Intercom positions itself as an AI-first customer service platform and is popular among companies for building customer relationships. It provides unified campaigns and chatbots for increased website conversion and revenue growth.

However, despite a widespread customer base and a comprehensive feature set, many users are keen on finding alternatives.
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One of the primary reasons is its complex pricing structure, which can be potentially overwhelming for the average user. Many users find Intercom's user interface (UI) overwhelming, whereas many criticize its API for its confusing terminology and complexity, which can pose integration challenges. On top of it, Intercom’s insufficient customer support may present drawbacks for potential users.

That is why it is important to carefully consider each Intercom pricing point, as well as additional costs and variables such as company size and user count.

This article will deeply explore each aspect of Intercom pricing strategy and introduce some top-rated Intercom alternatives to ensure you get your money’s worth.

Overview of Intercom’s pricing plans

Intercom pricing plans come in a three-tier model as follows:  

• Essential Plan: This entry-level plan is tailored for small teams and startups. It offers core features like a shared inbox, basic chatbots, and simple automations. This plan provides a solid foundation for businesses just starting to scale their customer engagement efforts, offering only the necessary tools.
   
• Advanced Plan: Designed for growing businesses, this plan includes more sophisticated features. It offers multiple team inboxes, social media channel integration, and enhanced analytics. The Advanced Plan is ideal for companies experiencing growth, managing increased customer interactions efficiently, and requiring more robust tools for team collaboration.
  
  
• Expert Plan: This top-tier plan caters to large enterprises with complex needs. It includes advanced features like workload management, custom roles, and enterprise-grade security. The Expert Plan provides maximum scalability and control, making it suitable for organizations with sophisticated customer engagement requirements and large teams.
  
  
• Flexible Options: Intercom also offers various add-ons and both monthly and annual billing options. These flexible choices allow businesses to customize their plan according to specific needs and budget constraints.

Additional information

Some of the important points to note:

• The monthly seat price depends on your chosen plan, with no maximum or minimum seats. 
• Intercom offers an Early Stage Program for startups where they can receive up to 90% discount
• Users can easily upgrade or downgrade between these plans
• All plans include access to Fin AI Agent, an intuitive customer support chatbot,  with usage charged at $0.99 per resolution
• Fin AI Copilot offers limited free usage (10 conversations per month per seat) on all plans, with an option to upgrade to unlimited usage for an additional fee
• The Proactive Support Plus add-on is available for $99 per month across all plans
• Each teammate requires a seat to get access to Intercom’s customer service solution
• The Advanced and Expert plans feature several lite seats, which provide limited access to Intercom
• A 14-day free trial is available
• No credit card is required to avail of the free trial
• You can also access the Pricing Calculator

Intercom’s pricing plans: A detailed breakdown

An in-depth look at the Intercom pricing strategy

Now that you have a fair idea of Intercom's pricing plans let’s explore how they calculate pricing and additional costs.

Factors influencing Intercom pricing

Calculating your monthly Intercom invoice could be challenging. Once you integrate Intercom into your workflow, there are these key factors that come into play:

1.Fin AI Agent-driven resolutions

As noted above, if you have installed the Fin AI Agent chatbot, you are charged $0.99 monthly for each resolution.

2.People reached

This calculates the total number of unique customers you've contacted across all your communication channels. It essentially counts every customer you've sent a message to, regardless of the channel.

That means if you sent 100 emails and 50 bounced, you’ll still be charged for the 100 people reached. It also considers people who have received and engaged with an outbound message. 

3.Seats

• Full seats: Each teammate using Intercom must have a designated full seat, which provides access to products and features within your chosen plan.
  
  
• Lite seats: Included in Advanced and Expert plans, Lite seats offer limited access to Intercom for cross-functional collaboration at no extra cost. The Essential plan does not include Lite seats.
  
  
• Additional seats: Each additional agent seat is charged extra based on your subscription plan. Each additional seat on the Essential plan may be added for $39/month, $99/month for the Advanced plan and $139/month for the Expert plan.

Intercom pricing: Additional costs

To enjoy Intercom to the fullest, you have to pay for a set of additional costs:

1.WhatsApp

Intercom has different pricing for inbound and outbound WhatsApp and is charged per ‘conversation.’ The unit costs vary by volume.

2.SMS

SMS is charged per the ‘SMS sent and/or received’ number. The unit cost and prices may vary by volume and region, respectively.

3.Emails and email Campaigns

All email campaigns are charged per the number of ‘bulk emails sent’ — emails sent to more than one customer. Emails sent from the inbox or the inbound emails from your customers and responses to those emails are included in your plan at no additional charge.

4.Proactive Support Plus & Messages Sent

If you purchase Proactive Support Plus, you can access several capabilities, including product tours, surveys, in-app posts, mobile push, and mobile carousels. 

The base fee is $99/month for 500 messages sent monthly. Messages sent above 500/month are charged additional costs and are charged per ‘message sent.

Intercom pricing plans: Pros & cons

Based on extensive research and thousands of customer reviews, we found the following pros and cons of Intercom from a pricing viewpoint:

Pros:

1. Fin, a worthwhile investment: Even though Fin, the chatbot, comes at an additional cost, users have expressed their satisfaction with its use. It is easy to set up and provides value for money.

2. Free trial and discounts for startups: Intercom offers a free trial on all plans, which allows users to test features before committing. It also offers an Early Stage Program for startups with up to a 90% discount. Users like SaaS startup owners with over three years of experience using Intercom have expressed that it provided significant cost savings during the first year.

Cons:

1. Can become expensive: A small business owner with 50 or fewer employees noted that Intercom prices start to get hefty once you exit the early stage program, which offers up to 90% discount.

2. Support plans can be costly: A user in a small company with 1-10 employees who has been using Intercom for more than 2 years expressed difficulty accessing support. Paid support starts at $59 a month, which can be expensive for small businesses.

5 cost-effective alternatives to Intercom

Evidently, Intercom's pricing can be complex and unpredictable, with hidden costs that quickly add up. To help you avoid overspending, we've compiled a list of Intercom alternatives that offer comparable or even superior features at a more affordable price.

1. Plivo CX 

Plivo CX is a cloud-based, all-in-one omnichannel customer service platform that empowers businesses to deliver exceptional support experiences across multiple channels.

With its unified agent desktop, your team can seamlessly handle customer conversations via email, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat from a single interface. This streamlines your support operations and ensures a consistent customer experience.

Skills-based routing ensures that calls are directed to the most qualified agents, while multi-language support allows you to cater to a global audience.

One of the standout features of Plivo CX is its integration with OpenAI-powered chatbots. You can easily train and deploy smart chatbots to handle routine inquiries automatically. Use the no-code visual workflow builder to create custom workflows and automations for better convenience.

Plivo CX also offers wide-ranging integrations with your existing tech stack, including CRM, ERP, order management, payment systems, and helpdesk tools. Additionally, real-time analytics and customizable reports give you valuable insights into your team's performance and customer interactions.

Plus, with features like call recording, internal notes, and collaboration tools, Plivo CX facilitates knowledge sharing and continuous improvement within your team.

Finally, the platform prioritizes security and compliance, ensuring that your customer data is protected and your support operations adhere to the latest industry regulations. 

Why is Plivo CX a better alternative?

Plivo CX addresses several limitations of Intercom, particularly in terms of pricing, channel flexibility, integration capabilities, and more. These advantages make Plivo CX a compelling alternative, especially for businesses seeking a more cost-effective, flexible, and feature-rich customer service solution.
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Let’s go over the key advantages of Plivo CX:

• Cost-effective pricing: Plivo CX provides significantly better value, with chat-only packages starting at half the price of Intercom's equivalent offerings. This makes Plivo CX a more accessible option for small teams and startups with limited budgets.
  
  
• Advanced voice capabilities: While Intercom's voice channel is basic, Plivo CX leverages Plivo’s premium carrier network, available in over 220 countries. This proprietary telecommunications infrastructure provides a more advanced, low-latency, and reliable voice communication solution. This particularly helps businesses that heavily rely on voice support.
  
  
• Faster issue resolution: Unlike Intercom, Plivo CX allows agents to switch between channels seamlessly or use multiple channels simultaneously. Such flexibility enables quicker issue resolution and a more efficient customer service process.

• Comprehensive integration capabilities: Plivo CX offers custom integrations with home-grown systems, a feature not available in Intercom.

• Superior monitoring and supervision: The tool offers enhanced capabilities for monitoring and supervising customer interactions, a feature that Intercom lacks. 

• Omnichannel communication: Plivo CX enables seamless communication across multiple channels, including voice, chat, SMS, and WhatsApp, all from a single platform. This comprehensive approach to omnichannel support is more advanced than Intercom's offering.

Plivo CX Pricing:

Omnichannel (annual plans)

• Growth: $29 per user per month
• Business: $69 per user per month
• Enterprise: Available on request

Voice-Only (annual plans)

• Growth: $25 per user per month
• Business: $40 per user per month
• Enterprise: Available on request

Chat-Only (annual plans)

• Growth: $15 per user per month
• Business: $30 per user per month
• Enterprise: Available on request

2. HelpCrunch

HelpCrunch allows agents to easily manage customer interactions across multiple channels from a single tool. In addition to email and live chat, this platform supports other messaging platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. 

It also features a knowledge base builder to help customers find helpful information independently.

Why is HelpCrunch a better alternative?

• Offers free data migration from Intercom
• Features a chatbot with a no-code visual editor and bot templates that can be launched immediately
• Provides an integrated knowledge base with built-in SEO features, which is included in all pricing plans

HelpCrunch Pricing:

Monthly plans

• Basic: $12/user/month 
• Pro: $20/user/month 
• Unlimited: $496/month

Annual plans 

• Basic: $10/user/month
• Pro: $16/user/month
• Unlimited: $396/unlimited user/month

3. Freshdesk Omni

Freshdesk Omni customer service suite is an AI-first, all-in-one solution that provides a seamless customer experience across all channels. It features automated self-service and an advanced ticketing management system for issues requiring team collaboration.

This suite offers omnichannel support for creating a convenient and cohesive work environment.

Why is Freshdesk Omni a better alternative?

• Includes bespoke email marketing campaigns, data encryption, and a mobile app for on-the-go communications
• Prioritizes customer service with 24/7 email support and 24/5 phone and chat for paid plans 
• It offers a free plan, which is missing in Intercom

Freshdesk Omni Pricing
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Monthly Plans

• Growth: €35/agent/month ($37)
• Pro: €83/agent/month ($89)
• Enterprise: €131/agent/month ($141)

Annual plans

• Growth: €29/agent/month ($31)
• Pro: €69/agent/month ($75)
• Enterprise: €109/agent/month ($117)

4.Twilio

Twilio consists of a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable businesses to receive voice and video calls and send and receive SMS, WhatsApp, and email communications. It is built on a pay-as-you-go pricing model, and the Twilio API allows developers to integrate the tool into their applications easily.

Why is Twilio a better alternative?

• Highly scalable and viable for businesses of any size
• Offers a free trial, and pricing is based on feature usage
• Provides interactive audio and video options and a large database for analyzing customer data

Twilio Pricing:

• Free: $0
• Contact sales for a customized quote

5.Zendesk

Zendesk is a cloud-based customer support software offering a ticketing system for efficient organization and prioritization of support requests. It enables customer service agents to manage inquiries, issues and feedback through a user-friendly interface. 

Zendesk also features multi-language support, allowing businesses to cater to a worldwide customer base.

Why is Zendesk a better alternative?

• Zendesk offers 1500 no-code apps and integrations, while Intercom provides just over 450 integrations
• Offers a dedicated workforce management system and real-time and historical reporting
• Offers an omnichannel experience with an intelligent ticketing system and embedded call center software

Zendesk pricing:

• Support team: $19/agent/month, when billed annually
• Suite team: $55/agent/month, when billed annually
• Suite professional: $115/agent/month, when billed annually
• Suite enterprise: Talk to sales, when billed annually

Experience maximum ROI and true value for money with Plivo CX 

Despite the strengths of Intercom, the pricing and other downsides could signal startups and SMEs to switch to a more cost-effective and suitable option. 

Plivo CX steps in as a reliable alternative. You get to deliver remarkable customer service with the same features—that too at half the price! Plus, you don’t have to pay an additional price for basic features such as voice, SMS, and WhatsApp—all packed in our omnichannel packages.

Unlike Intercom, Plivo CX offers one-on-one onboarding and implementation support at no additional cost. It also includes pre-configured and custom integrations, while Intercom offers only pre-configured integrations.

Apart from budget-friendly pricing, Plivo CX offers these key features: 

• Unified agent desktop to provide effortless and omnichannel customer service across email, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat
• OpenAI-powered self-service chatbots to help users find solutions to complex queries independently and around the clock
• Integration with your existing tech stack, including homegrown systems, ERP, CRM, and helpdesk tools for a holistic view of customer data
• Drag-and-Drop Workflow builder to build automated customer journeys across all communication channels
• Metrics and Reporting to analyze customer interactions and collect feedback in real-time 
• Call recording, barge and whisper to coach your agents effectively  

Sounds interesting? Schedule a demo now!