Top 7 Intercom alternatives to consider in 2025

Customer support tools are no longer just about live chat. They’re about creating seamless, omnichannel experiences where every message counts. Intercom has been one of the most recognized names in this space, helping companies connect with customers through chat, bots, and automation.

Yet in 2025, you, like many other businesses, might be reassessing whether Intercom is still the best fit for your needs. Rising costs, complex pricing models, and the demand for more specialized features have teams searching for alternatives that offer flexibility without compromise.

In this article, we’ll explore 7 of the best Intercom alternatives worth considering this year. Whether you need a more budget-friendly solution or something that’s more designed for B2B support teams, there’s a wide range of options on the market.

What is Intercom?

Intercom is a customer communications platform that helps businesses connect with users through live chat, chatbots, email, and in-app messaging. It combines customer support, engagement, and marketing tools into one solution, making it easier for teams to manage conversations at scale. With features like automated workflows, reporting, and integrations with popular CRMs, Intercom has become a go-to tool for SaaS companies, startups, and enterprises looking to deliver real-time, personalized support across multiple touchpoints.

Why users love Intercom

Intercom is a widely used customer communication tool because it combines messaging, automation, and tracking in one platform. Users point to the following features as the main strengths:

• Website and app integration: Easy to connect, allowing real-time chats with visitors.

• Automated messaging: Helps teams engage customers proactively and reduce repetitive manual work.

• Client communication tools: Real-time chat and segmentation make it easier to keep conversations organized.

• User tracking: Monitors customer activity and behavior to provide more context during interactions.

• Multi-channel messaging: Brings conversations from email, chat, and social channels into one place.

These capabilities make Intercom useful for teams that want to centralize customer conversations, even though the platform isn’t always the right fit for every business.

Why customers look for Intercom alternatives

While Intercom offers a solid set of features, many businesses find it isn’t always the best long-term fit. The most common concerns center around cost, usability, and flexibility. 

Intercom’s pricing can quickly become expensive as teams grow, with add-ons and per-seat charges that make scaling difficult. Some users also feel its ticket management and reporting tools lack depth, forcing workarounds to get the insights they need. Others report that issue resolution is slow, with bugs or delays in customer support.

For B2B teams in particular, Intercom’s workflows can feel limited when handling multi-channel, multi-persona conversations. This has led companies to explore alternatives that provide stronger automation, more flexible analytics, or pricing models that better align with their budgets.

7 Best Intercom alternatives at a glance

How to evaluate Intercom alternatives

With so many customer support platforms available, you should try to assess each tool against the factors that matter most to your business. The right choice depends not just on features, but also on how well the platform fits into your workflows and budget. 

When comparing Intercom alternatives, here are the key criteria to keep in mind:

• Costs: Not just the headline price, but how pricing scales with seats, features, and message volume.

• Ease of onboarding: How quickly teams can get started, and whether the interface is intuitive enough for everyday use.

• Integrations: The strength of each platform’s ecosystem—does it plug seamlessly into Slack, Teams, or your CRM?

• Scalability: Whether the platform can handle the jump from a small team to enterprise-level support without forcing a costly switch.

• Vendor support: The reliability of the platform itself, paired with the quality of help you can expect when issues arise.

Let’s now dive into the tools, starting with Thena.

7 Best Intercom alternatives

1. Thena - Best for B2B teams

Thena is a modern customer support platform purpose-built for B2B workflows, with AI embedded across every stage of the process. Unlike traditional helpdesks that treat Slack or Teams as simple integrations, Thena is native to both, making it feel like a natural extension of the tools your team already uses. Alongside Slack and Teams, it also supports email, web chat, forms, and help centers, offering a truly omnichannel support that reduces the need for multiple disconnected systems.

Where Thena differentiates itself is in its AI-first design. AI isn’t a bolt-on. It actually runs through every interaction, from detecting and tagging tickets to generating summaries, routing issues, and powering full workflows. For B2B support teams juggling complex, multi-stakeholder accounts, Thena’s account-centric views provide the kind of 360-degree context that more traditional platforms struggle to match. Its headless architecture also gives businesses the flexibility to build custom flows and connect with their existing ecosystem apps.

Key features:

• Slack- and MS Teams-native experiences.

• AI ticket detection, summaries, tagging, and automated triage.

• Headless architecture for custom workflows and integrations.

• Account-centric views for customer context.

• AI knowledge base for instant support.

• SLA management, knowledge base, and analytics dashboard.

• Enterprise-grade security and open APIs.

Thena’s pricing: Thena offers three plans. The Free plan includes up to 10 users, 1,000 tickets per month, Slack/email integration, and two help centers, which is ideal for small B2B teams. The Standard plan ($79/user/month, billed annually) adds AI web chat, the AI Agent Studio, MCP, and expanded API access for growing teams. The Enterprise plan is custom-priced and includes advanced AI deployments, MS Teams support, enterprise APIs, and enhanced security.

💬 What users think about Thena: 

“Thena has always been useful for making it possible to juggle customer requests, and their snappy new web interface is transforming how our support team works. In one view, we can see and respond to both the customer conversation and internal Slack threads seamlessly, automatically organize requests by important customer details synced from other systems like Salesforce, and get automatic updates when feature requests or bug fixes are shipped to production.” – Matthew B. via G2.

👉 Check out our in-depth comparison between Thena vs. Intercom to see how they stack up on features like AI, ticketing, communication channels, and more.

2. Zendesk - Best for large enterprises

Zendesk is a feature-rich customer service platform that combines ticketing, messaging, knowledge bases, and AI automation in one suite. Its strength lies in handling complexity—omnichannel support, advanced routing, and detailed analytics make it a strong fit for large enterprises with high volumes of customer interactions.

Key features:

• Omnichannel ticketing (chat, email, voice, social, help centers).

• Detailed reporting and analytics dashboards.

• Knowledge base and community forums.

• Robust integrations and enterprise-grade security.

Zendesk pricing: Plans start with the Support Team at $19/agent/month for basic email and ticketing. Suite Team ($55) adds AI agents and omnichannel messaging, while Suite Professional ($115) introduces advanced reporting, SLAs, and CSAT. Suite Enterprise ($169) offers custom roles, analytics, and up to 300 help centers. Pricing rises quickly as teams scale.

💬 What users think about Zendesk:

“Overall, very pleased with Zendesk for my team to support our customers and users. We are able to respond to tickets quickly and efficiently, and it keeps our customers happy. It's much simpler to use than a shared email inbox.” – Crystal H. via Capterra.

3. Freshdesk - Best for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs)

Freshdesk, part of the Freshworks suite, focuses on making customer service simple to deploy and manage. Its strength lies in balancing affordability with functionality, offering AI-powered automations through its Freddy AI system while keeping the platform approachable for SMBs. Freshdesk centralizes support across email, chat, voice, and social, giving teams a unified workspace without the overhead of larger enterprise platforms.

Key features:

• Freddy AI for ticket auto-resolution and agent assistance.

• Omnichannel support (email, chat, social, voice).

• Self-service portals and multilingual knowledge bases.

• Analytics and agent performance insights.

Freshdesk’s pricing: Freshdesk offers a Free plan for up to two agents, covering basic ticketing and a knowledge base. Paid plans range from $15 to $79/agent/month (billed annually), with optional AI add-ons like Freddy AI Copilot ($29/agent/month) and additional Freddy AI Agent sessions at $100 per 1,000 beyond the first 500 included.

💬 What users think about Freshdesk:

“What I like best about Freshdesk is its intuitive and user-friendly interface, which makes managing customer tickets easy and efficient. The platform is quick to implement, so we were up and running with minimal downtime.” – Jithin C. via G2.

4. Help Scout - Best for growing SMBs

If you're a small team seeking a straightforward Intercom alternative, Help Scout is worth considering. It’s built for ease of use and speed, thanks to its clean interface and unified inbox that makes handling customer conversations across email, chat, and social feel seamless and intuitive. Plus, AI-powered tools help draft replies and summarize interactions, while a self-service Docs knowledge base reduces incoming support volume.

Key features:

• Shared inbox for email and multi-channel messaging

• AI drafting, summarization, and reply assistance

• Live chat and in-app messaging via Beacon

• API access and more than 100 prebuilt integrations

Help Scout’s pricing: Help Scout offers a Free plan for up to 100 contacts with unlimited users. The Standard plan starts at $25/month (for 100+ contacts), while the Plus plan begins at $75/month (for 200+ contacts), adding advanced permissions and apps like Salesforce and HubSpot. A Pro plan is available for contact-heavy teams.

💬 What users think about Help Scout:

“I like that it's very simple to use. Nothing too complicated. Like what you need is what you'll get. Some customer support communication tools/software have a lot of features that we rarely use in our day-to-day job. And most of them are just all over the interface, which can be too overwhelming for new users. But Help Scout is not one of these tools.” – Stephanie Amor P. via G2.

5. HubSpot Service Hub - Best for teams already using HubSpot CRM

If you’re already invested in HubSpot, Service Hub is a natural Intercom alternative. It integrates directly with HubSpot’s CRM, giving your support team full visibility into customer interactions across sales and marketing.

The platform combines AI-powered ticketing, omnichannel messaging, knowledge bases, and customer success tools, with a focus on retention features like health scoring and feedback management. Outside the HubSpot ecosystem, however, it can feel less compelling than standalone platforms.

Key features:

• Omnichannel messaging (email, chat, phone, social).

• Knowledge base and self-service portals.

• Customer success workspace with health scoring.

• Fully integrated with HubSpot CRM and 1,700+ apps.

HubSpot Service Hub’s pricing: The Free plan includes ticketing, team email, and reporting. Paid tiers start at $15/month per seat (Starter), then scale to $100/month (Professional) with knowledge base and success tools, and $150/month (Enterprise) with playbooks, advanced SLAs, and multiple knowledge bases.

💬 What users think about HubSpot Service Hub:

“What I like best about HubSpot Service Hub is the Reporting & Dashboards, which provide clear visibility into ticket volume, response times, and agent productivity. I also appreciate how tickets are easily trackable, with links to calls and contact records, plus the ability to connect to different calling apps such as Aloware.” – Sashanna V via G2.

6. Zoho Desk - Best for cost-sensitive companies

Zoho Desk is positioned as an affordable yet capable Intercom alternative, offering a balance of omnichannel ticketing, AI-powered automation, and extensive integrations. Its Zia AI assistant helps with ticket classification, sentiment analysis, and guided responses, reducing repetitive work for agents. The platform also includes workflow automation, analytics, and a customizable interface that adapts to different industries. 

Key features:

• Omnichannel ticketing across email, chat, voice, and social.

• Zia AI for sentiment analysis, reply suggestions, and anomaly detection.

• 200+ third-party integrations plus 50+ native Zoho apps.

Zoho Desk’s pricing: The Free plan covers up to 3 users with basic email ticketing. Paid tiers start at $7/agent/month (Express), then move to $14 (Standard) with AI and a knowledge base, $23 (Professional) with telephony, multi-department support, and advanced workflows, and $40 (Enterprise) with Zia AI, live chat, skill-based routing, and custom modules.

💬 What users think about Zoho Desk:

“My overall experience with Zoho Desk was positive. It provided a robust set of tools for managing customer support, including ticket automation, SLA tracking, and team collaboration features.” – Bijo J. via Capterra.

7. Tawk.to - Best free Intercom alternative

Tawk.to is one of the few Intercom alternatives that’s completely free. It provides the basics, such as live chat, ticketing, and a knowledge base, without charging for agents or chat history. For teams that need a simple way to talk to website visitors or manage conversations on a tight budget, it gets the job done. However, it doesn’t offer the deeper AI workflows or enterprise-level features found in tools like Thena or Zendesk.

Key features:

• Unlimited agents and chat history.

• Live chat, ticketing, and customizable knowledge base.

• AI Assist to auto-answer chats.

• Visitor tracking and reporting.

Tawk.to’s pricing: Free to use with no agent limits. Optional add-ons (like video/voice calls or hiring live agents) are available at an extra cost.

💬 What users think about Tawk.to: 

“Tawk.to is a free and robust live chat solution. Easy to use and add other team members.” – Manjula C. via G2.

Take your pick

At the end of the day, choosing the right Intercom alternative depends on your team size, budget, and long-term goals. From enterprise-ready platforms like Zendesk to free tools like Tawk.to, each option offers its own strengths.

But if you’re looking for a modern, AI-first platform built around B2B workflows, Thena is the tool you want to check out. With native Slack and Teams support, account-centric views, and AI automation baked into every plan, it delivers speed and context where other tools fall short.

👉 Start for free today!

FAQs

1. Are there any free Intercom alternatives worth considering?

Yes, there are a few solid free Intercom alternatives. For example, Thena has a free plan for up to 10 users and 1,000 tickets a month, and it even includes AI features like ticket detection and summaries—something you won’t usually find in free tiers. If you’re after a completely free tool with no seat limits, Tawk.to is worth a look. It gives you live chat, ticketing, and a knowledge base at no cost, though it’s lighter on automation compared to Thena.

2. Which Intercom alternative is best for small businesses?

For smaller teams, you’ll usually want something easy to set up and affordable. Help Scout is a good fit—it’s simple, clear to use, and charges based on contacts rather than per user, so costs stay predictable. Freshdesk is another option, with low-cost plans and AI tools to help with repetitive tasks.

3. Which Intercom alternative is best for B2B teams? 

For B2B companies, Thena is a strong choice. It’s built directly into Slack and MS Teams, so support fits naturally into the tools your customers are already using. It also gives you an account-centric view, so you can see the full picture when multiple stakeholders are involved in one client relationship. With AI built into every plan, Thena helps teams cut down repetitive work and focus on solving more complex issues.