Support and chat

Intercom vs Crisp vs Chatwoot

Intercom, Crisp, Chatwoot side by side: price, free tier, who each one fits and when to skip it.

Item	Intercom	Crisp	Chatwoot
What it does	Help desk with in-app chat, email and an AI agent (Fin) that answers customers on its own, charged per seat plus per resolution.	Chat widget for your site and a shared inbox for email, WhatsApp, Instagram and other channels, priced per workspace.	Open source support inbox for site chat, email, WhatsApp and social channels, in the cloud or on your own server.
Best for	A SaaS with thousands of users and repetitive questions that wants an AI agent to close tickets before a human sees them.	A small SaaS team that wants live chat on the site and its WhatsApp in one inbox without paying per seat.	A SaaS that wants to plug the official WhatsApp API into a shared inbox and host it on its own server to avoid paying per seat.
Skip it if	You're pre-revenue: there's no free plan, seats and AI resolutions are billed in dollars, and WhatsApp costs extra per use.	You need WhatsApp from day one on a tight budget: the channel starts at the $95/month Essentials plan.	Nobody on the team wants to run servers: self-hosting means keeping Postgres, Redis and upgrades alive yourself.
Setup	A little code. Chat in your app in an afternoon; give Fin a week of testing on your real questions before trusting it.	A little code. Site chat in 15 minutes; WhatsApp depends on Meta verification, so plan a few days to 2 weeks.	A little code. Cloud site chat in 15 minutes; self-hosting takes a day for someone used to servers; WhatsApp adds Meta's verification on top.
Price	Essential at $29/seat/month ($19 with the new-customer discount), plus $0.99 per Fin AI outcome.	Mini at $45/month per workspace with 4 seats; Essentials at $95/month.	Startups at $19/agent/month in the cloud, with all channels.
What it costs in practice	SaaS with 3 agents on Essential: 3 × $29 = $87. Fin resolving 300 conversations: 300 × $0.99 = $297. About $384/month, or $354 with the 35% new-customer price. Estimated.	SaaS with 3 people answering chat and email: Mini at $45/month. Add WhatsApp and it's Essentials at $95/month plus Meta's per-message rate on templates. Estimated.	SaaS with 3 agents on the cloud Startups plan: 3 × $19 = $57/month, plus Meta's WhatsApp rate. Self-hosted Community: $0 in licenses, you pay only the server and Meta. Estimated.
Free plan	No free plan; 14-day free trial with no credit card.	Free forever with 2 seats, 100 customer profiles and the site chat widget.	Cloud Hacker plan free for 2 agents and 500 conversations/month (site chat only); self-hosted Community edition free.
Free tier	No free plan (14-day trial)	2 seats, 100 customer profiles	2 agents, 500 conversations/month
First paid plan	$29/seat/month + $0.99 per AI outcome	$45/month per workspace (4 seats)	$19/agent/month
Channels	Chat, email, in-app; WhatsApp, SMS, phone extra	Chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS	Chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram
Open source	No: no	No: no	Yes: yes
Before you build	Fin charges $0.99 per outcome, including 'assumed resolutions': if the customer just leaves after Fin's answer, you're billed. WhatsApp messages your team starts in bulk cost $0.10 each for the first 500, on top of the seat price. SMS has no included volume on any plan; every segment is charged. Only full seats can reply to customers; free Lite seats are for internal collaboration, so every person who answers adds a paid seat.	WhatsApp, Instagram and SMS only come with Essentials at $95/month; Free and Mini only have site chat and email. WhatsApp templates are billed by usage on top of the plan, at Meta's per-message rate, through Crisp. Each plan caps customer profiles: 100 on Free and 5,000 on Mini. A SaaS with more contacts than that has to move up a plan. AI comes as included credits ($5 on Mini, about 90 automated conversations); the Free plan has no AI credits.	The free cloud plan (Hacker) only has site chat, 500 conversations a month and 30 days of history. WhatsApp starts at $19 per agent. Self-hosting means running PostgreSQL and Redis on a server with at least 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended), and updates on a Linux VM are manual. The free self-hosted Community edition has no Captain AI, roles and permissions or custom branding; those cost $19 per agent per month. On self-hosted, WhatsApp's quick signup only works after an admin sets up your own Meta app credentials; otherwise you connect each number by hand.
Price checked	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing

Prices are read from each official pricing page on the date shown and can change. Always confirm before signing up.

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