Top 18 Intercom Alternatives & Competitors Updated 2025

If you’re seeking a robust customer communication platform, Intercom is likely one of the first names that come to mind. However, as your business grows, you may find Intercom’s pricing and customization requirements becoming overwhelming. Rather than letting Intercom hold your business back, there are alternatives you can explore that will help your business spread its wings.

So, we’ve done the hard work for you, curating the best Intercom alternatives. Many of these platforms offer similar, and often superior, features to supercharge your customer engagement, streamline support, and improve scalability — all at more competitive prices.

So, without further ado, let’s jump into the best Intercom alternatives for 2025.

Why do people complain about Intercom?

While Intercom positions itself as one of the leaders in the customer communications space, it’s clear that not everyone who uses it ends up being a happy customer. 

While it has plenty going for it, we trawled through forums and customer reviews looking for worrying trends among real user feedback.

Below are some things to consider when choosing between Intercom and its competitors:

Buggy email automation tools: Customer communication automation is about making your life easier, not more complicated. Unfortunately, some users report issues with Intercom’s automated tools, particularly when it comes to email campaigns.

One user highlighted issues with the new “series” feature, which replaced the original “campaigns” too.

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Another remarked…

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This indicates that Intercom’s automation capabilities may not perform as expected, leading to inefficiencies and errors in customer communication workflows.

Pricing: Although Intercom’s flexible and highly customizable pricing model appeals to some, most are frustrated by its lack of transparency and non-inclusivity. Costs will quickly skyrocket as you start adding AI capabilities (also on a per-seat basis), marketing channels, and proactive support. 

One customer took exception with both Intercom’s high prices and lack of transparency:

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Another common problem was Intercom’s frequent and exorbitant price increases:

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Intercom’s obscure pricing has led some users to speculate that it’s designed to make it too difficult to transition to another platform if you decide to switch.

Basic reporting features: Another point of frustration is with Intercom’s reporting capabilities. Some users complain about unexpected data loss, while others take issue with its overall implementation. 

More than one reviewer complained about the overall quality of its reporting features:

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For companies that prioritize in-depth analytics and easy access to historical data, Intercom’s basic reporting features may not make the cut.

Insufficient conversation management: Similarly, past users have faced both functional and performance-based issues with Intercom’s conversational capabilities, a key component of any customer communication system.

It seems to be especially limiting and frustrating if you face high customer volumes with very busy peak times. As one reviewer noted, it seems to lack basic management tools most other platforms have:

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Another user pointed out the difficulties with switching between multiple conversations, saying it’s “a little more difficult to communicate with multiple customers simultaneously” than other customer communication platforms.

A final concern that seems to pop up are issues with searching or loading conversations:

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Uncaring internal customer service For a customer service platform, Intercom’s own customer support is a frequent point of dissatisfaction.

There’s no shortage of complaints regarding both the slow response times and lack of competency when it comes to Intercom’s customer support:

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Even those paying premium rates feel neglected:

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Many reviewers echoed the sentiment that it feels like Intercom’s customer support is focused more on upselling/cross-selling products and services than actually providing solutions.

Features to consider when looking for an alternative to Intercom

You can’t deliver excellent customer service with a one-size-fits-all approach, which means that your customer communication software also needs to meet your business’s specific requirements.

Knowing exactly what to look for will shed light on what you might be missing out on with Intercom. But, it will also help ensure that you pick the best-fit Intercom alternative, instead of just a like-for-like replacement.

We curated our selection based on these carefully selected criteria, so feel free to use them in your  search as well:

Ease of use

User-friendly customer service software helps promote agent buy-in, reduces onboarding time, and improves your efficiency.

Platforms like Customerly and HelpCrunch, for example, pride themselves on their modern, attractive, and intuitive experiences for agents and customers alike. Beyond high-quality software, it’s important that they offer the support and training you need to succeed and make the most out of your investment.

Plus, easy-to-use mobile apps with seamless integration is a must in today’s always-on customer service environment.

Customer Engagement

Customer expectations have evolved tremendously, and they now expect, no demand, and excellence across all interactions

So, effective customer engagement tools are ones that facilitate frictionless real-time interaction, personalized messaging, and seamless multichannel support. Live chat software is a cornerstone of this and should be effortless to use.

What’s more, email marketing templates and writing assistants can help you craft tailored and effective emails at scale in no time. Lastly, social media integrations with platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, allow you to reach your customers where they hang out online, closing the gap between you.

AI tools

AI represents the next step in speed, customization, and scalability. By automating repetitive tasks and providing rapid insights, it has the potential to revolutionize communications for both your customers and agents.

If you want to be at the forefront of this revolution, look for a platform that invests heavily in AI-powered tools. Intercom’s Fin, with its AI bot, Copilot, and Agent capabilities in no slouch. But, there are equally impressive alternatives in the AI-powered customer service landscape like Customerly’s Aura, Tidio’s Chatbots, and Freshdesk’s Freddy, just to name a few.

AI tools you should look for in your platform’s AI suite include:

• Automated chatbots: Should use conversational AI and support multiple languages to provide instant support. Also, assess its current resolution rates and ability to self-train.

• Personalized recommendations: Offers tailored solutions, products, services, or support options based on your customer’s profile, query, and past and current behavior. 
• AI writing assistance: Automate follow-ups, draft responses, assist agents with real-time interactions, and suggest message templates. Integrates with your KBs for updated information and to improve canned responses.
• Workflow automation: Allows setting up custom chatflows and ticket rules to prioritize, route, and escalate issues automatically.
• Analytics and insights: 24/7 performance monitoring as well as AI-powered insights to help you continuously improve and optimize interactions through data-driven reports and according to your most important KPIs.

Helpdesk

Serving as your primary, central hub for communications and collaboration, a robust, well-organized helpdesk system is essential for managing customer inquiries efficiently. A good solution will help ensure that no ticket gets left behind and that you minimize any delays in getting back to your customers.

Any worthwhile helpdesk software should offer:

• Shared inboxes: Centralizes and organizes communications as well as supporting smooth cross-team.
• Integrated knowledge base access: Not only promotes customer self-service (reducing workload and ticket volume) but supports your agents in query resolution as well.
• Ticket routing: Automatically directs inquiries to the right team member based on expertise, priority, and customer history, ensuring fast and accurate issue resolution.

Price

While it starts off fairly reasonable, Intercom’s cost can quickly balloon as you add features or seats.

Luckily, there is a wide variety of options available at a spectrum of price points, with different pricing models and feature breakdowns. By shopping around, you should be able to find a solution that offers the most essential features you need without busting your budget.

Like Intercom, it’s also important that they offer a 14-day free trial or no-commitment demo. This gives you the opportunity to really inspect the software from an unbiased perspective and see if it clicks with how you do things.

Don’t forget to think ahead, though — the pricing model should allow for scaling alongside your business without any sudden or unreasonable cost increases.

Top 18 Intercom Competitors to Consider Right Now

1. Customerly

Best overall Intercom alternative, with an intuitive help center, unlimited contacts, and a powerful suite of AI tools

What can you expect from Customerly?

What Intercom promises, Customerly delivers an all-powerful solution that unifies everything from AI Customer Service to your help center to customer communications and engagement. Powered by its in-house Aura AI, it brings features that streamline and level up every aspect of how you interact with customers.

Smart live chat using flexible and self-training chatbots delivers instant, 24/7 support that can solve up to 80% of customer queries, hands-free. What’s more, a shared inbox, customizable workflows, and a self-serve help center all turn your teams into a lean, mean, customer service machine. 

An AI-powered help desk, combined with next-gen AI agents ensures that your reps are supported and that queries are resolved efficiently, so you can deliver superior service.

The best part is that the cost is affordable and transparent, so you don’t have to worry about any nasty surprises as your team or business grows. 

Key Features:

1. Conversational AI that handles simple and more complex queries, providing instant, personalized responses for 24/7, multi-language support.
2. AI-powered live chat that’s capable of behavior-based responses and real-time interactions.
3. A shared inbox that centralizes all communication channels to streamline team collaboration and customer management.
4. Effective self-serve help center thanks to the integrated knowledge base and chat widget for rapid access to support resources.
5. In-app quick surveys and NPS tools (with templates) to gather customer feedback directly after interactions.
6. Create automated marketing campaigns and workflows based on user behavior and customer journey stages.
7. Drag-and-drop builder and pre-made templates for effortless email marketing.

Pro tip: If you decide to transition from Intercom, Customerly’s importer allows you to effortlessly bring over all your conversations, operator accounts, teams, help center articles, and contacts.

Drawbacks:

• May not offer the highest level of customization, particularly with lower-tier plans.
• Making full use of AI capabilities requires an initial investment of time and effort.
• Can take some time to get a handle on all the available features.

Price:

• ESSENTIAL – $9/month (3 teammates – 1000 Interactions) – $2.33 per teammate
• STARTUP – $49/month (6 teammates – 10000 Interactions) – $6.5 per teammate
• PRO – $99/month (10 teammates – 20000 interactions) – $8.2 per teammate
• ENTERPRISE – $299/month (15 teammates – 50000 Interactions)

Rating: 4.6/5

What people say about us…

“Customerly saves us valuable time and enables us to focus on delivering a better customer experience.” – Media Markt ⬇️

“I love that you can set up a knowledgebase along with a live chat for all visitor inquiries. Gone are the days when I’d have to use multiple software.”

“We wanted to switch from Intercom because it became unbearably expensive, and we tried to find a reliable app that could offer the same features at a more affordable price.” – Paymo

“Customerly not only has Messaging, Live Chat, NPS, and Help Centre exactly as we needed, it also has a team that constantly supports us in making the best use of the tool.” – Nibol

2. HelpCrunch

Best Intercom alternative for handling multi-channel support.

HelpCrunch is another highly-rated Intercom alternative to consider. This platform prides itself on its multi-channel customer support. 

You can stay connected to your customer base on one dashboard—regardless of the conversation’s origin.

People usually love HelpCrunch because of its transparent pricing, customer-centric support team and customizable chat. 

You can also use the help center as a full-time self-service solution for customers, reducing support costs.

Key features:

1. You have access to unlimited chats and contacts.
2. The free migration tool helps transfer data smoothly.
3. Integration ability connects HelpCrunch to other apps and tools.
4. One shared space controls and centralizes chats on many channels.

Drawbacks:

• Many users reported frequent bugs in vital systems such as notifications and untimely messaging triggers.
• Cancelation results in immediate termination of a subscription with no refund for the remainder of the subscription period.

Cost:

• FREE TRIAL – 14 days
• BASIC – $12 pp/month
• PRO – $20 pp/month

“Excellent price point and has all the most important features I was looking for. Support has been excellent for me so far to help me get started. It also has a multilingual feature that I absolutely need for my Canadian customers.”

HelpCrunch review

Rating: 4.8/5

3. Olark

Best Intercom alternative for small businesses in search of a live chat solution.

Olark is a live chat software system that allows you to engage with customers instantly. Website visitors can easily contact your business directly through a chatbot on your website with this live chat feature. 

The live chat system permanently saves chat transcripts for future reference. This means that you can use keyword searches through old chats to find a solution quickly.

Using these transcripts, you can also form canned responses for shortcut replies when dealing with frequently addressed topics. 

Key features:

1. The user-friendly interface is straightforward and fits most website designs.
2. Live chat software quickly puts customers in direct communication with a company.
3. Transcripts filled with product feedback track customer satisfaction.

Drawbacks:

• The integration system is difficult to manipulate and requires the need for outside applications.
• There is a lack of necessary customization features for individual businesses because of the one-size-fits-all approach of the software. 
• There isn’t a mobile app for users to respond on the go.

Cost:

• FREE TRIAL – 14 days
• BASIC – $29 pp/month
• PRO – unique pricing plan

Rating: 4.3/5

“Olark offered the basic features that you’ll need for your business to start chatting with customers on your website. It has an easy-to-use interface. Chat is another avenue to engage with customers who are not willing to call or email.”

Olark review 

4. Crisp

Best Intercom alternatives for small businesses to interact manually with visitors on site.

Crisp is primarily known as one of the cheaper Intercom alternatives when it comes to customer service software. They even offer a free limited plan.

The advanced ticketing system streamlines customer communication. All support agents can view tickets simultaneously using this system. The option to create automated messages for each ticket is also helpful when the team is extra busy or out-of-office.

Key features:

1. Crisp is affordable and offers a free basic plan for new businesses.
2. It has an advanced ticketing system that puts all customer communications in one shared inbox.
3. An interactive video game entertains website visitors while they wait for a response.

Drawbacks:

• There is no keyword search option within chats and using designated search filters is complicated.
• This customer service platform doesn’t track many essential customer satisfaction metrics and therefore lacks reporting abilities.
• It only works well for small companies because of some missing essential features—like private inboxes and team chat widgets.

Cost:

• ESSENTIAL – free forever plan (2 people)
• PRO – $25/month (4 people)
• UNLIMITED – 95$/month (20 people)

Rating: 4.5/5

“I love the feature set they have, and the support is very responsive. We are using the service for 6 months since launched MVP and going to upgrade soon as the activity is increasing. I also love their different language feature as we are servicing clients globally.”

Crisp review 

5. Freshdesk

Best Intercom alternative for businesses ticket oriented and call center support focussed.

Freshdesk is good for growing businesses because the pricing plan is agent-dependent. You can easily add additional customer support staff to the account at any time and the price of the selected plan increases accordingly.

Another reason Freshdesk is one of the popular Intercom alternatives is advanced security. The company performs frequent network and system audits to ensure maximum user protection and data protection.

Key features

1. The Freshdesk messaging system lets you see all messages in one place, no matter what media they are initiated on.
2. Multiple service representatives can handle the same conversation together using shared ownership.
3. Integrations are available with multiple social media outlets, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

Drawbacks:

• It is impossible to manage customer feedback about products and services in an organized way.
• There is no centralized location that includes all client information relevant when answering customer concerns and handling inquiries.
• A deficit in the customer service department is known to cause a shortage of direct, quick responses.

Cost:

• FREE – free plan (2 agents)
• GROWTH – $15 pp/month
• PRO – $49 pp/month
• ENTERPRISE – $79 pp/month

Rating: 4.5/5

“The interface is intuitive and customizable, and the canned responses save a great deal of time for my team and me. The interface allows us to see all open tickets and of all closed tickets, and there is a search function that has never failed me”

Freshdesk review 

6. Twilio

Best Intercom alternative for data-based companies.

Twilio is one of the most data-based Intercom alternatives on the list. The Twilio Segment customer data platform—CDP—provides insight into each customer with immediate first-party information.

This customizable application on this software offers a unique experience for each business. This includes everything from marketing campaigns to the flexible cloud contact center.

Key features:

1. Twilio Live is a space where you can build interactive audio and video to live-stream for clients.
2. Twilio Frontline safely connects customers to employees from anywhere.
3. Twilio Segment personalizes campaigns on different channels and involves a single API to collect and unify customer data on the database.

Drawbacks:

• Recently, many Twilio phone numbers have been blocked by phone companies making it hard to get in touch with your client base.
• The API account is not very marketer-friendly and is more geared toward developers.
• The setup of the customer service software requires a knowledge of code and is complex.

Cost:

• FREE TRIAL – includes limited complimentary account balance
• FLEXIBLE – feature usage-based pricing plans
  • SendGrid Email API – $19.95/month
  • WhatsApp Business API – $0.005/message
  • Programmable Messaging – $0.0079/message

Rating: 4.6/5

“Fantastic service for the money they ask for! Twilio is a wonderful tool for building an infrastructure for making phone calls and sending SMS messages. Certainly, it has a learning curve, but overall it’s much easier to get set up and running than most of its competitors in the industry.” 

Twilio review

7. Hubspot Service Hub

Best Intercom alternatives for Sales purposes. Mainly mid-size companies.

Hubspot is a pretty popular name in the sales and marketing industry. It makes sense that they would branch out and offer a customer service hub to their repertoire.

This could be a practical Intercom alternative for you if you already use other Hubspot tools.  Being familiar with the desk software makes it easier to get started using the live chat, omnichannel messaging platform and inbound calling features.

Key features:

1. Hubspot has a straightforward customer portal where customers can guide their own experience and see their chat history with service reps.
2. VoIP calling is available to make calls to your clientele directly through the platform.
3. The CRM used in the service hub is well-known and has already proven to be highly functional in marketing and sales.

Drawbacks:

• The customer portal is short on features, only offering ticket tracking.
• The conversation search feature is said to be inaccurate with mismatching results when trying to encounter an exact phrase or word.
• Initially, it takes a while to set up your account and get used to the abundance of information and tools available.

Cost:

• FREE – free plan for basic functionalities
• STARTER – $20 seat/month
• PROFESSIONAL – $100 seat/month
• ENTERPRISE – $150 seat/month

Rating: 4.5/5

“HubSpot Marketing Hub is easy to use and includes many excellent tools to help marketers do their job. Nothing feels clunky or like a disjointed, hamfisted acquisition add-on. The HubSpot team constantly adds new functionality and features, driving more value to users.”

Hubspot review 

8. Drift

Best Intercom alternatives for Sales automation.

Automation is key to Drift (now Salesloft) customer relationship management. The AI-powered customer service chatbots give assistance immediately and can be customized to fit the unique look of your business.

Drift’s main objective is growing your revenue and pipeline. That is why the live chat feature is not only used by the support agents, but also by the sales and marketing team. You have the ability to assist, up-sell and advertise all in one conversation.

Here is an extensive comparison between Intercom and Drift.

Key features:

1. Self-service bots autonomously answer customer requests at lightning speed so nobody is ignored or put on hold.
2. Service metrics such as CSAT score and deflection rate are calculated for the future optimization of your business.
3. Drift mobile app for IOS and Android is a great way to keep in touch with customers on busy days.

Drawbacks:

• The Drift code has been reported to have a relatively slow loading time on websites that delays the customer experience.
• There is no way to organize your customer base by region unless they are located in Canada or the US.
• Bots require constant upkeep and management and will malfunction if left unattended.

Cost:

• FREE – free plan not available
• PLANS – Prices not disclosed
  • PREMIUM – small businesses (starting at $2500/month)
  • ADVANCED – medium businesses
  • ENTERPRISE – large businesses

Rating: 4.5/5

“It is helpful that the platform is able to understand what human is saying and know what part of the website to point someone to. It can also send PDFs of white pages that someone may have an interest in seeing.”

Drift review

9. LiveAgent

Best Intercom alternative for ticketing software at a fair price.

LiveAgent is an Intercom alternative that communicates its priority through its name. A ticketing system controls live chat conversations. In these convos, live chat agents utilize customer profiles when answering customer questions.

It’s one of the great live chat Intercom alternatives with an extensive list of 135 features. Animated chat button and personalization components give LiveAgent an edge up in the market.

Key features:

1. Agent collision detection prevents multiple agents from working on the same ticket simultaneously to increase efficiency.
2. It’s possible to video call with customers and colleagues through the call center system.
3. The tool offers 212 seamless integrations including Slack, Gmail and Optimal Call.

Drawbacks:

• The fact that everything is customizable means that you need to take time to manually adjust features.
• User experience can be complicated because chat history can’t be saved. If you accidentally log-out you need to start the exchange again.

Cost:

• FREE – free limited plan available (1 person)
• SMALL BUSINESS – $9/agent
• MEDIUM BUSINESS – $29/agent
• LARGE BUSINESS – $49/agent
• ENTERPRISE – $69/agent

Rating: 4.7/5

“LiveAgent is a really eas to set up tool which heps us a lot in our day to day work. It takes a lot of work from us and offers a really simple but great overview about all your problems. It is very beneficial and worth it’s money for sure.” 

LiveAgent review 

10. ClickDesk

Best Intercom alternative for small support teams.

The coolest thing about ClickDesk is the video chat feature. Customer support agents can give detailed explanations through a video chat with their customers in just one click. 

ClickDesk also offers a mobile app for its powerful live chat tool. This functionality is super flexible and supports quality customer interactions. Live chat mobile makes it simple to answer customer questions from any place at any time.

Key features:

1. Live chat software on ClickDesk includes video and voice messaging capabilities to make explaining complex solutions easier.
2. Social media integration increases traffic by connecting to the customer through the live chat app.

Drawbacks:

• Various reviews described the customer support department as subpar with long wait times and no refund policy.
• ClickDesk software always requires an internet connection and is not convenient when you are out of the office. 

Cost:

• FREE – free plan for 10 users
• LITE – $14.99 pp/month
• PRO – $24.99 pp/month
• ENTERPRISE – $39.99 pp/month

Rating: 3.6/5

“Very user friendly for the agents, no need to be tech savvy to use it, easy implementation, great knowledge base.”

ClickDesk review

11. LiveChat

Best Intercom alternative for e-commerce owners.

LiveChat is for those looking for a more direct help desk software without all the bells and whistles. It is made to support customers without a complicated setup or time-consuming app modifications.

LiveChat’s interactive messaging platform shares announcements, promotes new products and interacts with customers on a more personal level. On this platform you can reach out to clients with a personalized message based on their profile and behavior on your site.

Key features:

1. It’s simple to save and reuse canned responses with a convenient hash-tag search tool to speed things up.
2. The 14-day trial lets users explore all the features listed on the team plan for free.
3. Tagging conversations according to their context, with department name or title of the issue filters, reports in an organized way. 

Drawbacks:

• LiveChat pricing is relatively expensive when compared to other Intercom alternatives.
• The chats are not customizable based on appearance and are pretty basic as far as design goes.

Cost:

• FREE TRIAL – 14 days
• STARTER – $20 pp/month
• TEAM – $41 pp/month
• BUSINESS – $59 pp/month

Rating: 4.7/5

“Live chat provides a rapid and personalized communication with your clients which helps you grab your clients attention and get business from them. Live chat has very customer focused approach and it provides the right tools to help your business.”

LiveChat review

12. HelpScout

Best Intercom alternative for small teams searching for a solid customer service tool.

HelpScout has been in the game since 2011. It has the quality customer service experience it takes to be a great Intercom alternative.

The highest-rated features include email-to-case, ticket response user experience and the centralized customer portal. Helpscout can help you increase company productivity by 52% through an organized inbox and task automation.

The tool’s customer support software fits well with companies of all sizes and client bases, from small businesses to giant enterprises.

Key features:

1. A collaborative shared inbox simplifies multi-departmental customer inquiries and provides a channel for private note-sharing with co-workers.
2. The customer management section saves customer information to individual profiles so that they can be looked up during future conversations.
3. Beacon is a Helpscout tool that suggests relative help content and gives a customer access to their company-wide chat history.

Drawbacks:

• Duplicate help tickets and profiles are often created for the same client and require after-the-fact manual merging.
• Finding old tickets once a case is closed can be tiresome and takes a lot of digging.
• The list of available integrations is not as extensive as other Intercom alternatives.

Cost:

• FREE TRIAL – 15 days
• STANDARD – $25 pp/month
• PLUS – $50 pp/month
• PRO – $65 pp/month annual plan

Rating: 4.5/5 

“Very easy to set up and maintain a workflow. As a result, our customers are very happy with the human support and self-service received. Docs are awesome – our team can plan accordingly, write and publish the product documentation in one place.”

HelpScout review 

13. Zendesk

Best Intercom alternative for enterprises searching for a ticketing system.

Zendesk holds its efficient ticketing system in pretty high regard. It can organize, set a status, and transfer tickets rapidly to decrease customer wait time.

Zendesk help desk software provides cross-channel support through a centralized CRM that is marketed mainly toward larger businesses. The software can increase ROI by strengthening employee satisfaction and saving big on licensing.

Moreover, as part of its new Advanced AI suite, Zendesk now also has generative AI capabilities to help automate and improve the quality of your live chat support. It’s capable of query triage, suggesting responses, sentiment analysis, and more.

Key features:

1. The self-service feature has an extensive knowledge base to help website visitors find the answer before contacting you.
2. Zendesk offers more than 1000 integrations with common business apps.
3. The ticketing system is the gold standard and is more reliable when compared to Intercom.

Drawbacks:

• The AI chatbots are complicated to set up and control if you don’t have prior experience.
• There is no email campaign marketing offered through Zendesk.
• The company support staff does not always know details about all the extensive features available in the more expensive plans, leaving you to figure them out on your own.

Cost:

• FREE TRIAL – 14 days
• SUITE TEAM – $69 pp/month
• SUITE GROWTH – $115 pp/month
• SUITE PROFESSIONAL – $149 pp/month
• SUITE ENTERPRISE – $219 pp/month

Rating: 3/5

“It gives you the freedom and tools to develop a structure in your customer support channels while maintaining flexibility to adapt to your needs. Evaluations of competitors have shown a higher degree of personalization.”

Zendesk review 

14. Tidio

Best Intercom alternative for easiness of building chatbots.

The main objective of this Intercom alternative is to combine customer service with sales to generate more revenue. This is done through the live chat widget, chatbot tools and the offering of various discounts during the user experience journey.

Not to mention, the free account with Tidio is one of the last-standing free Intercom alternatives available and includes a lifetime of unlimited conversations.

Key features:

1. Facebook Messenger integration is the most popular integration used with Tidio.
2. Customer inquiries are departmentalized based on whether they require assistance with sales, support or finance.
3. There is a decent free lifetime plan available for 1 agent that includes basic features and software needed for quality customer service.

Drawbacks:

• Many user reviews mention that the notification sounds on Tidio are equally loud and mismatched for the client and support team members.
• The integrations are lackluster in comparison to other intercom alternatives.
• The user can’t change plans once they sign up for an account and are stuck with the plan they initially chose.

Cost:

• FREE FOREVER – 50 Handled Conversations (1 person)
• STARTER – starting at $ 29/month
• GROWTH – starting at $ 59/month
• PLUS – starting at $ 749/month
• PREMIUM – starting at $ 2999/month

Rating: 4.7/5

“Being able to see when an active visitor is on the site, and being able to take over the chat when the boot is unable to continue to increase the interactions with the customer.”

Tidio review 

15. Front

Best Intercom alternative for collaborative, multi-channel customer support.

If you want a unified, practical inbox for handling all your comms across email, social media, SMS, live chat, and more, Front should be on your radar. This AI-powered customer service platform focuses heavily on delivering a seamless CRM and service experience, making it easy to assign tasks, comment internally, and share insights. Plus, it features decent ticketing and chatbot automation through its Front Intelligence AI.

Another one of Front’s big brags is its high customer satisfaction, with it claiming a CSAT score of 98%. Providing good support for support teams is one of the company’s main USPs.

Key features:

• Promotes team-wide visibility and consistency by centralizing communications across all channels.
• Supports popular instant messaging channels, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS.
• Provides real-time monitoring, tracks chat volumes, and analyzes response metrics with AI.

Drawbacks:

• Limited email automation means you have to integrate with third-party tools like MailChimp.
• A somewhat steep learning curve may necessitate more support and longer onboarding.

Price:

• STARTER – $19/month/seat
• GROWTH – $59/month/seat
• SCALE – $99/month/seat
• PREMIER – $229/month/seat

Rating: 4.6/5

“Support team really does an incredible job at providing super helpful information quickly and kindly. Their self-support documentation is also wonderful.”

Front Review

16. Helpshift

Best Intercom alternative for in-app support and localized customer management.

Helpshift’s claim to fame is being a mobile-first solution for delivering streamlined in-app customer support, making them a go-to option for businesses in the mobile app or gaming space. Now, they’ve added being an AI-first-minded company to that mix as well.

Its simple and intuitive platform seamlessly interfaces AI chatbots with human agents to improve real-time support for app users. It also has robust CRM capabilities, so it’s a great choice for businesses wanting to offer personalized experiences across diverse markets.

Key features:

• Provides real-time support within apps, ideal for mobile-first companies.
• Modular workflow-powered bots that automate responses to common queries.
• Tailors customer experiences based on region and language preferences.
• Straightforward issue tracking and prioritization through a centralized interface.

Drawbacks:

• No low-cost subscriptions without many transparent pricing options.
• A number of users report issues with its SDK and other small bugs.
• It can feel messy trying to manage user roles and Smart Views at times.

Price:

• STARTER – Starts at $150/month
• GROWTH – Custom
• ENTERPRISE – Custom

Rating: 3.9/5

“For localized Customer Relationship Management, it is the one solid product can give you what you want.”

17. Kustomer

Kustomer is an all-in-one customer service platform that integrates CRM, customer engagement, and helpdesk functions into a single solution. It caters to those who want a unified, omnichannel solution and are willing to pay a little extra for it.

Despite the comprehensive feature set, it still prioritizes delivering a streamlined and user-friendly dashboard. Managing everything from conversations to tickets to data to customer profiles in a single place somehow doesn’t feel overwhelming.

With advanced tools like Kustomer’s Intelligent Automation and Unified Customer View, support teams can get a comprehensive understanding of a customer at a glance.

Key features:

• Centralizes all customer interactions across channels and summarizes histories to make the agent’s job easier.
• Intelligent Automation streamlines workflows, reducing manual tasks and boosting efficiency.
• AI Copilot and AI Chatbots automate and enhance interactions with customers.
• A customizable self-service portal is available in over 70 languages.

Drawbacks:

• Limited, and relatively expensive, selection of pricing plans.

Price:

• ENTERPRISE – $89/month/seat
• ULTIMATE – $139/month/seat

Rating: 4.6/5

“I love Kustomer’s tag management, snooze statuses, and the ability to move and merge tickets. It is definitely one of the more robust customer support tools with lots of great features.”

18. Zoho Desk

Best Intercom alternative for flexible, customizable support management.

Businesses looking for a flexible and customized helpdesk system may find the freedom they need in Zoho Desk. One of its key strengths for existing users is its seamless integration with the Zoho Suite, including Zoho CRM and other apps, providing a unified and consistent inbox for handling email, live chat, social media, and phone interactions. 

Zoho Desk’s built-in AI assistant Zia streamlines workflows and enhances service quality by offering automated responses, sentiment analysis, and chat routing to support your teams.

Key features:

• Integrates with Zoho CRM to centralize managing all customer data and interactions.
• Embed chat widgets on websites and integrated with Zia for automated messaging.
• Build branded help centers with performance analytics to track content performance.
• Automated ticket routing, predefined responses, and AI insights to improve response times.

Drawbacks:

• A steep learning curve for entry-level users and limited customization in lower-tier plans.
• Advanced and full AI features require the Enterprise plan, which may be expensive for smaller businesses.

Price:

• STARTER – $19/month/seat
• GROWTH – $59/month/seat
• SCALE – $99/month/seat
• PREMIER – $229/month/seat

Rating: 4.5/5

“You can customize anything you would like to match your platform’s needs. It follows all relevant customer behavior,prior to interactions, and it helps us anticipate their needs better.”

Intercom Alternatives Comparison Table

We hope this table will give you a quick overview to see the differences between Intercom and other customer service software on the market and choose how to proceed.

If you are still wondering who we are and why we think that Customerly is better than Intercom, we invite you to take a look here Customerly vs Intercom to have an even more detailed table

Wrapping up: what is the best alternative to Intercom?

In our humble opinion, Customerly offers the best overall value as an alternative to Intercom, offering businesses of all sizes an affordable, feature-rich, and scalable solution to unlock their full customer communication potential.

We started Customerly in 2017 to address the frustrations of sh*tty chatbots. Our initial focus was on creating genuine human-to-human interactions for SaaS companies.

Our mission is to elevate the customer experience for at least 1 billion people, and with the power of Aura, we believe we can make a lasting impact.

Our in-house Aura AI is powered by leading technologies, like ChatGPT, to help put you at the forefront of AI-powered customer service solutions. Combined with a shared inbox, comprehensive help center, and AI assistance, you’ll revolutionize the experience not only for your customers but also for your agents.

With behavioral messaging and real-time support, you can finally scale your customer engagement elegantly, without sacrificing quality.

Customerly’s key benefits:

• AI-driven automation for 24/7 multilingual support
• Affordable pricing with a robust feature set
• Easy-to-build workflows for personalized customer journeys

Don’t simply take our word for it — Book a demo and try Customerly for free. It’s on us😉

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