Intercom pricing is somewhat like the Coke recipe, it's a well-kept secret. They only advertise their Starter plan priced at $89 per month for 2 seats or $74 per month if you opt for a 1-year contract.

To get the other pricing options for the Pro and Premium plans which include team inbox, rules, ticketing, role-based permissions, and analytics you need to sign up for a demo to get a custom quote depending on the number of seats and the number of people reached per month.

While most Intercom alternatives may not have all the features of Intercom, they are in general much more affordable.

In this guide, we narrowed down the top Intercom alternatives, from Zoho Desk to HubSpot, that are worth considering and will keep your budget intact.

Let's get started!

16 Affordable Intercom Alternatives for 2026

The best affordable Intercom alternatives for 2026 are Missive, Zendesk, Help Scout, Freshdesk, and Crisp—all offering shared inboxes, live chat, and team collaboration at a fraction of Intercom's price.

As a small business owner, you've likely realized Intercom's pricing is too steep for the features you actually need. And alternatives like Drift, at $2,500 per month, don't help.

Here's a curated list for teams that want exceptional support without the enterprise price tag.

1. Missive

Missive is a collaborative inbox tool that brings email, live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, social media DMs, and calls into one place.

• Pricing: Starts at $0/user/month; advanced plans from $18/user/month. View all pricing details here.
• Best for: Teams that want real-time collaboration on customer conversations

Shared Inbox

Missive's shared inbox lets multiple team members access and manage shared aliases or accounts directly from their own workspace.

Key collaboration features include:

• In-conversation chat: Discuss with colleagues and share files privately without leaving the thread
• @mentions: Tag anyone to pull them into a conversation instantly
• Real-time draft collaboration: Write replies together with teammates using collaborative writing
• Personal + shared accounts: Manage both from a single app

Additionally, Missive offers shared contact, shared labels, and shared canned responses to help manage customer interactions. Another feature is the auto follow-up, which allows team members to schedule follow-up messages to customers.

Live Chat

Missive's live chat feature allows your business to connect with your customers in real-time through your website or mobile app. The chat can be customized to fit your brand and translate into any language you’d like.

Additionally, you can set a schedule to display an online/offline status based on your support team's presence. And best of all, they can be easily received in a Team Inbox to benefit from all the advantages of a shared inbox.

Integrations

Missive offers integrations with OpenAI, Hubspot, Shopify, Zapier, and more. You can also build custom integrations from scratch or by using Retool.

This lets you connect Missive with other apps like Pipedrive, a CRM, to make your work easier. It can be really useful if you are already using software and don’t want all of the hassles of migrating to a new solution.

Its OpenAI integration generates customized replies based on your canned responses, helping your team respond faster while staying accurate.

Team and Assignment

Missive's team and assignment feature allows you or any team member to assign specific people to specific conversations, so it’s easy to know who is responsible for handling them.

The feature also makes it easy to ping someone from the sales team, for example, to get some help. Missive also offers rules to automate workflow, such as round-robin assignments to only online members, SLA rules, auto follow-up, and more.

Missive has lots of the same features as Intercom, but it costs less money.

2. Zendesk

Zendesk is a customer service platform offering live chat, help desk ticketing, and knowledge management. Pricing starts at $25 per agent per month.

Zendesk vs. Intercom:

• Zendesk: Built for customer service and ticket management; stronger self-service features
• Intercom: Built around sales with a built-in CRM; more marketing automation

Zendesk is the better fit if your focus is strictly support, not sales outreach.

Zendesk provides a wide range of customer support features, and its pricing is more affordable compared to Intercom. However, it may not have all the advanced marketing features offered by Intercom.

3. Help Scout

Help Scout is another customer service platform that offers features such as email and live chat support, shared inboxes, a knowledge base, and reporting.

Its pricing starts at $25 per user per month and scales based on the number of users and features you need. Much like Missive, Help Scout uses shared inboxes to help your team work together. It also offers assignments, private notes (which act like chats), saved replies, and tagging.

Help Scout is a strong pick for email-heavy support teams. It lacks Intercom's marketing automation, but costs less and keeps things simple.

4. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a help desk platform that offers features such as a support desk, contact center, and customer feedback management. It offers a free option with basic features. The paid plan starts at $18 per person per month and increases rapidly based on the number of agents and features needed.

However, if you want to get access to a live chat software, you’ll also need to subscribe to their Freshchat tool.

Freshdesk uses a ticketing system to prioritize, categorize, and assign every customer inquiry—different from inbox-style tools like Missive and Help Scout.

One caveat: Freshdesk splits features across separate products (Freshchat, Freshdesk, etc.). Subscribing to multiple tools can quickly match or exceed Intercom's cost.

5. Helpwise

Helpwise is a shared inbox platform that allows teams to manage customer service, emails, knowledge base, and live chat in one place. Its pricing starts at $15 per user per month.

Much like Missive and Help Scout, Helpwise is organized like an email client and organizes customer inquiries in inboxes.

It is more affordable than Intercom and is designed specifically for managing shared inboxes. While Intercom also has shared inbox features, it is a more comprehensive platform that includes sales and marketing tools.

Helpwise focuses on shared inbox management can be attractive for your startup. However, you should also consider that Helpwise may not have all the advanced sales and marketing features offered by Intercom.

6. Crisp

Crisp is a messaging platform that offers a range of features, including shared inbox, live chat, CRM, and email marketing campaigns. While they offer a free plan, its features are really limited and don’t support emails or social media.

The paid plans start at $25 per month per workspace for up to 4 users, with additional pricing options available.

If you're familiar with Intercom, you'll notice that Crisp provides many of the same features, but at a more budget-friendly price point. However, it's important to keep in mind that it may not have all the advanced features of Intercom.

7. LiveChat

LiveChat is a customer service platform mainly focused on live chat. in addition to its chat widget, it provides features like a ticketing system, teams, and analytics.

Its pricing starts at $24 per agent per month and scales based on the number of team members and features you need. LiveChat also supports emails, SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger so you can easily connect with your customers. They also offer integrations with Salesforce, Shopify, HubSpot, and Pipedrive.

LiveChat offers a more affordable option compared to Intercom, but not all the sales and marketing features offered by Intercom.

8. Groove

Groove describes itself as a Zendesk alternative. The help desk software offers features for customer service with features like shared inbox, live chat, and analytic reporting. Its pricing starts at $25 per user per month.

Groove is similar to Missive, Help Scout, and Helpwise in the sense that it presents itself as an email client and works in the same fashion. You can also assign the conversation to a team member, leave notes in a conversation and mention someone in the conversation just like Missive. However, it doesn’t offer features for sales and marketing that are offered by Intercom.

Groove is more affordable than Intercom, however, you should also consider that Groove may not have all the features offered by Intercom. Additionally, you should verify the ease of use, integrations with other tools, and customer support when comparing Groove and Intercom.

9. HelpCrunch

HelpCrunch is a customer communication platform that combines live chat, email marketing, shared inbox, mobile app support, and other tools for support, marketing, and customer experience. It offers a free trial and its pricing starts at $29 per user per month with 1 000 emails.

HelpCrunch is an affordable alternative to Intercom that offers similar features for support, marketing, and sales. It provides a knowledge base, transparent pricing, and a shared inbox for multi-channel.

The live chat feature allows you to send files, knowledge base articles, or canned responses to website visitors offering a self-service option.

HelpCrunch is organized like an email client and organizes customer inquiries in inboxes, much like Helpwise and Missive. However, HelpCrunch doesn't yet offers AI to reply to email and chatbot.

To sum up, HelpCrunch is a more affordable alternative to Intercom that offers a wide range of features for customer support, marketing, and sales.

10. HubSpot

HubSpot is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that offers sales, customer service, marketing, and content management software to help businesses grow better. Its pricing starts at $30 per month for its CRM Suite. It also offers a free plan with basic features

HubSpot’s CRM is a powerful tool that provides businesses with a complete view of their customer interactions and data using their analytics.

They also offer AI-powered Smart CRM, to use generative AI to reply to customer issues more easily. HubSpot also offers tools that sync between service, sales, and marketing teams.

HubSpot is overkill if you only need support tools—but if you want CRM, marketing, sales, and service in one platform, it delivers. Expect to pay more than other options on this list.

11. Customerly

Customerly is a customer communication platform that offers a live chat tool, email marketing, and other features for customer support and marketing experience. Its pricing starts at $9 per month for the most basic plan.

It's another affordable alternative to Intercom that offers similar features for support, marketing, and sales at a reasonable price. However, pricing depends on your usage unlike other solutions.

Their live chat features AI with customizable workflows to automate discussions with your website's visitors. With the Premium Plan, you can also have up to five separate widgets, which is helpful if you need to have separate inboxes.

Customerly’s outbound email messages can be created with rules, which will allow you to target certain segments of customers. They also offer analytics to help you understand your messages performance.

Customerly is organized like an email client and organizes customer inquiries in inboxes, much like Helpwise and Missive.

12. Tidio

Tidio is a live chat, help desk software. It offers a free plan with basic features and its pricing starts at $25 per month.

Main features:

• Live chat: Communicate with customers in real-time
• Chatbots: Automate conversations, sales, and processes
• Lyro AI: Personalized support without manual training
• Ticketing: Manage inquiries in an inbox-style interface

Tidio is organized like an email client and organizes customer inquiries in inboxes, much like Helpwise and Missive.

Tidio is easier to use, has a better rating for support, is easier to setup, and more affordable than Intercom. However, Intercom provides more advanced features and is more customizable.

13. Shared Inbox by Canary

Shared Inbox by Canary is a modern email and team collaboration platform designed to help teams manage customer emails efficiently. It offers features such as shared inboxes, automatic email assignment, internal notes, saved replies, and AI-suggested responses. Pricing starts at $10 per user per month.

Much like Help Scout and Helpwise, Shared Inbox by Canary organizes all incoming emails into a single, unified inbox so your team never misses a customer query. It also includes AI-powered features to help you draft responses faster and analyze common issues across your inbox.

14. Olark

Olark is a cloud-based chatbot and live chat solution that lets you interact with your customers through your website.

While it's not as features packed as Intercom, it's a great alternative if you're looking for a live chat solution to connect with your customers.

And with its pricing starts at $29 per user per month, it's also more affordable than the Intercom.

Olark provides you with analytics, team management features and searchable scripts.

15. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is an omnichannel help desk that competes with Intercom on breadth of features. Pricing starts at $20 per user per month.

Key features:

• Ticket management and shared inbox
• Live chat and instant messaging
• Call center and social media integrations
• Multi-brand help center and knowledge base
• Zia AI for auto-tagging and suggesting knowledge base entries

16. LiveAgent

LiveAgent is a help desk software that includes live chat, ticketing, and customer service features.

It has features like live chat with AI chatbots, a service hub for customer interactions, and help desk tools for managing support tickets.

The platform includes chat monitoring, ticket distribution, and reporting features for support teams.

Its pricing starts at $15 per agent per month.

Factors to Consider When Choosing an Alternative to Intercom

Aside from the price, it's important to consider various factors when choosing a cheaper alternative to Intercom for your needs. Here are some key aspects to keep in mind:

Features and Functionality

Make a list of the features and functionalities you need in a customer support tool. This can include things like live chat, shared inbox, auto follow-ups, and more. Ensure that the alternative you choose provides all the necessary features that you need to effectively support your customers.

Integration with Other Tools

Consider the integration options available with other tools and software you use in your business. A good customer service software should easily integrate with your existing tools and workflows, allowing you to streamline your processes.

Ease of Use and User Interface

Choose a customer support tool that is user-friendly and easy to navigate. The tool should be intuitive, so your team can start using it quickly without having to spend too much time on training or adaptation.

Level of Customer Support

The level of customer support offered by the alternative should be considered. Choose a tool that provides excellent customer support and resources to help you resolve any issues that may arise.

For example, Intercom rates 8.7 for the quality of their support on G2, while Missive rates 9.7.

Potential for Scalability

As your business grows, so will your customer support needs. Choose a customer support tool that is scalable, so you can continue to use it as your business expands.

By considering these factors, you can find a more affordable alternative to Intercom that meets your business needs and helps you effectively support your customers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, when it comes to finding a more affordable alternative to Intercom, there are many great options available for small businesses. These options offer similar features and functionality to Intercom, at a more budget-friendly price.

When considering which alternative is right for your business, it's important to think about factors such as the features and functionality you need, the ease of use and user interface, the level of customer support, and the potential for scalability.

Each of these alternatives has its strengths and weaknesses, and by taking the time to consider your specific needs and goals, you can find the perfect solution for your business.

In the end, it's all about finding the right balance between cost and value. With the right tool in place, you can improve customer satisfaction, increase efficiency, and grow your business more effectively. So why not give one of these alternatives a try today?