Intercom Alternatives 2026: 5 Free Options
Intercom alternatives: Crisp, tawk.to, Chatwoot, FreeScout and 1 more. Prices and licenses checked October 22, 2026.
•3 min read•Customer Support & Help Desk
Verdict:Leave Intercom if you need a support inbox and live chat but not its AI and in-app product messaging. Intercom has no free plan, and its published pricing starts at $29 per seat, so cost grows with headcount. Crisp is the easiest switch for a very small team: its free plan includes two seats and 100 customer profiles, though it has no AI credits. If you want to pay nothing and host it yourself, Chatwoot and FreeScout are the two open choices. Chatwoot's hosted Hacker plan is $19 with two agents and 500 conversations a month, and its code lets you keep the data. FreeScout is a mailbox help desk you run on your own server, so your only cost is hosting. Tawk.to covers live chat, ticketing and a knowledge base for free, which suits a website that needs chat before it needs a support process. Help Scout is the paid option for teams that run support by email and publish a help center; its entry plan covers five users, one inbox and one Docs site for $25. The trade-off is simple: every free or cheap option gives up Intercom's in-app messages, product tours and AI resolution. If your sales funnel depends on those, stay on Intercom and price the seats. If your support is mostly chat and email questions, one of the cheaper tools above will cover it without the per-seat bill.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crisp | Free (2 seats, 100 customer profiles, no AI credits); paid from $45 per workspace/month, billed monthly (Mini, 4 agents) | Web browser | Small teams wanting free live chat | Docs only |
| tawk.to | Free (Live chat, ticketing and knowledge base free; AI Assist has a free plan for limited chat volume); paid from $29 per month (remove-branding add-on) | Web browser | Website chat on a zero budget | Docs only |
| Chatwoot | Free (Hacker plan: 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, live chat only, 30 days retention); paid from $19 per agent/month, billed monthly (Startups) | Web browser, Self-hosted | Self-hosted support with data control | Docs only |
| FreeScout | Free (free self-hosted core; you pay for your own server) | Web browser, Self-hosted | Email support on your own server | Docs only |
| Help Scout | Free (5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site); paid from $25 per user/month (Standard, billed monthly; annual toggle shows a discount) | Web browser | Email-first teams with a help center | Docs only |
| Zendesk | Paid from $19 per agent/month, billed annually (Support Team) | Web browser | Help Desk | Docs only |
| Freshdesk | Paid from $19 per agent/month, billed annually (Growth) | Web browser | Help Desk | Docs only |
Independent comparison. Paid placements are labelled separately; editorial links earn no affiliate commissions. Learn more.
Good fit if
- You want free live chat for a small site (Crisp is the pick)
- You want to self-host and keep your data (Chatwoot is the pick)
- Your support runs by email with a help center (Help Scout is the pick)
- You want a free chat widget with a knowledge base (tawk.to is the pick)
Not ideal if
- You rely on Intercom features or integrations that these tools do not replicate
Intercom today: Paid from $29 per seat/month (Essential; the page also shows $19, which appears to be the annual rate; Advanced $85, Expert $132; Fin AI Agent $0.99 per outcome) (Intercom pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Why people look for Intercom alternatives
Intercom's Essential seat is $19, shown as a 35% saving from $29, with the billing term unclear. Workflow automation, multiple team inboxes and round-robin assignment only arrive on Advanced at $85 per seat, and SSO, HIPAA support and SLAs need Expert at $132. Copilot adds $29 per agent a month billed annually ($35 monthly), and Fin AI Agent is billed at $0.99 per outcome with a monthly minimum commitment.
Crisp
Compared with Intercom: Free plan covers 2 seats and 100 customer profiles, with no AI credits. Against Intercom you lose Fin AI and in-app product tours, but the entry cost is zero.
Price: Free (2 seats, 100 customer profiles, no AI credits); paid from $45 per workspace/month, billed monthly (Mini, 4 agents) (Crisp pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Small teams wanting free live chat.
tawk.to
Compared with Intercom: Live chat, ticketing and a knowledge base are free per the pricing page. Intercom has no free plan and starts at $29 a seat, so you give up in-app messaging to avoid per-seat pricing.
Price: Free (Live chat, ticketing and knowledge base free; AI Assist has a free plan for limited chat volume); paid from $29 per month (remove-branding add-on) (tawk.to pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Website chat on a zero budget.
Worth knowing: Live answering by hired agents is $1 per hour.
Chatwoot
Compared with Intercom: Open-source support inbox; the hosted Hacker plan is $19 with 2 agents and 500 conversations a month. Unlike Intercom you can self-host and keep the data, but you lose its managed AI and messenger features.
Price: Free (Hacker plan: 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, live chat only, 30 days retention); paid from $19 per agent/month, billed monthly (Startups) (Chatwoot pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser, Self-hosted. MIT (repo also contains an enterprise folder) (open source).
Project activity: 38.4k GitHub stars · latest release v4.19.1 (Oct 24, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Self-hosted support with data control.
FreeScout
Compared with Intercom: Free self-hosted help desk: you pay only for your own server. Against Intercom it drops the live messenger and AI agent, and gives you an email-first inbox you fully control.
Price: Free (free self-hosted core; you pay for your own server) (FreeScout pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser, Self-hosted. AGPL-3.0 (open source).
Project activity: 4.6k GitHub stars · latest release 1.8.248 (Oct 17, 2026) · last commit Oct 26, 2026
Best for: Email support on your own server.
Help Scout
Compared with Intercom: Paid shared inbox from $25 for 5 users, 1 inbox and 1 Docs site per the pricing page. Cheaper per seat than Intercom's entry plan, but it is email-first, so live chat and product tours are gone.
Price: Free (5 users, 1 inbox, 1 Docs site); paid from $25 per user/month (Standard, billed monthly; annual toggle shows a discount) (Help Scout pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Email-first teams with a help center.
Other popular options (paid)
Zendesk
Compared with Intercom: Support Team is $19 per agent a month billed annually ($25 monthly), the same list price as Intercom's discounted Essential seat. A ticket-first help desk with a 14-day trial and no free plan.
Price: Paid from $19 per agent/month, billed annually (Support Team) (Zendesk pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Freshdesk
Compared with Intercom: Growth is $19 per agent a month billed annually, matching Intercom's Essential seat price. There is no permanent free plan, only a 14-day trial, and it works as a conventional help desk.
Price: Paid from $19 per agent/month, billed annually (Growth) (Freshdesk pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Which one to pick
- You want free live chat for a small site: Crisp
- You want to self-host and keep your data: Chatwoot
- Your support runs by email with a help center: Help Scout
- You want a free chat widget with a knowledge base: tawk.to
Limits of this review
Docs-only for Crisp, tawk.to, Chatwoot, FreeScout, Help Scout: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from Intercom. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
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Kevin Fan
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Methodology
Based on official pricing and product pages checked 2026-10-22: Intercom, Crisp, tawk.to, Chatwoot, FreeScout, Help Scout, Zendesk, Freshdesk. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.