Cheapest Intercom and Zendesk alternatives

Intercom's seat price is not the whole bill

Our scenario: single user, monthly billing. Intercom's Essential plan is $29/seat/month, Advanced $85/seat/month, Expert $132/seat/month — but Fin, Intercom's AI agent, is billed separately on every tier, starting at $0.99 per resolved outcome, on top of the seat price; there's no free Intercom plan at all, and Zendesk has none either. Zendesk's cheapest tier, Support Team, is $19/agent/month billed yearly ($228/year) for plain ticketing without AI agents or live chat; Suite Team is $55/agent/month billed yearly and adds AI agents, an AI knowledge base and messaging, and Suite Professional is $115/agent/month billed yearly and adds skills-based routing.

Free-forever tiers that cover a small team

Chatwoot's Hacker plan is free for up to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, live-chat only, with 30-day data retention — and it's open source, so self-hosting removes the seat price entirely if you outgrow it. Help Scout's Free plan covers 5 users, one inbox, one Docs site, 100 contacts a month, 10 saved replies and 30 days of report history, limited to a single integration. Crisp's Free plan gives 2 seats, 100 customer profiles and zero sub-inboxes. Tidio's Free plan has the most generous seat count of the three: up to 10 seats, though capped at 50 billable conversations a month and 50 lifetime Lyro AI conversations.

Paid tiers that match Zendesk's $19 entry price

Chatwoot's Startups plan is $19/agent/month billed yearly ($228/year) — the same entry price as Zendesk Support Team, but with all channels except Voice included and 300 AI credits a month, plus the option to self-host later. Freshdesk's Growth plan matches it too, at $19/agent/month billed yearly, including Freddy AI Agent for the first 500 sessions. Both beat Intercom's $29 Essential seat price outright, before Fin's per-resolution fee is even added.

A step up from free without jumping straight to $19/agent: Tidio's Starter plan is $24.17/month billed yearly for 10 seats and 100 billable conversations, rising to $49.17/month (Growth) for up to 2,000 billable conversations. Crisp's Mini plan is $45/month flat — not per seat — for 4 seats and $5 of included AI credits (about 90 automated conversations); its Essentials plan is $95/month flat for 10 seats and $25 of AI credits (about 450 conversations). Help Scout's Standard plan is $25/user/month for up to 25 users, $4 cheaper per seat per month than Intercom Essential's $29, and its Plus tier is $45/user/month for up to 50 users.

Different job, different subtype

Front and Hiver are shared-inbox tools built around email rather than a ticketing queue: Front's Starter plan is $25/seat/month for up to 10 seats, rising to $65/seat/month (Professional, up to 50 seats) and $105/seat/month (Enterprise); Hiver's Growth plan is $35/user/month ($25/month billed annually), rising to $65/user/month (Pro) and $95/user/month (Elite). LiveChat is a live-chat specialist, not a full helpdesk: Starter is $25/month per person ($19/month billed annually), Team is $59/month per person, and Business is $89/month per person. Gorgias, built for ecommerce, charges by ticket volume rather than pure seats — its Starter plan is a flat $40/month for 3 seats and 50 tickets; eDesk, built for ecommerce marketplaces specifically, starts at $49/user/month ($39/user/month billed annually) for one connected store. Helply skips seats entirely: $1 per ticket with a 250-ticket monthly minimum ($3,000 minimum annual contract) and no per-agent fee.

Zoho Desk's Free plan covers 3 users with basic email ticketing at no cost — but its paid tiers in our data are geo-priced in Indian rupees with no confirmed USD conversion, so we can't state a reliable USD price for them yet; the free tier is the only number we can stand behind. None of these are wrong choices against Intercom or Zendesk — they're priced for a different shape of support team, and the right one depends on whether your queue is tickets, live chat, shared email, or a marketplace storefront.