12 Best Intercom Alternatives

Our Pick for SaaS Companies

Sequenzy

If you mainly use Intercom for email sequences and marketing automation, Sequenzy is a focused alternative. AI-powered email generation, native Stripe integration, and built specifically for SaaS.

While Intercom bundles chat, help desk, and email into one platform at $29-132/seat/month, Sequenzy focuses purely on email marketing with AI that generates entire onboarding sequences, trial conversion flows, and churn recovery campaigns from simple descriptions. The Stripe integration automatically syncs subscription data so you can segment by plan, MRR, and billing status without manual tagging. No live chat or in-app messaging, but if email is your primary channel and Intercom's email tools feel like an afterthought, Sequenzy delivers better email at predictable, non-seat-based pricing.

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Best for

SaaS teams who primarily need email marketing

Pricing

$49/month for 10k subscribers

Pros

AI generates entire email sequences
Native Stripe integration for SaaS
Marketing + transactional unified
Predictable pricing (no per-seat)
Built for SaaS from day one

Cons

No live chat
No in-app messaging
No help desk features
Email focused only

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Crisp

The most direct Intercom alternative for chat and support. Live chat, shared inbox, knowledge base, and chatbots at a fraction of Intercom's price.

Crisp covers most of what teams actually use Intercom for — live chat with co-browsing, a shared inbox for team collaboration, knowledge base, and chatbot automation — at $95/month for up to 10 seats versus what a single Intercom Advanced seat costs. The MagicReply AI feature summarizes conversations and suggests responses without per-resolution charges, making AI costs predictable. The interface isn't quite as polished as Intercom's messenger, and the integration ecosystem is smaller, but for teams that need 80% of Intercom's chat and support features at roughly 20% of the price, Crisp is the most direct alternative available.

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Best for

Teams wanting Intercom-like chat features cheaper

Pricing

$95/month (Pro, 10 seats)

Pros

Live chat with co-browsing
Shared inbox for support
Knowledge base included
Much cheaper than Intercom
Chatbot builder included

Cons

Email marketing is basic
Not as polished as Intercom
Fewer integrations
AI features less advanced

Customer.io

The powerhouse for PLG companies. Email, push, SMS, in-app messaging with sophisticated behavioral triggers.

Expensive but matches Intercom's automation power. Customer.io's event-driven data model lets you trigger messages based on any user behavior — feature adoption, billing changes, inactivity patterns — across email, push, SMS, and in-app channels. The workflow builder supports complex branching logic with delays, filters, and A/B tests that rival Intercom's Series feature. At $100/month for 5,000 profiles on Essentials, it's similarly priced to Intercom but without live chat or help desk features. For product-led growth companies that need sophisticated behavioral automation more than they need a chat widget, Customer.io often proves to be a better investment of the same budget.

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Best for

PLG companies with complex user journeys

Pricing

$100/month for 5,000 profiles (Essentials)

Pros

Most powerful behavioral automation
Multi-channel (email, push, SMS, in-app)
Excellent API and data model
Built for product-led growth
Transactional email included

Cons

Similar price to Intercom
No live chat
Complex setup required
Steep learning curve

Drift

Conversational marketing platform focused on B2B. If you use Intercom for sales chat and qualification, Drift is built specifically for that use case.

Now owned by Salesloft, Drift focuses entirely on B2B revenue generation through chat — qualifying leads with AI bots, routing conversations to the right sales reps, and booking meetings directly from chat interactions. The ABM (account-based marketing) integrations let you customize chat experiences based on which company is visiting your site. The pricing is enterprise-level (typically $2,500+/month), making it significantly more expensive than Intercom for most teams. If your primary use case for Intercom is B2B sales conversations and lead qualification rather than customer support or email marketing, Drift is purpose-built for exactly that workflow.

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Best for

B2B sales teams using chat for qualification

Pricing

Custom pricing (starts ~$2,500/month)

Pros

Built for B2B sales conversations
Excellent qualification bots
ABM integrations
Calendar scheduling built-in
Sales-focused playbooks

Cons

Very expensive
B2B sales focused only
Not for support use cases
Enterprise pricing model

HubSpot Service Hub

Full CRM with customer service tools including live chat, ticketing, and knowledge base. Good if you want everything in one ecosystem.

HubSpot Service Hub gives you live chat, ticketing, a knowledge base, and customer feedback tools — all connected to HubSpot's free CRM so your sales and support teams share the same customer data. The free tier includes basic live chat and ticketing, making it one of the few platforms where you can start with zero cost. The key advantage over Intercom is the unified CRM — every chat, email, and support ticket is logged against a contact record that sales can also see. The downside is that to access advanced features like conversation routing and SLAs, you'll need the Professional tier ($500/month), and Marketing Hub is an entirely separate cost if you also need email campaigns.

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Best for

Teams wanting CRM + support unified

Pricing

Free for basic, $90/month for Starter

Pros

Full CRM integration
Live chat included
Ticketing system
Knowledge base
Free tier available

Cons

Gets expensive for full features
Can feel bloated
Less focused than Intercom
Marketing Hub costs extra

Freshdesk

Traditional help desk with modern features. Ticketing, live chat, and AI assist. Better for support-heavy teams than Intercom.

Freshdesk is built around the support ticket as its core unit of work, with features like SLA management, agent collision detection, canned responses, and satisfaction surveys that Intercom handles less natively. The Freddy AI assistant helps agents draft responses and suggests knowledge base articles without per-resolution fees. At $15/agent/month for the Growth plan, it's dramatically cheaper than Intercom for support-heavy teams. The trade-off is that Freshdesk isn't designed for marketing — no email sequences, no product tours, no in-app messaging. For teams whose primary need is a structured help desk with live chat as a secondary channel, Freshdesk is purpose-built for that workflow.

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Best for

Support-focused teams

Pricing

$15/agent/month (Growth)

Pros

Powerful ticketing system
AI-powered suggestions
Omnichannel support
Affordable pricing
Good knowledge base

Cons

Not built for marketing
No email sequences
Less startup-focused
Chat is an add-on

Zendesk

The enterprise standard for support. More focused on ticketing and help desk than Intercom's messenger-first approach.

Zendesk has been the go-to support platform for enterprises for over a decade, with a mature ticketing system, extensive reporting, and an integration marketplace that dwarfs Intercom's. The AI features are improving with Answer Bot and generative AI for agents, though the implementation can feel bolted-on compared to Intercom's more native Fin AI. At $55/agent/month for Suite Team, it's comparable in price to Intercom for smaller teams but scales more predictably since there are no per-resolution AI fees. Zendesk's messenger feels dated compared to Intercom's sleek widget, and the product isn't built for marketing — but for enterprise support operations that need robust ticketing, reporting, and a massive integration ecosystem, Zendesk remains the industry standard.

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Best for

Enterprise support teams

Pricing

$55/agent/month (Suite Team)

Pros

Industry-standard support platform
Powerful ticketing
Extensive integrations
Strong reporting
AI features improving

Cons

Enterprise pricing
Overkill for small teams
Messenger is dated
Not for marketing

Tidio

Budget-friendly live chat with AI chatbots. Simple to set up, good for small teams who just need chat and basic automation.

Tidio gets you a working live chat widget on your website in minutes, with AI-powered chatbots that can handle FAQs and route conversations to the right team member. The Lyro AI chatbot learns from your content and resolves common questions automatically, with pricing included in the base plan rather than per-conversation like Intercom's Fin. At $29/month for 3 operator seats, it's ideal for small teams that need live chat without the overhead of a full customer communication platform. The limitations show at scale — automation is basic, the integration list is short, and enterprise features like advanced reporting are missing — but for early-stage companies or small businesses, Tidio covers live chat essentials at a very accessible price point.

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Best for

Small teams wanting affordable chat

Pricing

$29/month for 3 seats

Pros

Very affordable
Easy to set up
AI chatbots included
Live visitor tracking
Good for small teams

Cons

Limited at scale
Basic automation
Fewer integrations
Not enterprise-ready

Help Scout

Customer communication platform focused on email-first support. Shared inbox, knowledge base, and beacon (chat widget).

Simpler than Intercom. Help Scout takes a deliberately simpler approach to customer support — a clean shared inbox for email, a well-designed knowledge base (Docs), and a lightweight embeddable widget (Beacon) that surfaces help articles before escalating to live chat. The product philosophy prioritizes simplicity over feature density, which means your team can be productive in hours rather than weeks. At $20/user/month for Standard, it's significantly cheaper than Intercom for teams that handle most support via email rather than chat. The trade-off is that Help Scout's live chat is basic, there's no marketing automation or in-app messaging, and the product intentionally stays focused rather than trying to be an all-in-one platform.

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Best for

Teams who prefer email-first support

Pricing

$20/user/month (Standard)

Pros

Clean email-based support
Excellent shared inbox
Good knowledge base
Beacon widget for help
Simple, focused product

Cons

Limited chat compared to Intercom
No marketing automation
Less modern UI
Basic live chat

#10

Userlist

Email marketing automation built for B2B SaaS. Focuses on company accounts and user relationships.

Good for SaaS with team accounts. Userlist uniquely understands the relationship between companies and their individual users — a data model that's critical for B2B SaaS where one account might have multiple team members with different roles and activity levels. You can trigger automations based on company-level events (like "company completed onboarding") rather than just individual user actions, which is something Intercom handles less elegantly. At $149/month for 10,000 users, it's competitively priced against Intercom for email-focused B2B teams. The limitation is scope: no live chat, no help desk, no in-app messaging. Userlist is purely email automation for B2B SaaS, and it does that specific job very well.

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Best for

B2B SaaS with company accounts

Pricing

$149/month for 10,000 users

Pros

Built for B2B SaaS specifically
Company + user relationships
Behavior-based automation
Clean, focused product
Good for team accounts

Cons

No live chat
More expensive than alternatives
Smaller ecosystem
Email focused only

#11

Drip

E-commerce focused email marketing and automation. If you use Intercom for e-commerce messaging, Drip is purpose-built for that.

Drip integrates deeply with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other e-commerce platforms to trigger automated email flows based on purchase behavior — abandoned carts, post-purchase sequences, win-back campaigns, and product recommendations. The visual workflow builder makes it easy to create complex automation sequences with branching logic and revenue attribution. At $184/month for 10,000 subscribers, it's comparable in price to Intercom but focused entirely on e-commerce email rather than chat and support. If you're an e-commerce business using Intercom primarily for email marketing to customers, Drip's specialized features and pre-built e-commerce workflows will likely outperform Intercom's more generic email tools.

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Best for

E-commerce email automation

Pricing

$184/month for 10,000 subscribers

Pros

E-commerce deep integrations
Powerful automation builder
Revenue attribution
Good tagging system
Visual workflow builder

Cons

No live chat
E-commerce focused (not SaaS)
No support features
Getting expensive

#12

Chatwoot

Open-source Intercom alternative. Self-host for free or use their cloud. Live chat, shared inbox, and basic automation.

Chatwoot gives you the core features of Intercom — live chat widget, shared inbox, conversation management, and basic chatbot automation — with the option to self-host on your own infrastructure for complete data ownership and zero recurring costs. The cloud-hosted version starts at $19/agent/month, making it one of the most affordable Intercom alternatives available. The open-source community is active, with regular feature additions and a growing list of integrations including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram. The trade-off is polish and advanced features: Chatwoot's AI capabilities, reporting, and workflow automation are less sophisticated than Intercom's, and self-hosting requires technical resources to maintain. For teams that value data sovereignty or need to keep costs minimal, it's the most viable open-source option.

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Best for

Teams wanting open-source or self-hosted

Pricing

Free (self-hosted) or $19/agent/month

Pros

Open-source and free
Self-hostable
Multi-channel inbox
Good API
Active development

Cons

Less polished than Intercom
Self-hosting requires work
Fewer advanced features
Smaller community

Why Consider Alternatives to Intercom

The pricing is unpredictable

Intercom charges per seat ($29-$132/seat/month), plus per-resolution for AI ($0.99 each), plus per-email for outreach. A team of 5 with moderate AI usage can easily hit $500-800/month. Many alternatives have simpler, predictable pricing.

You might only need part of it

Intercom bundles chat, email, help desk, and AI into one platform. If you primarily need email marketing, tools like Sequenzy are cheaper and better. If you only need chat, Crisp is much cheaper. Don't pay for features you won't use.

The AI costs add up fast

Fin AI Agent charges $0.99 per resolved conversation. Handle 500 AI conversations monthly and that's $495 on top of your base plan. Purpose-built support tools often include AI in the base price.

Complexity you might not need

Intercom's product tours, surveys, in-app posts, and advanced automation are powerful but complex. Simpler tools can often do 80% of what you need with 20% of the complexity.

What Users Say About Intercom

Trustpilot

Intercom is a great tool for any customer service team. It offers a wide range of services - you can set workflows to easily automate processes, use their FIN AI to lower the amount of cases where human support is needed, and set your own triage system for prioritizing tickets.

M.2025-05

Trustpilot

This terrible service provider has no clear fees and is overly expensive for what looks like a company made of incompetent people. Every day there is a problem and we need to send emails to half of Intercom's department.

Marcello2022-12

Trustpilot

Very expensive for what you get, extremely slow to get support from them, and the biggest problem is that the chat tool doesn't even appear for many of your site's visitors. You can pay several hundred dollars per month and still miss conversations.

Alex2022-12

Feature Comparison

Feature	Intercom	Sequenzy	Crisp	Customer.io	Help Scout	Freshdesk
Price (5 seats)	$495+/mo	$49/mo*	$95/mo	$100/mo*	$100/mo	$75/mo
Live chat	Best		Good		Basic	Add-on
Email marketing	Good	Best (SaaS)	Basic	Good
Help desk	Good		Good		Good	Best
AI features	$0.99/res	Included	Included	Included	Included	Included
SaaS focus	Good	Best	Good	Good
Multi-channel

When to Use Each Platform

Choose Sequenzy if...

You mainly use Intercom for email sequences
You want AI-generated email content
You run a SaaS and use Stripe
Intercom's email tools feel limited

Choose Stay with Intercom if...

You need live chat + email + support unified
You rely heavily on Intercom's messenger
You have budget and love the product
You need in-app product tours

Choose Crisp if...

You want Intercom-like chat much cheaper
You need chat, support inbox, and knowledge base
You're cost-conscious but need full features
You want chatbots without per-conversation fees

Choose Customer.io if...

You're a PLG company with complex automation
You need multi-channel messaging (email, push, SMS)
Behavior-based triggers are critical
You don't need live chat

Choose Help Scout if...

Email-first support is your preference
You want a simpler, cleaner product
You don't need heavy marketing automation
A good shared inbox is the priority

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. Trustpilot reviews paint a divided picture — teams that use the full platform praise its capabilities, while others cite pricing complexity and support quality as reasons to leave. The seat-based pricing plus per-resolution AI charges plus per-email outreach costs create bills that are hard to predict month to month, and many teams discover they're paying for a full communication suite when they primarily use one or two features. 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 $49/month for 10,000 subscribers (120k 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: $49/mo (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.

Frequently Asked Questions

All Pricing Tiers

0-100 subscribers: Free (Free annually) - 3k emails/month

101-1,000 subscribers: $19/month ($205/year annually) - 15k emails/month

1,001-5,000 subscribers: $29/month ($313/year annually) - 60k emails/month

5,001-10,000 subscribers: $49/month ($529/year annually) - 120k emails/month

10,001-25,000 subscribers: $99/month ($1069/year annually) - 300k emails/month

25,001-50,000 subscribers: $199/month ($2149/year annually) - 600k emails/month

50,001-100,000 subscribers: $349/month ($3769/year annually) - 1.2M emails/month

100,000+ subscribers: Custom pricing (Custom annually) - Unlimited emails/month

Yearly billing: All plans offer a 10% discount when billed annually.

12 Intercom Alternatives Worth Considering

TL;DR

12 Best Intercom Alternatives

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Why Consider Alternatives to Intercom

What Users Say About Intercom

Feature Comparison

When to Use Each Platform

Why people leave Intercom

The pricing complexity

Feature overlap you're paying for

AI costs are a moving target

The alternatives, honestly

If email is your main use case: Sequenzy

If you want Intercom-like features cheaper: Crisp

If PLG automation is the priority: Customer.io

If support is the focus: Freshdesk or Help Scout

The pricing comparison

When Intercom is still the right choice

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the best Intercom alternative for email marketing?

Is Intercom worth the price?

Why is Intercom so expensive?

What's cheaper than Intercom for live chat?

Intercom vs Customer.io: Which is better for SaaS?

Does Intercom have a free plan?

Can I use Intercom just for chat?

What's the best open-source Intercom alternative?

How hard is it to migrate from Intercom?

Is Intercom good for small startups?

How do I cancel my Intercom account?

What is Intercom's pricing structure?

How do I export my data from Intercom?

Does Intercom offer a free trial?

What is Intercom's refund policy?

Ready to try Sequenzy?

Sequenzy vs Intercom: Direct Comparison

More Alternatives

Crisp Alternatives

Customer.io Alternatives

Sequenzy - Complete Pricing Guide

Pricing Model

All Pricing Tiers

Free Plan Features (2,500 emails/month)

Paid Plan Features (1,000 - 100,000 subscribers)

Enterprise Plan Features (100,000+ subscribers)

Important Pricing Notes

Contact