Enhance Your Customer Support: A Comprehensive Guide to Intercom Alternatives

Posted by
Natalia Tomchyshyn

Updated December 22, 2023

When it comes to satisfying your customers, there's no doubt that Intercom s one of the first tools that comes to mind. This exceptional help desk software is designed to streamline customer communication and ensure that high-velocity teams can effectively manage their workflows. So why look for alternatives to Intercom? Because the best option comes out after compare similar chat solutions.

In today's business landscape, merely having a customer communication tool is not enough. Customers now expect businesses to be omnipresent, accessible across various channels, regardless of their size. While Intercom can certainly help you achieve these goals, it's essential to consider the alternatives that can provide even better results.

One significant advantage of Intercom is its ability to facilitate communication with your target audience through various touchpoints, including websites, mobile apps, live chat, social media, and email. However, it's crucial to acknowledge that this help desk software has its drawbacks, such as high prices and a lack of certain essential customer service features. So, where should you turn next? The answer lies in exploring the world of help desk alternatives.

To save you time and effort, we have meticulously curated a list of the best Intercom alternatives. These alternatives have been carefully selected to cater to the needs of both small and large businesses, ensuring a seamless transition and a painless experience. By exploring these alternatives, you can find a solution that not only matches but exceeds your expectations, providing enhanced functionality, affordability, and a comprehensive set of customer service features.

Customer Service Implementation Is Half The Story

A seamless live chat tool experience is essential for effective customer support. It's frustrating when you have to wait for minutes on end to receive an answer that could have been easily found through a quick online search. In today's fast-paced world, consumers expect instant responses, and studies have shown that their patience typically lasts no longer than 10 minutes. Once this limit is exceeded, they begin exploring alternative solutions and more convenient ways to address their specific issues.

That's why simply installing a live chat tool isn't sufficient. Before making a decision, it's crucial to thoroughly consider various factors that contribute to a positive user experience. From user-friendliness to real-time notifications, every aspect needs to be carefully evaluated. The demand for effective live chat solutions is high, and not all vendors can keep up with the competition. Some may alter the tool's scope, while others compromise on pricing to offer refined features. Consequently, choosing the right live chat tool for your business is not only challenging but can ultimately make the difference between delivering exceptional customer service or settling for mediocrity at best.

Given my expertise as a help desk expert, I can suggest several outstanding Intercom alternatives that excel in delivering instant and user-friendly live chat experiences. Let me know if you'd like to explore those options further.

Intercom in a Nutshell

Before we delve into the realm of Intercom alternatives, let's first explore the merits of Intercom itself and understand why it has become a popular choice for businesses. Intercom is a comprehensive customer system that serves as a catalyst for growth by streamlining various processes. Its primary objective is to guide customers through the entire sales journey, starting from acquisition, fostering engagement, and extending to post-sale services.

At the core of Intercom's feature set lies its robust messaging system, which seamlessly caters to marketing, sales, and support teams. The live chat system, fortified by a range of intelligent bots, empowers businesses to generate more leads. Notably, Intercom's chatbot, known as "Operator," has been meticulously designed to simulate human-like conversations, ensuring a natural and engaging experience for users.

The system can be divided into four distinct phases: occupation, qualification, transformation, and testing. Each phase encompasses a set of functions that enable prompt and effective responses to customer inquiries. Furthermore, these modules provide invaluable insights into customer behavior, allowing businesses to anticipate potential questions and tailor personalized solutions. By equipping agents with pertinent data in advance or on-demand, Intercom facilitates a more personalized approach to resolving issues. This versatility makes Intercom a versatile solution that caters to a wide array of business models.

However, it's always prudent to explore alternative options that may better suit your specific needs. So, let's delve into a curated selection of Intercom alternatives that showcase comparable features and functionalities, while providing their own unique advantages.

What Makes Intercom Special?

To begin exploring the best alternatives to Intercom, it's essential to understand the distinctive features that make Intercom stand out. By identifying these key components, we can then delve into detailed comparisons and recommend a suitable alternative that aligns with your specific needs. Intercom encompasses three crucial elements that contribute to its success:

• Platform Support: Intercom offers extensive platform support, allowing businesses to seamlessly integrate their customer communication across various channels. Whether it's web, mobile, or messaging platforms, Intercom provides a comprehensive solution to engage with customers wherever they are. The ability to reach customers on their preferred channels plays a vital role in enhancing customer satisfaction and driving meaningful interactions.
• Management Features: Another notable aspect of Intercom is its robust set of management features. From advanced analytics and reporting to customer segmentation and automated workflows, Intercom empowers businesses to effectively organize and streamline their customer support processes. The intuitive interface and powerful tools enable teams to efficiently handle customer inquiries, track performance metrics, and deliver personalized experiences.
• Help Desk Software Update and Support: Intercom consistently updates its help desk software to meet evolving customer expectations and industry standards. Regular updates not only introduce new features but also ensure optimal performance, security, and reliability. Additionally, Intercom provides reliable support services, including documentation, online resources, and responsive customer assistance, to help businesses navigate any challenges they may encounter.

By understanding these key components of Intercom, we can now proceed to explore alternative options that offer similar advantages while catering to your specific requirements. Please share your preferences, and I'll be delighted to recommend the best Intercom alternatives for your business.

Platform Support

Intercom works on most platforms, from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to Salesforce, Stripe, and Jira Cloud. The system has its own App Store, where you can find seamless integrations to the following tool categories:

• Analytics
• Automation
• Data Enrichment
• Issue tracking
• Ticketing
• Conversation management
• CRM
• Lead capture
• Phone
• Video
• Scheduling
• Marketing automation
• Screen capture
• Surveys
• Feedback

This is just the native integration list. If you include the fact that the tool has an open API, this integration list will more than double.

Management Features

With so many platforms on the list, the vendor made sure you can manage them as effectively as possible. Starting from the Accelerate plan, you can use automated systems to streamline customer messaging and reduce manual operations. Plus, Intercom ensures your support line is in good hands with

• Self-service knowledge base with articles and FAQs
• Customizable conversation bots
• Dedicated resolution bots
• Product tours

Customer Service Software Update & Support

Last but not least, Intercom has a really good support system. You get access to customer care and can be sure your system will get updated with the latest and greatest features.

Source

What Are the Benefits of Intercom?

Intercom is a customer engagement platform that provides conversational solutions for support agents and marketing teams. It helps companies study their customers and use this knowledge to personalize customer messaging and experience. How exactly can Intercom benefit a large or small business?

• Robust chat software features
• Behavior-driven customer communication
• Conversational marketing
• Reports on customer engagement and conversation topics
• Comprehensive ticketing system

Look Into the Pros and Cons of Intercom

Now, let’s summarise the software’s advantages and shortcomings to simplify the comparison between the alternatives to Intercom.

What Are Intercom’s, Strong Sides?

• Shared inbox streamlines support team collaboration
• Email marketing provides value throughout the customer lifecycle
• In-product messaging helps customers understand your product’s value and relevance
• The Operator bot suggests knowledge articles to clients through a chat widget
• Targeted messages and customer segmentation help you onboard new customers and grow leads
• Live chat has multiple customization options
• Product Tours improve the initial product experience
• Geotargeting helps local businesses reach their prospective audience

What Does Intercom Need to Work On?

• A confusing pricing structure
• High price for tight budgets
• No customer portal
• The ticketing system doesn’t allow private notes
• Some users complain about slow customer service
• A learning curve for first-time users

Why Should You Use an Intercom Alternative?

If you feel Intercom can fail to meet your demands, consider other help desk software. For example, you might want more collaboration features or self-service options or don’t want to spend much time on onboarding. Besides, considering its drawbacks, Intercom can be difficult to tailor to small business needs. It doesn’t offer a free version, and the lowest plan is not affordable, so you might want to consider Intercom free alternative.

What Is Intercom Pricing?

Intercom offers two pricing sections for different business sizes:

• For most businesses
• For very small businesses

For most businesses section includes three paid plans:

• Support comes with a live chat, team inboxes, ticketing, SLAs, workload management, roles & permissions, outcome reporting, self-service bots, targeted messaging, and product tours.
• Engage includes custom bots, push notifications, multi-channel campaigns, A/B testing, version control, custom events, and integrations with Magento & Salesforce.
• Convert provides chatbots, live chat for sales, lead qualification, multiple team inboxes, conversation routing, and revenue & performance reporting.

There are no prices on the pricing page, so you’ll need to contact the vendor to find out the quote.

For very small businesses section includes:

• Starter offers chat & email support, targeted outbound email, shared inbox, help center, conversation routing bot, macros, reporting dashboards, and integrations.

This one comes with a price of $74/month if billed annually.

Source: Intercom

What Are the Closest Intercom Alternatives?

Overall, Intercom is a very powerful tool, and matching it in terms of features and quality is hard. However, there are a few alternatives to Intercom that are not only equally good but in certain cases even better. Before we proceed, we’d also like to stress that we understand that some of the tools might not fit all your business needs. Although, you also need to acknowledge that these tools are being worked on and they never stay in one place. Thus, now that this is out of the way, move on to the alternatives.

Our alternative Intercom list contains chat software that can help polish up customer communication and load off the tedious work for live chat agents. We’ve weighed up their pros & cons compared to Intercom and added a quick pricing overview. So, what are the best alternatives to Intercom?

• LiveChat
• Freshchat
• HelpCrunch
• LiveAgent
• Zendesk Chat
• Gorgias
• Re:amaze
• Front
• Zoho Desk
• HubSpot Chat

Is LiveChat the Best Among Intercom Chat Alternatives?

For many, LiveChat is even better than Intercom, and that wouldn’t be an understatement. LiveChat is outstanding chat software with customizable chat tools and in-depth reports. It’s functional, easy to use, and doesn’t take long to set up. Furthermore, LiveChat provides many integrations with different platforms. You won’t be losing on anything but the advanced functions found in premium tiers of Intercom.

Source

LiveChat Key Features

• Multi-channel live chat widget with agent profiles, screen reader, and keyboard navigation
• A dedicated Marketplace for extensions
• A robust ticketing system
• Reporting on team performance across different channels
• Targeted messages with interactive greetings and announcements
• Chat routing rules
• Chat history and transcripts
• Customer feedback tools

Source: LiveChat

Why Is LiveChat a Good Alternative to Intercom?

• The chat widget is available in 45+ languages and can be tailored to your brand
• You can sync your chat widget with the knowledge base
• You can add an eye-catcher to your live chat
• The feedback system includes chat ratings, post-chat surveys, and CSAT reports
• You can transfer conversations to specific live chat agents
• With benchmark data dashboards, you can check your customer service metrics compared to your competitors

What Are LiveChat’s Flaws?

• You can’t provide support through phone calls
• No spellcheck
• No time zone alignment
• It is not PCI compliant

What Are LiveChat Integrations?

While not as extensive as Intercom’s list, LiveChat allows you to hook your tool to popular platforms such as Google Analytics, MailChimp, Zendesk, and Dropbox. Plus, the support system has its app store where you can find official integration apps.

How Much Does LiveChat Cost?

LiveChat is highly affordable and quite capable compared to Intercom pricing. The company offers four pricing plans and a 14-day free trial.

Free/freemium plan

Not available

Paid plans

• Starter costs $20/agent/month billed annually and includes 60-day chat history, basic widget customization, a ticketing system, and data security.
• Team adds unlimited chat history, full widget customization, basic reporting, agent groups, and brandings.
• Business provides advanced reporting, agent groups, multiple branding, staffing prediction, and a work scheduler.
• Enterprise comes with a custom quote and includes a dedicated account manager, software engineer support, training, SSO, and HIPAA compliance.

Source: LiveChat

Keep in mind that prices rise if paid on a monthly basis. You can learn more about the plans by visiting the LiveChat Pricing plan.

Can Freshchat Replace Intercom?

Freshchat is omnichannel chat software that helps support agents, marketing teams, and sales teams improve customer experience through a customizable messaging widget. You can use an audio chat to support, engage, and grow your customers.

Source

What Can You Do with Freshchat?

• Unify customer messaging channels into one place
• Run customer communication using no-code customizable chatbots
• Enable AI-powered self-service
• Rout calls using IVR (Interactive Voice Response)
• Manage chat campaigns

Source: Freshchat

The Best Freshchat Features

• Customize the widget to meet your brand color scheme
• Deliver contextual support using preserved conversation history
• Enable customers to rate your support quality
• Embed a FAQ-like questionnaire within the chat
• Add media (images, PDFs, GIFs, documents) to customer messaging
• Analyze marketing campaigns with a dashboard
• Provide chat support in 54 languages
• Translate messages in real-time and respond to customers in their language

Freshchat's Flaws List

• Ticketing and other customer support features are possible only after integrating with Freshservice
• You can’t connect live chat to your knowledge base
• Freshchat is a bad fit for medium and large businesses
• You can use few integrations unless you connect to Freshservice or Freshdesk
• Users report 10-second lag in starting a chat with a customer

FreshChat Integrations

The widget’s ability to hook to a different platform is directly tied to the core vendor API. In other words, if any Fresh product has native Google Analytics integration, then the widget can connect there as well unless stated otherwise. Currently, the integration list includes WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Analytics, and Sugar CRM, among other things.

How Much Do You Have to Pay for Freshchat?

The chat system is not pricey, but the feature list isn’t as rich as you might be led to believe. Currently, there are four pricing plans starting with a free plan.

Free/Freemium plans

The Free plan includes up to 100 agents, 100 campaign contacts, chatbots, analytics, inbox views, conversation topics & labels, bulk actions, email, mobile SDK, Shopify, WordPress

Paid plans

• Growth provides up to 2000 bot sessions, 500 campaign contacts, assignment rules, a priority inbox, canned responses, private notes, business hours, a basic dashboard, FAQs, and messaging channels.
• Pro allows 3000 bot sessions, skill-based auto-assignment, auto-resolving, live translation, advanced dashboards, workflow automation, roles & permissions, and more reports.
• Enterprise adds more bot sessions, allows IPs & domains, and user authentication.

Source: Freshchat

A solid alternative to Intercom. You can learn more about the features and pricing of other plans by visiting Freshchat’s official pricing page.

Does HelpCrunch Have a Better Live Chat Than Intercom?

HelpCrunch is a customer communication platform that improves efficiency with multi-channel support and automation. HelpCrunch has all the features you need to deliver on the quality and time aspects of customer service.

Source

What Are the Best HelpCrunch Features?

• Set up email targeting
• Manage chats, messenger, emails, and social media from a shared inbox
• Integrate your knowledge base with your live chat
• Track customer data like time zone and recent interactions
• Collaborate with teammates via private notes
• Provide personalized customer service with a website chatbot
• The live chat widget for your brand design

Source: HelpCrunch

What Are HelpCrunch Advantages Compared to Intercom?

• Behavior-based auto messages
• Customizable website pop-ups
• Automatic custom-selected messages based on triggers
• Detailed campaign analytics
• The knowledge base metrics reveal the failed searches
• Easy setup and use

What Are HelpCrunch’s Flaws?

• No integration with Zapier
• No knowledge base templates
• No free plan
• No chatbot on the lowest plan

What Can You Integrate HelpCrunch With?

When it comes to integration, HelpCrunch works with a wide range of systems, including Slack, WordPress, Google Analytics, WhatsApp, and Zendesk. More can be added through the API.

What Is HelpCrunch Price?

It is the perfect system for companies that don’t mind spending less for fewer features. If your budget is tight, the company made sure you can still leverage their tools for as long as you have $15 per month per agent.

Free/Freemium plans

Not available

Paid plans

• Basic costs $12/user/month and includes up to 20 live chat agents, 1 widget, 3 auto-messages, 3 pop-ups, a monolingual knowledge base, customization options, basic automation, and live chat support.
• Pro costs $20/user/month and provides 5 widgets, 25 auto-messages, 25 pop-ups, 15 chatbot flows, a multilingual knowledge base, advanced automation, and no HelpCrunch branding.
• Unlimited costs $495 and includes everything unlimited and a personal onboarding assistant.

Source: HelpCrunch

You can learn more about the features and prices by visiting the HelpCrunch pricing page. It is among the best Intercom alternatives, especially in the price-to-performance department.

Why Should You Use LiveAgent Instead of Intercom?

Another good alternative to Intercom is LiveAgent. With this help desk software, you can deliver excellent customer experience on every channel using a robust ticketing system and the core chat support feature. You can place all customer conversations into one thread and send appropriate responses based on the customer type. With this tool, you can ensure no one is wasting time and no customer request is left unanswered.

Source

What Are LiveAgent’s Core Features?

• A universal inbox system across multiple departments
• Automated ticket distribution
• Canned messages
• Agent collision detection
• Audit log to track support agent activities

Source: LiveAgent

How Good Is LiveAgent?

• You can manage the same ticket through different channels
• Time tracking gives insights into agent performance and increases team accountability
• Time rules improve ticket prioritization
• You can drag-and-drop files within chats, emails, contact forms, and knowledge base
• The “to solve button” directs your agents to tickets
• Numerous integrations make the tool more scalable
• The free plan provides many features

What LiveAgent Features Lack Improvement?

• Some users report unfriendly UI and a slight learning curve
• You have to set up many functionalities
• You have to pay an additional fee for some features

What Are the Best LiveAgent Integrations?

Among the many Intercom alternatives, LiveAgent has perhaps the most extensive and the most eclectic list of integrations. Out of the box, you get access to 133 integrations plus the API. The list includes popular software solutions such as WordPress, Magento, Shopify, MailChimp, Pipedrive, and Slack.

How Much Does LiveAgent Cost?

LiveAgent offers four pricing options and a 14-day free trial for the paid plans. The rich-featured free plan makes LiveAgent one of the best alternatives to Intercom.

Free/freemium plans

• The Free plan includes 1 chat button, 7 days of ticket history, 1 email address, basic reports, a customer portal & forum, ticket transfers, ticket merging & splitting, bulk actions, multiple ticket tabs, real-time dashboards, and more.

Paid plans

• Ticket costs $15/agent/month and includes unlimited email ticketing, unlimited ticket history, time rules, custom mail templates, gamification, integrations, advanced reporting, and API.
• Ticket+Chat adds proactive chat invitations, feedback management, chat transcripts, mobile chat window, chat rating, and time tracking (additional $19/month/account).
• All-inclusive provides call routing, 3 custom roles, call widget customization, and hardware IP phone.

Source: LiveAgent

As you can tell, among the many Intercom alternatives, this one is the most packed. You can learn more about the other tiers by visiting the LiveAgent pricing page.

Zendesk Chat vs Intercom: Compare the Features

Zendesk Chat isn’t among the key Intercom competitors, but it is worth looking at. For many, this platform is the epitome of quality in the help desk space. And to some degree, it applies to their customer communication system.

It is a powerful solution, full of different features that you can use straight out of the box. The system doesn’t require any kind of setup. Just specify criteria, set a schedule, and let the magic happen.

Source

What Can You Use Zendesk Chat For?

• Deliver omnichannel support
• Aggregate customer data in one place
• Connect with any app, social media platform, or website
• Provide self-service with a customizable answer bot and AI-powered suggestions
• Run group messaging for quicker results

Source: Zendesk

What Are the Pros of Zendesk Chat?

• Ease of use and setup
• Custom metrics tracking
• Real-time website visitor monitoring
• Easy integration with other Zendesk solutions

What Are Zendesk Chat’s Shortcomings?

• The free plan is quite limited compared to other alternatives to Intercom
• No marketing tools like email campaigns
• Customer support is not available on the free plan

What Are Zendesk Integrations?

The platform can connect to a vast amount of third-party apps and websites out of the box. If you need to connect it to a proprietary solution, Zendesk Chat makes it easy by giving you proper access to the API.

Zendesk Chat vs Intercom: Who’s More Expensive?

Zendesk was never known to be cheap, and rightfully so; you get access to the top-tier features. Yet, the company offers four pricing plans, one of which is free.

Free/freemium plans

• The Lite plan includes 1 agent, 1 concurrent chat, chat rating, shortcuts, automatic chat translation, Android & iOS apps, chat tags, widget customization, mobile chat SDK, and Zendesk Support integration.

Paid plans

• Team costs $14/agent/month billed annually and provides unlimited agents, unlimited concurrent chats, unlimited chat history, 2 triggered messages, 2 agent departments, a dashboard, advanced customization options, and REST API.
• Professional costs $29/agent/month and adds operating hours, chat routing, chat & agent reports, conversation tracking, private apps, and custom front API.
• Enterprise costs $59/agent/month and includes skill-based routing, roles & permissions, live chat widget branding, real-time monitor, chatbots, and real-time API.

Source: Zendesk

Is Gorgias an Alternative Intercom?

Gorgias is an all-in-one help desk platform that is especially good for eCommerce businesses. You can integrate it with Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce and track customer data from your stores. Ticket categorization, autoresponders, and collaboration features allow you to provide a delightful customer experience.

How to Use Gorgias Features?

• Pull customer data from eCommerce platforms to Gorgias dashboard
• Manage refunds and orders
• Provide shipping information, order statuses, and tracking number in a self-service portal
• Create a library with personalized canned responses
• Run live analytics of agent performance

Source: Gorgias

What Makes Gorgias a Good Help Desk Tool?

• Quick access to all tickets
• Direct eCommerce management
• Many integrations
• Social media comment filtering

What Does Gorgias Need to Improve?

• It can be a pricey tool for tight budgets
• You have to pay additional money for a monthly ticket limit override
• The reports are basic and allow poor customization

Gorgias Integrations

You can integrate Gorgias with over 85 apps. The featured Gorgias integrations include Attentive for SMS conversations and Recharge for subscription management. Also, the list includes Instagram, Facebook, AirCall, and eCommerce tools like Reveal, Okendo, and Klaviyo.

Gorgias Pricing Structure

Gorgias offers several plans with a limited number of seats, tickets, and active integrations. However, you can have unlimited stores on each plan.

Free/freemium plans

Not available

Paid plans

• Starter costs $50/month and includes 3 seats, Shopify integration, automation, help center, CSAT surveys, live performance statistics, and SSO.
• Basic costs $300/month and allows unlimited users, BigCommerce integration, team management, user permissions, and up to 150 active integrations.
• Pro costs 2,000/month and adds Magento integration, revenue stats, and lite onboarding.
• Advanced for $5,000/month adds full onboarding and a dedicated success manager.
• Enterprise adds integration with Twitter and custom services and is available for a custom price.

Source: Gorgias

Can Re:amaze Replace Intercom?

You can use Re:amaze as an alternative Intercom if you deal with eCommerce. This help desk software provides marketing features and improves customer experience with advanced chat support tools. With Re:amaze, you take care of customer queries while increasing customer retention and qualifying leads.

What Are Re:amaze Key Features?

• Customizable live chat
• Setting automated workflows and canned answers
• Measuring customer satisfaction
• Reports on conversation volume and response times
• Business hours, vacation days, and agent shifts

Source: Re:amaze

What Are the Benefits of Re:amaze?

• Team presence tracking
• Customer message peeking
• Multibrand support
• Chat + FAQs integration
• Ease of use and customization

Are There Any Cons in Re:amaze?

• Poor ticketing system
• Challenging knowledge-base editing
• You can’t add images to FAQs

How Can You Extend Re:amaze Functionality?

Make your customer communication more comprehensive with Re:amaze integrations. Those include chatbots, email marketing, eCommerce platforms, payments, CRM, and social media. The most popular apps are AirCall, Facebook, Google Analytics, BigCommerce, Shopify, Slack, Amazon, Zapier, and Help Desk Migration.

How Much Does Re:amaze Cost?

Re:amaze offers three paid plans, each with a 14-day free trial. Compared to other Intercom alternatives, the price quotes can be less affordable for companies with small profits.

Free/freemium plans

Not available

Paid plans

• Basic costs $29/user/month and offers unlimited inboxes, live chat, social media support, public & internal FAQs, macros & response templates, chatbots, basic reporting, and customer intents.
• Pro includes multi-brand support, advanced reporting, SMS & voice channels, a customizable email layout, and custom hosted domain.
• Plus adds live screen sharing, departments, staff shifts & roles, CSAT ratings, optional chat mode, and in-chat video calls.

Source: Re:amaze

Is Front Similar to Intercom?

Front is a customer communication hub that helps companies run make-or-break conversations with customers. It provides an email and ticketing system and brings together inbound and outbound communications.

The Best Features of Front

• Multichannel support & unified inbox
• Front Chat
• Auto reminders & responders
• Collaborative workspace
• Automated workflows
• Reports on critical metrics

Source: Front

What Are Front’s Perks?

• Tracking all conversations in a shared inbox
• Shared email drafts
• Collaboration features like @mentions and inline comments
• Many third-party integrations

What Are Front’s Disadvantages?

• Setting up the Front Chat requires coding
• The ticketing system lacks scalability
• Disorganized tags can confuse agents

What Are the Best Front Integrations?

Front’s marketplace offers integration with tools for automation, telephony, billing, feedback management, knowledge content, and logistics. On the top of the marketplace page, you’ll find Aircall, Asana, ClickUp, Microsoft Dynamics, Grammarly, and GitHub.

What Is Front’s, Price Tag?

Front comes with three paid plans and no free plans. Still, you can check the tool using a 7-day free trial.

Free/freemium plans

Not available

Paid plans

• Starter costs $19/agent/month, billed annually. It allows up to 10 users, omnichannel messaging, live chat, collaboration tools, basic automation, snoozing & scheduling messages, shared inbox & drafts, basic rules, and API.
• Growth includes CRM integration, basic analytics, advanced workflows, and more automation.
• The scale adds smart rules, user & team management, rules with dynamic variables, advanced reports, and all integrations.

Source: Front

Is Zoho Desk a Feasible Intercom Alternative?

Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk system that improves your business health with robust ticket management and omnichannel customer support. It provides automation and in-depth analytics to meet the needs of any scale. With Zoho Desk, you can streamline team collaboration, apply AI, and measure customer satisfaction. However, this software is more about ticketing than chat support.

What Is Zoho Desk Feature List?

• Multi-department management
• Automation based on rules, alerts, tasks, and custom functions
• Ticket categorization
• Automated ticket assignment
• Multi-brand help center
• Performance reporting
• Chat widget in a help center
• Agent collision detection
• ZIA tools (contextual AI)
• Time tracking

Source: Zoho Desk

What Are the Best Capabilities in Zoho Desk?

• Convert chat conversations into tickets
• Auto-tag tickets
• Quickly preview interactions between an agent and a customer
• Use snippets and keyboard shortcuts to provide quick answers
• Write code to add custom functions
• Create a self-service portal and live chat for each brand

What Are Zoho Desk’s Drawbacks?

• You can use a live chat only on the highest plan
• The slight learning curve for first-time users
• The live chat widget lacks customization
• No marketing tools

Zoho Desk Integrations

To extend Zoho Desk’s functionality, you can integrate it with other Zoho apps like Zoho CRM or Zoho Projects, or numerous third-party apps. If your company offers phone support, you can streamline it with multiple Zoho telephony partners. The other apps include G-Suite, Slack, Salesforce, Intercom, Jira, Zapier, and more.

Is Zoho Desk Cheaper Than Intercom?

Free/freemium plans

• The Free plan is custom, so you have to contact Zoho to arrange the package

Paid plans

• Standard costs €14/user/month and includes 5 email channels, help center, 1 feedback widget, advanced web forms, social media for 1 brand, ticket merging, splitting, and cloning, work modes, 5 macros, 4 SLAs, custom fields, custom reports & dashboards, limited rebranding, and more.
• Professional adds more email channels, telephony, ticket sharing, agent collision detection, limited round-robin ticket assignment, and auto time tracking.
• Enterprise includes a live chat, AI, scheduled reports, and data-sharing access.

Source: Zoho Desk

Why Is HubSpot Chat Among Intercom Alternatives?

With the HubSpot Chat widget, you can provide customers instant support and save the interactions for further contextual communication. You can customize the widget to the feel of your brand and enable a great customer experience using personalized messages and chat routing.

What Are HubSpot Chat Use Cases?

• Customizable live chat widget
• Chat archive
• Chatbot builder
• Business hours and emails capture

Source: HubSpot

What Are the Benefits of HubSpot Chat Over Intercom?

• You can create your own chatbots with no coding
• You can answer chats directly from Slack
• The Emails Capture feature allows you to track missed emails

What Features Are Missing in HubSpot Chat?

• To get the most out of the tool, you need to integrate it with the Marketing Hub
• No reporting
• No marketing campaigns

HubSpot Chat Integrations

HubSpot’s App Ecosystem offers over 1,000 apps for various business departments, including marketing, customer service, sales, productivity, and finance. The free HubSpot integrations include Google Ads, Facebook, Gmail, Outlook, and Slack.

Is HubSpot Chat Free?

HubSpot Chat is a free live chat tool unless you want to integrate it with the Marketing Hub to get more features. If yes, the price starts at $45/month for 1,000 marketing contacts and reaches $3,600/month for 10,000 marketing contacts.

Source: HubSpot

The Takeaway

And so concludes our list of best Intercom alternatives. With so many solutions out there, picking a communication system can be tiresome. We hope our list of Intercom alternatives will prove to be useful, but in the meantime, this is all we have for now. If you feel like any of these alternative tools suit you, but you need to move your old data to start working on them, we can help. Just test drive our Migration Wizard and see how your customer service data will look on your new platform.

Frequently Asked Questions