Helpdesk for support teams, with AI agents that answer customers and a copilot for staff.
Sales & Customer Support
Intercom
Customer support inbox, help centre and chat, with the Fin AI agent answering first.
4.2our rating
PaidFrom $0.99 per outcomeWorks with Claude Code
Quick take
- A complete support setup: inbox, live chat, help centre and an AI agent (Fin) that answers before your team does.
- Seats start at $29 a month on Essential, then every conversation Fin handles costs $0.99. Busy inboxes add up fast.
- Fin's answers are among the best of the AI support agents, but it is only as good as your help articles. Write those first.
- You can buy Fin on its own to sit on top of Zendesk or Salesforce, so you don't have to switch helpdesk to try it.
- The company renamed itself Fin in May 2026 and Salesforce agreed to buy it in June 2026. Watch for pricing changes.
What is Intercom?
Intercom is a customer support platform: a shared inbox and ticketing system, a chat widget for your website and app, and a help centre, all in one place. Its AI agent, Fin, sits in front of your team. It reads your help articles, past conversations and policies, answers customers across chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS and phone, and hands the conversation to a person when it can't help. It can also take actions such as looking up an order, if you connect it to your systems.
Pick Intercom when you want the AI agent and the helpdesk from the same company and you have enough support volume to justify it. Fin is widely seen as one of the best AI support agents, and it can also be bought on its own (at fin.ai) to sit on top of Zendesk or Salesforce. Zendesk is the closer match for large, phone-heavy teams with complex routing; Hiver suits small teams who live in Gmail; Chatbase is a cheaper way to put a simple AI chatbot on a website.
The catch is cost. You pay per seat and then $0.99 for every conversation Fin handles, so the bill rises with your volume and is hard to predict. Users also complain that many features are paid add-ons. In May 2026 the company renamed itself Fin, keeping Intercom as the name of the helpdesk, and in June 2026 Salesforce agreed to buy it for about $3.6 billion. Expect pricing and packaging to shift as that settles.
Who's using it, and who it's for
- Support teams
- Software companies
- Online stores
- Customer success teams
Online businesses and software companies with a support team that wants an AI agent to take the first pass at every question.
Key features
Fin AI agent
Answers customer questions using your help centre, past conversations and policies, and passes tricky ones to a person.
Shared inbox and tickets
Every conversation from chat, email, phone and social lands in one inbox your team can assign and track.
Messenger chat widget
A chat box for your website and app that can show articles, collect details and start conversations.
Help centre
Publish help articles customers can search, which also become what Fin learns from.
Workflows
Rules that route, tag and reply to conversations automatically, set up without code on Advanced and above.
Copilot for agents
Suggests replies and finds answers for your human team while they work a ticket.
How we rate it
4.2 / 5
Our rating
From using the tool ourselves. The average of the five scores.
- Ease of use
- 4.0
- Features
- 5.0
- Output quality
- 4.5
- Value for money
- 3.0
- Speed & reliability
- 4.5
How quickly someone non-technical gets value from it.
How completely it covers its own job, and how well the pieces fit together.
How good the results are before you fix them.
What you get for the price, including the free plan.
How fast it is and how often it falls over.
Intercom pricing
Fin on its own
$0.99 per outcome, monthly minimum
Teams happy with their current helpdesk who want the AI agent only.
- No seats needed
- Works with Zendesk, Salesforce and other helpdesks
- Charged per conversation Fin handles
Essential
$29/seat/mo, plus $0.99 per Fin outcome
Small teams starting out with live chat and an AI agent.
- Fin AI agent
- Messenger, shared inbox and ticketing
- Public help centre
- Pre-built reports
- Our pick
Advanced
$85/seat/mo, plus $0.99 per Fin outcome
Growing support teams that need automation and several inboxes.
- Multiple team inboxes
- No-code workflow builder
- Round-robin assignment
- Private and multilingual help centre
- 20 free Lite seats
Expert
$132/seat/mo, plus $0.99 per Fin outcome
Larger teams with security and multi-brand needs.
- SSO and identity management
- HIPAA support
- Service level targets
- Multi-brand messenger and help centre
- 50 free Lite seats
Which plan should you pick?
Start the 14-day trial and see how many conversations Fin handles, because that number drives the bill more than seats do. Most teams with more than a couple of agents end up on Advanced for the workflows. If you already run Zendesk or Salesforce and like it, try Fin on its own first.
Prices in USD unless noted, checked 22 October 2026. Vendors change plans often, so confirm on their site before you buy.
Best use cases
Ways Intercom can slot into your week.
- 1
Take the first pass at every question
Turn on Fin on your website chat so it answers shipping, returns and account questions, and only hands over the ones it can't.
- 2
Turn tickets into help articles
Spot the questions that keep coming in, write an article for each, and Fin starts answering them the same day.
- 3
Run support for an online store
Connect Shopify so Fin and your team can see orders and answer "where's my parcel" without switching screens.
- 4
Support in several languages
Let Fin answer in the customer's language while your team works in English.
How it fits your tech stack
Pros and cons
Pros
- Fin gives some of the most accurate answers of any AI support agent
- Inbox, chat, help centre and AI all built to work together
- Fin can run on top of another helpdesk, so you can trial it without moving
- Clean, modern inbox that support staff pick up quickly
- Public API and an official MCP server
Cons
- Per-seat plus per-conversation pricing makes the monthly bill hard to predict
- You pay for a Fin outcome even when a customer leaves after a weak answer, by some users' accounts
- Many useful features sit on higher plans or paid add-ons
- Slow or patchy responses from Intercom's own support in user reviews
- Ownership change (renamed Fin, being bought by Salesforce) adds uncertainty
Intercom alternatives
The closest alternatives to Intercom in the library, best rated first.
Hyperbound
4.1
Best for practising cold calls before going live
Compare with Intercom
Retell AI
4.1
Best for AI receptionist for a small business
Compare with Intercom
Yoodli
4.1
Best for rehearsing a pitch or presentation
Compare with Intercom
Apollo.io
4.0
Best for finding business emails and phone numbers
Compare with Intercom
Why it made the list
Its Fin agent is one of the most used and best reviewed AI support agents, and it comes with a full helpdesk behind it.
Intercom FAQ
How much does Intercom cost?
There's no free plan. Paid plans start at $0.99 per outcome. Prices checked 22 October 2026 against Intercom's pricing page.
Is Intercom free?
No. There's no free plan. Paid plans start at $0.99 per outcome.
What is Intercom best for?
Intercom is best for answering common customer questions automatically, website and in-app live chat and A shared support inbox with ticketing. Online businesses and software companies with a support team that wants an AI agent to take the first pass at every question.
What are the best Intercom alternatives?
The closest alternatives are Hyperbound, Retell AI, Yoodli and Apollo.io. Hyperbound is best for practising cold calls before going live.
More tools in Sales & Customer Support
Shared inbox and helpdesk that runs inside Gmail, with AI that drafts and answers replies.
Puts an AI chatbot on your website that answers from your own docs and pages.
AI agents that resolve customer service requests across chat, email and phone.