Crisp and Intercom both sell a shared inbox with an AI layer on top, but they charge for it in ways that produce very different invoices once your team is more than a couple of people. Crisp's pricing page is organised around workspaces: Free at $0, Mini at $45 per month, Essentials at $95 per month and Plus at $295 per month, each with agent licences included and extra agents at $10 per month. Its AI support credits appear as dollar amounts inside those plans, $0, $5, $25 and $75, which the page translates into roughly 90, 450 and 1,350 automated conversations depending on the tier. Intercom's page is organised around seats instead: Essential at $29 per seat per month, Advanced at $85 and Expert at $132.
TL;DR
The two vendors sell the same job with opposite pricing units. Crisp charges per workspace: a free plan, then Mini at $45/month, Essentials at $95/month and Plus at $295/month, with AI credits bundled at $0, $5, $25 and $75 across those plans and extra agent licences listed at $10 per month each. Intercom charges per seat: Essential at $29 per seat per month, Advanced at $85 and Expert at $132, and meters its AI separately at $0.99 for every conversation Fin AI Agent resolves, with Copilot at $29 per agent per month on annual billing. Crisp wins on cost shape for one big shared inbox. Intercom charges more per person but bundles workspace-wide tooling and gives 20 free Lite seats on Essential so the rest of the company is not billed as support staff.
Those seats are the base of the Intercom bill rather than the whole of it. Fin AI Agent is charged at $0.99 per outcome, meaning per conversation the AI resolves, and Copilot for human agents is $29 per agent per month on annual billing. Intercom's own estimator illustrates how the two meters stack, showing 91 conversations resolved by Fin at $90.09 per month plus one Essential seat at $29 coming to a $119.09 monthly total. The practical question is therefore not which product is cheaper but which billing unit your team matches: ten agents sharing one Crisp workspace pay per workspace with a small per-head add-on, while ten full Intercom seats on Advanced cost $850 per month before a single Fin resolution is billed.
The counterweight is that Intercom's cheaper tiers include free viewer seats, 20 Lite seats on Essential and 50 on Advanced, which is a useful way to let non-support staff see and reply to conversations without buying a seat. This comparison uses the figures published on each vendor's own pricing page at the time of writing, and neither page offers third-party review evidence we are prepared to restate as user sentiment, so the note further down says plainly what we did not measure. The numbers are the argument.
| Feature | Crisp | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Free entry point | Free plan at $0/month with $0 AI credits, about 90 automated conversations | 14-day Essential trial with no card; Fin AI Agent billed at $0.99 per outcome |
| Published paid steps | Mini $45/month, Essentials $95/month, Plus $295/month | Essential $29/seat/month, Advanced $85/seat/month, Expert $132/seat/month |
| Pricing unit | Workspace per month, with agent licences included in the plan | Seat per month, plus free Lite viewer seats (20 on Essential, 50 on Advanced) |
| Cost of another person | Additional agents listed at $10 per month each | Another full seat at the tier price, from $29 to $132 per month |
| How AI is charged | AI credits bundled per plan at $0, $5, $25 and $75, roughly 90 to 1,350 automated conversations | Fin AI Agent at $0.99 per resolved outcome, on top of seats |
| AI for human agents | Covered by the bundled AI credits on the same plan | Copilot at $29 per agent per month billed annually, or $35 billed monthly |
| Documented AI example | Credit allowances quoted per plan, no dollar-per-conversation figure published | 91 Fin-resolved conversations at $90.09/month plus one Essential seat at $29.00, total $119.09/month |
| Optional add-ons | Extra agent licences at $10 per month each | Pro at $99/month (1,000 conversations analysed, 2,000 credits), Proactive Support Plus at $99/month for 500 messages, extra credits at $0.01 |
| Channels listed on the pricing page | Shared inbox with WhatsApp Business and Instagram among the plan features | Messenger, live chat, help centre, ticketing; WhatsApp, SMS and phone charged by usage |
| Trial or discount for startups | Free plan available indefinitely | 14-day Essential trial; Early Stage quotes $33/month for under $10M raised and 15 employees or fewer |
| Best fit | One workspace with a growing number of agents and a modest automation bill | A team that wants mature helpdesk tooling and is willing to pay per seat plus per AI resolution |
Pick Crisp if
Crisp makes sense when one team shares one inbox and the number of tools around it matters more than the number of seats. The plan prices are per workspace, agent licences are included and extra people cost $10 per month, so a 15-person desk on Essentials at $95 per month is a very different number from fifteen Intercom seats. The bundled AI credits mean the automation budget is visible in the plan price rather than arriving as a separate invoice, and the free tier lets you test routing and the widget with real traffic before paying anything. The trade-off is capacity: the credit allowance is finite, so a desk that automates most of its volume will move up to Essentials or Plus, and teams spread across several brands will end up paying for several workspaces.
Pick Intercom if
Intercom is the stronger pick when you want the bill to follow exactly what is used: a seat for each agent, and $0.99 for each conversation the AI resolves. That per-resolution meter is unusually honest for AI pricing, because an AI that resolves nothing costs nothing, and Intercom's own estimator makes the arithmetic public. It also means the total can drift, which is why the free Lite seats matter: 20 on Essential and 50 on Advanced let the wider company into the inbox without buying seats. Budget carefully above Essential, though. Advanced at $85 and Expert at $132 per seat per month turn a ten-person desk into a four-figure monthly commitment, and add-ons such as Copilot at $29 per agent per month or Pro at $99 per month sit on top of both meters.
Neither Crisp nor Intercom publishes third-party review data we are willing to restate as fact, and we did not run either product ourselves. Every figure here is taken from the two vendors' own pricing pages as published when this comparison was written. If a plan price or add-on has moved since, tell us and we will re-check it.
Per workspace, yes. Crisp's paid plans are $45, $95 and $295 per month with agent licences included and extra agents at $10 per month. Intercom starts at $29 per seat per month for Essential and charges $0.99 for each conversation Fin resolves. For a one-person desk Crisp's Mini plan is cheaper; for a large team Intercom's free Lite seats reduce the gap.
Per outcome at $0.99. You are charged when Fin resolves a conversation, not when it is invoked, and the charge sits on top of seat costs. Intercom's own estimator example charges $90.09 for 91 resolved conversations in a month.
Yes. Crisp bundles AI credits into each plan at $0, $5, $25 and $75, described as roughly 90, 450 and 1,350 automated conversations depending on the tier. Consumption beyond the allowance is what pushes you to a larger plan.
Intercom gives 20 Lite seats on Essential and 50 on Advanced, which let colleagues outside support view and reply to conversations without a full seat. Crisp includes agent licences in each plan and lists additional agents at $10 per month rather than a separate free viewer tier.
Copilot is $29 per agent per month billed annually, or $35 billed monthly, for unlimited use. Crisp does not sell a separately priced agent assistant: its AI support suit runs on the credits bundled into the plan, with $0, $5, $25 and $75 levels across the four plans.
On price shape, Crisp: ten agents in one workspace pay the workspace price plus $10 per month for each agent beyond the licences included. Intercom charges per seat, so ten Advanced seats list at $850 per month before any Fin usage. Intercom counters with richer helpdesk tooling and free Lite seats, which suits teams that need more process rather than more headroom.
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