Researching Intercom pricing? Intercom costs $29, $85 or $132 per seat a month on annual billing, and its Fin AI agent adds $0.99 for every outcome on top of that. For an online store, 500 Fin outcomes a month add $495 to the bill and 2,000 add $1,980, before you pay for a single seat.
That second number is the one most pricing summaries skip. Seat prices are easy to read off a pricing page. The Fin line moves with your order volume, so it grows in the months when your store is busiest. This guide shows Intercom’s seat plans, how Fin is billed, the monthly math at 500 and 2,000 resolutions, the add-ons that change the total, and the Intercom Fin alternatives that cost less.
We checked every Intercom price below on Intercom’s own pricing page on 30 October 2026. Competitor prices were checked on each vendor’s pricing page on the same day.
Intercom pricing plans and seat prices in 2026
Intercom has three help desk plans. Each one is priced per full seat, and the pricing page shows annual billing by default. Monthly billing costs more per seat.
| Plan | Price per seat a month (annual billing) | Free Lite seats | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | $29 ($19 for new customers) | None | Fin, Messenger, shared inbox and ticketing, public help center |
| Advanced | $85 | 20 | Multiple team inboxes, workflow builder, round-robin assignment, multilingual help center |
| Expert | $132 | 50 | SSO, HIPAA support, SLAs, multibrand Messenger and help center |
| Fin (any plan) | $0.99 per outcome | Not applicable | Billed on top of seats, once per conversation |
Essential carries a “new customers save 35%” offer on the pricing page, which brings the first price down to $19 a seat. Plan your budget on the $29 list price, because an introductory discount does not tell you what year two costs.
Lite seats are free on Advanced and Expert. They give teammates limited access for internal collaboration, such as leaving notes. Only full seats can reply to customers, so a store’s support agents all need full seats.
Intercom offers a 14-day free trial without a credit card. There is no free plan.
How Intercom pricing has changed since 2024
When we first published this guide in April 2024, Intercom listed Essential at $39, Advanced at $99 and Expert at $139 per seat a month, and Fin cost $0.99 per resolution. Seat prices have come down since then, while the Fin price has stayed at $0.99 and is now billed per “outcome”, which also covers completed workflows and handoffs.
The shift moves more of the bill from seats to usage. For a store with a small team and a busy chat widget, that usually means a higher total, not a lower one.
How Intercom Fin pricing works
Fin costs $0.99 per outcome. The price is the same on Essential, Advanced and Expert, and on the standalone version of Fin that works with another help desk.
Intercom’s pricing FAQ says an outcome is counted when:
- A customer confirms that the issue is resolved.
- Fin completes a workflow (Intercom calls these Procedures), including a handoff to a person.
You pay once per conversation, even if Fin answers three questions in it. The handoff rule matters for a store. If you build a Procedure that collects an order number and then passes a refund request to an agent, that conversation can be billed as an outcome even though a person did the actual work.
The standalone version of Fin has no seat cost and no setup or platform fee. It does have a minimum monthly commitment, which Intercom’s FAQ gives as “e.g. 50 outcomes”. At $0.99 each, that is a floor of about $50 a month.
What does Intercom Fin cost at 500 and 2,000 resolutions a month?
Fin costs $495 a month at 500 resolutions and $1,980 a month at 2,000 resolutions. Those figures cover Fin alone. A store that runs Fin inside Intercom also pays for the agents who handle everything Fin hands over.
The table uses a three-person support team, a common size for a growing store. Seat costs are annual-billing list prices: three Essential seats cost $87 a month and three Advanced seats cost $255.
| Fin outcomes a month | Fin charge | Total with 3 Essential seats | Total with 3 Advanced seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | $99 | $186 | $354 |
| 500 | $495 | $582 | $750 |
| 1,000 | $990 | $1,077 | $1,245 |
| 2,000 | $1,980 | $2,067 | $2,235 |
| 5,000 | $4,950 | $5,037 | $5,205 |
Here is the math for one store. Say it gets 4,000 conversations a month, and most of them are order status, delivery and return questions. If Fin handles half of them, that is 2,000 outcomes:
- Fin: 2,000 × $0.99 = $1,980
- Seats: 3 × $85 (Advanced) = $255
- Monthly total: $2,235, or $26,820 a year
At 500 outcomes the same team pays $750 a month, or $9,000 a year. The seat line stays fixed; the Fin line grows fourfold.
In practice, the outcome count follows your sales calendar. A launch, a delivery delay or Black Friday can double order-status questions in a week. Every extra question Fin closes is another $0.99, so the AI line of the bill is highest in the months when margins are already under pressure. Intercom’s pricing page does not mention a spending cap for Fin outcomes, so ask sales how to limit spend before peak season.
Add-ons that change the Intercom bill
Seats and Fin are the two main lines. Three add-ons can raise the total further:
- Copilot: an AI assistant for agents in the inbox, $29 per agent a month on annual billing or $35 on monthly billing. Each agent gets 10 Copilot conversations a month free. For three agents, that is another $87 a month.
- Proactive Support Plus: $99 a month for outbound messages such as product tours and in-app campaigns, with 500 messages included and extra messages charged per unit.
- Pro: from $100 a month, with analysis of 500 conversations and 6,000 credits a month, then $0.01 per extra credit.
Add Copilot to the three-person example above and the 2,000-outcome month becomes $2,322. None of these add-ons are required, but stores that switch to Intercom for AI often add Copilot as well, so include it in the comparison.
Run your own numbers through the help desk cost calculator with your peak month, not your average month.
Why the Fin bill is hard to predict for a store
Three things make Fin harder to budget for an ecommerce team than for a software company.
Volume follows orders
A software company’s ticket count grows slowly with its customer base. A store’s ticket count jumps with every promotion, shipping delay and holiday. A per-outcome price turns each jump into a bigger invoice.
Handoffs can count
Order changes, refunds and damaged-item claims often need a person. If a Procedure ends in a handoff, the conversation can still count as an outcome, so automation that only collects details before a human takes over is not free.
The cheapest plan does not stay cheap
Essential at $29 a seat looks close to a small-business tool. At 2,000 outcomes, three Essential seats cost $2,067 a month, and 96% of that is Fin.
None of this makes Fin a bad product. Intercom is a mature platform with strong messaging and outbound tools. The point is to compare the total at your real volume, not the seat price.
Intercom Fin alternatives that are cheaper
If the Fin line is the problem, the cheaper options fall into two groups: tools that charge less per AI resolution, and tools that include AI in a flat plan. These prices were checked on each vendor’s pricing page on 30 October 2026.
ThriveDesk: flat plans with the AI agent included
ThriveDesk charges one price per plan, not per seat or per resolution. Basic is $29 a month for 2 teammates, Standard is $69 a month for 5 teammates, and Unlimited is $129 a month for unlimited teammates. The AI agent, live chat, shared inbox and help center are in every plan.
At 500 or 2,000 AI answers a month, the bill stays at the plan price. For the three-person team above, Standard costs $69 a month instead of $750 or $2,235. It is built for WooCommerce and SureCart stores, with order details shown beside each conversation in the shared inbox and the live chat panel. Intercom goes further on outbound campaigns and enterprise controls such as HIPAA support and SSO.
Help Scout: a lower per-resolution price
Help Scout charges $0.75 per AI resolution, about a quarter less than Fin. At 2,000 resolutions that is $1,500 a month instead of $1,980. Its plans cost $25, $45 or $75 per user a month, and you can set a monthly spending cap that turns AI off when you reach it. New accounts get three months of unlimited AI resolutions. See the Help Scout and Intercom comparison for the feature differences.
Crisp: AI credits inside a workspace price
Crisp prices per workspace: Mini is $45 a month for 4 seats, Essentials is $95 for 10 seats, and Plus is $295 for 20 or more. Each paid plan includes AI credits. Essentials includes $25 of credits, which Crisp estimates at about 450 automated conversations. The pricing page does not list the rate for credits beyond that, so ask before you plan for 2,000 AI conversations.
Gorgias costs about the same as Fin
Gorgias charges $0.90 per automated interaction on annual contracts and $1.00 on monthly ones, on top of plans that start at $10 a month. That is close to Fin’s price rather than a saving. Gorgias suits Shopify stores that want deep order actions; the Intercom and Gorgias comparison covers the trade-off.
Which Intercom plan fits an online store
If Intercom is still on your list, match the plan to the team rather than the feature list.
- Essential fits a store with one or two agents, one inbox and simple routing. Fin is included, so the plan price is low, but the Fin line decides the real bill.
- Advanced fits a store that needs separate inboxes for orders and wholesale, round-robin assignment or a multilingual help center. The 20 free Lite seats help when warehouse or marketing staff need to see conversations.
- Expert fits larger retailers with several brands, SLAs, SSO or HIPAA needs. Most small and midsize stores will not use these.
How to estimate your own Fin bill
Intercom’s calculator asks for your team size and expected outcomes. The second number is the hard one, and you can work it out from your own inbox in four steps.
- Pull your busiest month from last year. For most stores that is November or December. Use the total number of conversations, not orders.
- Count the conversations Fin could close on its own. Order status, delivery times, return policy, sizing and discount-code questions usually make up the bulk of store support. Refunds, damaged items and address changes after dispatch usually need a person.
- Apply a realistic share. Vendors quote high resolution rates, but your rate depends on how complete your help content is. Model 30%, 50% and 70% to see the range.
- Multiply and add the fixed costs. Outcomes × $0.99, plus seats, plus Copilot if you plan to use it.
A store with 3,000 conversations in December and a 50% Fin rate pays $1,485 for Fin that month. In a quiet month with 1,200 conversations, the same rate costs $594. Budget for the December number, because that is the one that arrives when you have the least time to react.
How ThriveDesk handles AI support pricing
ThriveDesk is AI customer service software for ecommerce: an agentic omnichannel helpdesk, intelligent chatbot, modern help center and powerful reporting, plus Neo, the AI agent that answers customers around the clock. Each part of this guide maps to a plain answer on cost.
- No per-resolution meter: Neo answers order status, shipping and return questions in 50+ languages, 24/7, and resolves up to 65% of conversations. None of those answers add to the bill. See the pricing page for what each plan includes.
- Store data beside the answer: Neo can look up WooCommerce orders and tracking before it replies, and agents see the same order details in the ticket when a conversation needs a person.
- A flat price through peak season: Basic is $29 a month, Standard $69, and Unlimited $129 with unlimited teammates. Annual billing brings them to $19, $49 and $99.
- ThriveDesk Copilot, included: Copilot searches tickets, docs and connected tools for your agents and takes the next step, with no extra per-agent charge.
- A free move from Intercom: the team can migrate your Intercom data, including conversations, contacts and help center articles.
Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, no credit card required. Read the full ThriveDesk and Intercom comparison to see where each product fits.
