Don't Miss the Top 15 Intercom Alternative Options in 2023 Katherine Manning February 14, 2023
According to independent research by Kayoko, shoppers' willingness to purchase an item increases by 38 percent if the website in question offers live chat support.
Of all the live chat tools available today, Intercom is one of the most widely known. However, in recent years, the platform has received criticism for its pricing model and features. As a result, many users have been looking for cheap alternatives to Intercom, opensource alternatives to Intercom, and customer service platforms that meet other strategic marketing needs.
If you have an Intercom account and you're wondering how to move away from it, we've got you. In this post, we will cover 15 of the best Intercom alternative options for live chat tools that are available today. Don't worry, many of them allow you to import data, ensuring that you don't lose your Intercom data when you choose a new tool.
1. Glass.io
Glass.io is a new take on engaging with your web visitors. With Glass, you can watch the screens of visitors to your website in realtime and start an instant conversation with video, voice, and chat.
Image. Use in-app video chat to reach your customers at crucial moments of decision.
Glass prioritizes natural human engagement over bot-driven conversations, generating significantly higher response rates than bots. With a set of easy-to-understand reports, managers can easily view metrics on engagement rates and help operators improve their interactions with customers.
Pros
Easy installation (just a Javascript snippet)
The only service for observing visitor screens in realtime
Also the only option for instant, in-app video and voice conversations
Delivers higher response rates than bots and email outreach
Cons
A new startup with an early access program (may take a bit to activate your account)
Fewer integrations than other chat services—you may lose your existing data or have to sync data manually.
Ideal for: Businesses looking to provide a higher-touch at critical revenue points (evaluating a purchase, booking a demo, post-signup setup, and concierge onboarding).
Integrations: Slack, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Hubspot CRM.
Price: Starts at $200/mo.
2. Hubspot Service Hub
Hubspot Service Hub is a well-known Intercom competitor with a hosted platform that allows companies to connect with customers and service teams at multiple addresses through one central hub.
It offers support for live chat, email, or phone; multi-channel community forums; customizable workflows; and 24/7 monitoring of social media accounts. You can easily connect external applications and integrate them with your workflow so you understand what's happening at all times.
Pros
Powerful CRM and managing service tickets
Live support chat
Email support
Phone support
Support through social media channels (Facebook and Twitter)
Hubspot Service Hub can integrate within a larger acquisition channel strategy
Cons
The free version of the software comes with limited functionality, and functionality may be something you will need to upgrade with a higher-level plan.
Ideal for: B2B customers
Integrations: Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Drift.
Price: Paid plans start from $45 per month
3. Userlike
Userlike was founded in 2011 by David Voswinkel and Timoor Taufig in Germany, and acquired by Lime Technologies in 2021. This customer service software provides businesses with live chat, AI chatbots, interactive FAQ pages, website analytics, and third-party integrations.
Image. Userlike's homepage.
For anyone looking for an Intercom alternative that provides the basics for customer communication and customer management, Userlike is a solid option.
Pros
Cloud-based software
Conversational AI chatbots
Best alternative for those looking for a free version and free trial plan
Robost software support: email, help desk, phone support, 24/7 live calls, chat, etc.
All messages funnel to your Userlike dashboard where you can view all messages in one space
Cons
No app for iPhone or iPad
Users report occasional missed messages
Ideal for: online businesses, website visitors, e-commerce shops
Integrations: Freshdesk, Help Scout, EmailTicket, etc.
Price: Paid plans start from $100 per month
4. Zendesk
Zendesk is similar to Intercom in that they have online help desk software that enables businesses to provide customer support via a website, mobile app, and live chat.
This Intercom alternative offers valuable features that allow customers to chat with support agents on their website or mobile app. In addition, the platform has built-in analytics so clients can monitor their business performance.
The platform is fully customizable on the back end, so customers can opt in or out of specific features. Zendesk is used by some of the largest organizations around the world, and has been recognized as a leader in customer relationship management software by Forrester Research for many years.
Pros
It allows the creation of multiple agents to whom you can assign different access levels.
You can also assign your agents to specific projects or client accounts. This lets you prioritize clients or customers who need immediate attention.
It provides users with complete control over their chat experience. They can view pending messages, along with all their previous conversations.
Combine it with other features like email and inbound call tracking for a comprehensive solution that helps you build rapport with your customers.
Cons
Zendesk has quite a steep learning curve. To use it properly, you’ll need to know how to code and have some prior experience with front-end development.
Another drawback is that the mobile version of Zendesk isn’t as easy or intuitive to use as other live chat apps.
Ideal for: Zendesk live chat is ideal for those business owners looking for a robust chat solution with an easy-to-use interface. Zendesk features Team Chat and Live Chat, as well as user-friendly features such as modern messaging, screen sharing, and artificial intelligence.
Integrations: Salesforce, SuiteCRM, Asana, Google Calendar, Stripe, and Shopify.
Price: Paid plans start from $49 per month
5. LiveAgent
Live Agent was founded in 2006 by Andrej Harsani and Viktor Zeman, and by some reports, has a total of 150 million users around the globe. A long-time customer service software frontrunner, LiveAgent provides a live chat widget, over 200 integrations, a robust ticketing system, templated replies, call logging, survey and poll management, discussion forums, and much more.
According to reviews and ratings captured on G2, LiveAgent is a cheaper alternative to Intercom for those who are looking for a cost-effective customer service platform that is easy to set up and use. It is especially worth considering for those migrating data from Intercom.
Pros
Overall, one of the most value-laden and feature-rich customer engagement platforms on the market
Unlimited customer support tickets and history and unlimited email addresses starting from the lowest plan
White-glove setup makes initial use a breeze
Free Intercom to LiveAgent data migration
Migrate from Intercom to LiveAgent quickly and easily—it certainly beats migrating data manually
Pay-as-you-go pricing structure
Free trial
Cons
Some users felt that LiveAgent's numerous features caused a learning curve
Ideal for: startups and businesses in insurance, telecommunications, e-commerce, etc.
Integrations: Adiptel, Feederloop, Everhour, Sangoma, etc.
Price: Paid plans start from $15/agent/month
6. HelpScout
HelpScout's primary goal is to help businesses keep their customers happy and growing. The tool offers support for live chat, email, and phone; has a 24/7 customer success team and agents; provides unmatched visibility into customer interactions through a centralized dashboard; can scale from 10 to 10,000 agents; features highly customizable workflows to optimize support efforts; and supports enterprise companies.
Pros
HelpScout's platform is designed to help small teams get started and scale as more clients, support agents, and departmental responsibilities are introduced.
Messaging, emails, and in-app communication can create a mini-hub of information around your support desk.
Easier communication and more efficiency for staff.
Cons
This Intercom alternative lacks automated workflows for companies to track their users' activities.
Ideal for: This product is particularly well suited for small businesses, but more mid-sized companies could benefit from its productivity-boosting features—for example, the ability to set up custom workflows.
Integrations: Salesforce
Price: Paid plans start from $20 per month
7. Drift
Drift is an alternative to traditional live chat as well as an Intercom alternative. It operates utilizing automated messages created according to the type of inquiry visitors receive. Drift requires a small coding process to initiate the automated message, which is challenging for tech-savvy people.
At the same time, it makes it easier for businesses that do not have an in-house marketing team, as all they need to do is set up their campaign and let Drift run itself. With Drift integrating into your customer communications workflow, it's easy for sales, support, and marketing teams to work together on one dashboard.
Pros
Drift lets you see all your customer communications in one place.
Easy to respond to messages and also sets you up for more intelligent customer support.
Drift's built-in analytics and workflow tools help you make the most of customer support data to keep customers happy, decrease churn and improve overall satisfaction.
Cons
If your visitors do not have the Drift browser extension installed when they come to your website, they will see an image directing them to download the Drift browser extension. This can be confusing for some visitors who do not know what this is or why it’s showing up on their screen.
Ideal for: Drift Live Chat is perfect for startups, small businesses and high-growth teams.
Integrations: Zapier and Google Analytics
Price: Paid plans start from $2500 per month
8. Tawk
Founded in 2010 by Robert D'Assisi, Shankar Karuppiah, Tawk.to is a popular live chat tool providing help desk software for mobile apps and websites.
If you're looking for free Intercom alternatives, Tawk offers a free customer communication platform for communicating with website visitors. All the features, including their live chat feature, ticketing system, unlimited agent accounts, detailed reporting, and more—are free to use.
Pros
Best Intercom alternative for anyone looking for a 100% free option
Auto responders, chat widget, customer history
Customizable branding
Multi-channel communication
Offline form
Real-time analytics, monitoring, and notifications
Support ticket management
Cons
Errors with chat history not being preserved when moving to a new tab
Some users found the UX slightly clunky compared to alternatives
Ideal for: anyone looking for a free Intercom alternative
Integrations: Shopify, WordPress, Adobe Commerce, etc.
Price: Free plan
9. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer support software that helps small and large business organizations collaborate with their customers. The platform offers 24/7 chat and ticketing, customer satisfaction surveys, tools for knowledge sharing, and email marketing automation for companies on both small and large scales. The service also provides users with social media marketing automation and community forums to create vibrant communities of users who can interact with each other regardless of whether they are using Freshdesk.
Another cheaper alternative for Intercom, Freshdesk is an intuitive customer support solution that helps you intelligently automate your business processes. You can enhance the number of customers you reach, improve their experiences and keep up with your competitors by providing better support at a faster speed. Moreover, you can increase your revenue by selling the products your customers require instead of selling them your products over a live chat.
Pros
Excellent user interface that is easy to use.
The system is intended to help businesses be efficient and deliver better customer service.
Freshdesk offers 24/7 tech support, a ticketing system that integrates with other services, and the ability to add multiple agents from different time zones worldwide.
Cons
The major downside of Freshdesk is its user interface. This Intercom alternative can be difficult for new users to navigate and set up, particularly when looking for the right tools to help you manage your customers. This can put a dampener on the user experience, which can negatively impact customer satisfaction.
Ideal for: Freshdesk is ideal for companies that need to manage both incoming and outgoing communications across multiple channels, including email, phone and live chat.
Integrations: Help Scout, Wordpress, MailChimp, and Twitter.
Price: Paid plans start from $15 per month
10. LiveChat
LiveChat is a live chat tool for businesses that allows users to communicate with visitors in real-time. Customers can talk to representatives before purchasing or answering questions about existing orders. LiveChat offers basic Intercom similar features, such as text and voice messaging, free of cost. However, you need to upgrade your account if you want advanced features such as agent tracking and call recording.
The user interface is simple and straightforward, with different options to choose from. The simplicity of the platform is one of its core strength points, as it allows you to set up the live chat in minutes.
Pros
This Intercom alternative provides high-quality, reliable, proven technology with a friendly user experience to create long-term relationships between your customers, marketers, and agents.
The LiveChat application allows you to track conversations, improve customer satisfaction and build brand loyalty.
Cons
The major drawback of LiveChat is that the company's server is not kept up and running 24 hours a day. This means that if something goes wrong—for example, you need to change your payment information or ask for technical help—you might not be able to access your account.
Ideal for: LiveChat app is ideal for small and midsize businesses who want to grow their B2C or B2B sales while at the same time scaling operations.
Integrations: Salesforce and Zendesk
Price: Paid plans start from $20 per month
11. Freshchat
Freshchat provides customer service teams with a messaging platform so your support team can reach customers on their favorite communication channels, such as What'sApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Line, Google Business Messages, Telegram, and more with their live chat widget.
Founded in 2017 by parent company Freshworks, Inc., Freshchat offers live chat software at a fourth of the cost of Intercom, making it a choice option for those looking for cheaper alternatives to Intercom.
Pros
Available in English, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Polish, Turkish
Live chat software manages customer engagement, enabling you to communicate with potential leads and new and existing customers.
AI lead bot helps acquire leads and automatically uploads them to the CRM
Shared inbox for your support team
Free 21-day trial with no credit card required
Cons
Limited features
Not as robust as other Intercom alternatives
Ideal for: Businesses with a presence on multiple social media channels
Integrations: Freshsales, Shopify, Clearbit, Zendesk, Slack, etc.
Price: Paid plans start from $15 per user/month
12. UseResponse
UseResponse provides comprehensive customer support with features that include help desk software, knowledge base software, and their live chat widget integrates with FB messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, and Chatbot.
Founded in 2015 by Paul Yakubets, Stas Kuzma, UseResponse's well-known advanced features include a fully self-hosted solution (one-time fee of $4800). Additionally, they stand out from other intercom alternatives by offering full access to their source code and providing 100% customization to their self-hosted users.
Pros
Available in English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Thai, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified)
A ready-made set of automated notices
Ready-made templates for email marketing automation
Self-hosted plan is fully customizable, allowing you to make any adjustments to your ticketing system, live chat widget, knowledge base, etc.
Cons
Pricing is on the higher end for those looking for Intercom live chat alternatives
User interface looks less sleek compared to other Intercom alternatives
Ideal for: Enterprise businesses that prefer fully customizable and self-hosted customer support and help desk software
Integrations: Jira, Confluence, Salesforce, Slack, etc.
Price: Paid plans start from $1490 per month/2 users
13. Qualified
Focusing more on lead generation and customer acquisition, don't expect Qualified to provide you with other aspects of traditional customer service software, such as a help desk ticketing system, etc. That's not what they do.
Instead, Qualified is a conversational marketing software that enables businesses to engage with website visitors through chat or video. This is an Intercom alternative that focuses on providing a personal touch to the live chat experience.
Founded in 2018 by Bing Yang, Gopal Patel, Kraig Swensrud, Sean Whiteley, and Thani Suchoknand.
Pros
Conversational marketing software that identifies high-potential website visitors
Top-rated app on Salesforce AppExchange provides easy integration with Salesforce Sales Cloud data so you can see the moment a lead engages with your site
One of the only Intercom alternatives that provide a video chat option
Cons
The priciest Intercom alternative on our list
Does not provide a free trial
Ideal for: Enterprise businesses
Integrations: Salesforce
Price: Paid plans start from $3500 per month
14. Crisp
Wondering about Crisp vs Intercom? Crisp chat is an all-in-one website and live chat application. Crisp chat is developed for entrepreneurs who want to get traffic on their websites quickly. Crisp chat provides intelligence, automation, social sharing, and analytics tools to boost your business goals.
It makes your online store more innovative, easier, and effective than other marketplaces. Crisp gives you access to all your customer support options in one place. Be it email, phone, or live chat, Crisp lets you push customer questions into the messaging app of their choice so that they can help themselves. By signing up for a free account, you can chat with other Crisp users, share files and folders, and invite them to use their workspace. If you already have a Crisp workspace on your server, you can automate that one by configuring the Live Chat API.
Pros
Crisp Chat offers features like text messaging and data tracking.
Plentiful options for businesses with complex product requirements.
Good for those who want to gather customer feedback after purchasing goods from their websites.
Cons
A primary con with this Intercom alternative chat app is that it doesn’t have multi-agent functionality, which means that you can only use the tool for a single user. If you want to add more agents, you must purchase a separate license for each.
Another disadvantage of the Crisp chat app is that it takes time to build a new solution based on this model, as there are no templates with ready designs and features.
Ideal for: The Crisp chat app is ideal for businesses that want to create a live support experience like an in-person call. The Crisp chat app lets you monitor your agents through a secure web portal so that you can interact with customers anytime.
Integrations: Slack, JIRA, GitHub, Intercom, and Zendesk
Price: Paid plans start from $25 a month
15. ClickDesk
ClickDesk is a cloud-based service that provides robust features and tools to help businesses improve their sales, customer support, and marketing efforts. The platform integrates with other popular business software, making it easy for small companies and startups to communicate more effectively with customers and partners.
This Intercom alternative offers a wide range of industry-specific solutions in addition to its core business offerings. ClickDesk is highly customizable, offering business and agency plans and other add-ons such as phone support options or a cloud-based help desk solution. The tool’s design enables users to track customer interactions and view reports on their performance.
Pros
Many users consider Clickdesk one of the best alternatives to Intercom systems. It is offered as a SaaS-based product that can integrate with other apps and software technologies.
Includes different add-on packages for paid users.
Feature-rich online chat tool can also be used for various purposes like contacting customers, and leads who have signed up via CPA offers or landing pages.
Helps with keeping track of customer queries and feedback.
Tracking customer service metrics such as average response time or resolution rate.
Cons
It’s not a full-featured live chat system.
Ideal for: ClickDesk is an all-in-one solution for companies looking to boost sales, engage customers, and improve customer support.
Integrations: Zapier
Price: Paid plans start from $14.99 per month
Frequently asked questions
How do I keep my customer data when moving to a new platform?
When choosing your Intercom alternative, check whether they offer simple and manageable data migration services, so you don't lose any important information when you move away from Intercom. An automated migration service is always the best option if your chosen platform offers it.
If not, you can always try Help Desk Migration Service, which supports over 300 different platforms.
Which open source Intercom alternative should I use?
There are a number of open source alternatives to Intercom that are worth considering, however, Chatwoot is likely the best option.
Are there any free Intercom alternatives for Wordpress?
There are a number of free Intercom alternatives for Wordpress sites available as a free plugin. The most popular free Intercom alternatives for Wordpress are Tidio and Tawk.to.
Are there any Intercom plugin alternative options?
Top-rated Intercom plugin alternatives include HubSpot (with 300,000+ active installations and 148 5-star ratings), Tidio (with 100,000 active installations and 334 5-star ratings), and Better Messages (with 10,000 active installations and 93 5-star ratings). These Intercom plugin alternatives are all available on Wordpress.org's plugin marketplace.
Katherine Manning is an accomplished sales professional and B2B/IT focused writer. She worked at Microsoft and IBM, where she managed all stages of the Solution Sales process including building and developing relationships, identifying opportunities, engaging partners and moving business from opportunities to closings. Her articles have appeared on Yahoo! Small Business Advisor's page, Sweet Lemon Magazine, The Iowa City Owl, Seven12 Magazine, Newsiosity, The Purple Cow Agency blog, Personal Finance Hub and Business 2 Community.
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