.
The pricing comparison
For a team of 5 people, approximate monthly costs:
- Intercom Advanced: $425/month (5 seats × $85) + AI and email usage
- Sequenzy: $19/month (subscriber-based, email only)
- Crisp Pro: $95/month (10 seats included)
- Customer.io: $100/month (profile-based, no chat)
- Freshdesk Growth: $75/month (5 agents × $15)
- Help Scout Standard: $100/month (5 users × $20)
See our pricing page for detailed Sequenzy pricing.
When Intercom is still the right choice
Intercom wins if:
- You actively use chat, email, help desk, and automation together daily
- The unified experience is worth the premium price
- You have budget and your team loves the product
- Product tours and in-app messaging are critical features
- You qualified for Intercom's startup program discount
Don't switch just because it's expensive. If Intercom genuinely improves your customer communication and you use most features, the cost may be justified. But if you're paying Intercom prices for one or two features, you're almost certainly overpaying.
Use our email validator tool to clean your list before any migration, and check our DMARC checker to ensure your email infrastructure is ready.