Top 13 Intercom Alternatives for 2022
Are you looking for Intercom alternatives?
You have landed in the right place.
Read on.
We all know that Intercom is a pioneer in live chat support software across the world.
Especially, it is the best fit for SaaS companies and large corporations.
Besides, intercom live chat offers top-notch features and functionalities such as a chatbot, customer management features, a help desk ticketing system, and many more.
However, many businesses, especially SMEs, are searching for Intercom alternatives.
Why?
Before answering this question, let us talk about the intercom.
The features of Intercom include Live chat, Shared inbox, Chatbot, Email marketing, Knowledge base, Banners, Series, Product tours, and many more.
Coming to Intercom packages cost, it does not disclose the actual pricing at all!. Businesses will only know it after listening to their demo from their sales team. However, the pricing is said to be expensive.
Let’s come to the point.
Why do many of these SMEs look for Intercom alternatives?
First Reason: One size never fits all!.
As mentioned earlier, Intercom is designed for large corporations and SaaS companies. It won’t fit small and mid-sized businesses.
Second Reason: Businesses often face issues with Intercom’s features and functionalities!
Its complexity in features leads to bugs sometimes which are hard to fix. Also, it has poor email automation and inattentive customer service.
Third Reason: The Intercom pricing model has a complex billing method!.
As mentioned earlier, the intercom pricing is difficult to estimate and some features come as add-ons. Overall, the cost of intercom live chat is more expensive than other tools.
All the drawbacks mentioned earlier make many businesses look for alternatives to Intercom.
Here is the list of 13 Intercom’s biggest competitors and their noteworthy highlights!.
Click2magic - Best Free Live Chat For Sales, Support, and Marketplaces.
Drift - Best for Conversational Marketing and Conversational Sales.
Hubspot - Best for customizable live chat and chatbot building.
Freshdesk - Best for customer service and automation.
Crisp - Best multi-channel messaging platform.
Clickdesk - The best tool to improve support and sales.
Zohodesk - Best Free Cloud-based Helpdesk Software.
Helpcrunch - Best customer communication platform and user onboarding.
Gorgias - Best e-commerce helpdesk.
Acquire - Best conversational customer experience platform.
Freshworks - Best for unified and contextual conversational engagement.
Helpscout - Best all-in-one support and helpdesk software.
Smartsupp - Best tool for monitoring the behavior of visitors.
Let’s dive into the details of intercom competitors!
1. Click2magic – Best Free Live Chat For Sales, and Marketplaces, Support
Supported platforms: Desktop (Windows and Mac), Mobile (Android and iOS)
Key Features: Canned responses, Widget settings, File transfers, Rating & Tagging, Automation, CRM integration, Categories, Set permissions, Chat transcripts, Tracking, and Analytics.
Pricing: Basic (Free), Professional, Enterprise, and other Add-ons.
Trial Period: 14 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Click2magic can be an Intercom alternative:
It is intuitive, easy to set up, and easy to use.
Whatever the size of your support team, Click2magic fits all sizes. Unlike other Intercom alternatives, it doesn’t provide restrictions on minimum seat requirements or scalability. With this intercom alternative, adding new agents as your company grows is easy.
Every business will have specific needs and goals for choosing live chat software. What is your use case? Is it for lead qualification or customer engagement or customer support? Click2magic fits all the above.
Coming to omnichannel support, businesses can connect with customers from different channels in one place.
Its mobile application lets businesses support their customers on the go.
Moreover, it is a free intercom alternative.
2. Drift: Best for Conversational Marketing and Conversational Sales
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Key Features: Live chat, Video, Email, dedicated customer success manager, onboarding, regular strategy reviews, chat support, and revenue acceleration.
Pricing: Premium, Advanced, and Enterprise
Trial Period: Free test drive
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Drift can be an Intercom alternative:
This Intercom alternative shortens the sale pipeline via real-time chat and converts maximum leads into sales.
It brings sales, services, and marketing teams onto the same platform.
It delivers personalized conversation through any communication medium that the customer prefers whether it may be via chat or video or email.
3. Hubspot - Best for customizable live chat and chatbot building!
Supports: Desktop, Android, iOS
Key Features: Snippets, Chat tags and routing, Archived chat history, CRM integration, Customizable design, Automatic greetings, and Reporting.
Pricing: As it is free, it is considered one of the cheaper alternatives to the intercom.
Trial Period: Forever free
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of Hubspot, another alternative to Intercom!
Businesses can customize the live chat widgets as per their taste and preferences.
Chat agents or operators can route customer or visitor inquiries to service teams and they can pass leads to the sales representatives.
Its fully-integrated chatbot allows customer support teams to have personalized and unlimited conversations at scale.
As this intercom competitor has a universal inbox, all team members can get the context they need to create with CRM.
4. Freshdesk - Best for customer service and automation.
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Key Features: Ticketing, Collaboration, Omni-channel support, Field service management, Automations, Customization, AI-powered Self-service portals (bots) for the knowledge base, Reporting & Analytics, email management, integrations, etc.
Pricing: Free, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise
Trail period: 21 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Freshdesk can be considered one of the Intercom live chat alternatives.
Chat agents can get customer tickets into the team inbox from any channel to better organize the fields.
Its add-ons include extra seats, AI/ML features, API connections, and bots.
It is scalable so that businesses can extend their customer service as their business grow.
Its features are almost similar to the features of the Intercom. However, unlike Intercom, it is designed and will be best suited for small businesses and startups.
Also Read: biometric attendance system
5. Crisp – Best multi-channel messaging platform!
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Features: Live chat, Shared inbox, Ticketing, CRM, Knowledge base, Chatbot, Co-browsing, Campaigns, and Status page.
Pricing: Free, Pro, Unlimited, and Enterprise
Trial period: 14 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Crisp can be an Intercom alternative:
As one of the best live chat software, Crisp is a good alternative to Intercom. It is tailored for the needs of sales, support, and marketplaces.
This intercom alternative centralizes all conversation from different channels such as Live Chat, SMS, Email, Facebook Messenger, Twitter DM, Instagram, etc.
It has 52+ integrations with CRM tools, social media tools, messaging platforms, team collaboration tools, marketing tools, automation, etcetera that helps in delivering the top-notch customer experience.
Also, being one of the competitors of Intercom, its features help to improve customer engagement like never before.
6. Clickdesk – The best tool to improve support and sales
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android
Key features: Live chat, video chat, chat transfer, helpdesk, widget customization, social media integration, Reporting & Analytics.
Pricing: Free, Lite, Pro, and Enterprise
Trial period: 14 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Clickdesk can be an Intercom alternative:
This Intercom alternative is a combination of live chat, voice, and video.
Keystroke preview lets chat agents know what their customers are typing in real-time. It helps them get ready with an answer before their customers send the question.
Its translate feature can translate customer queries into 90+ languages.
Chat agents can also save time using shortcuts.
And all other features of Clickdesk lets businesses improve conversions and customer retention.
7. Zohodesk - Best Free Cloud-based Helpdesk Software
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Key features: Customization, email ticketing, Private knowledge base, customer management, help center, Multi-language helpdesk, Analytics and reporting, 24* email support, and many more.
Pricing: Free, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise.
Trial period: 15 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Zohodesk can be an Intercom alternative:
It is known as the industry’s first context-aware helpdesk. This features is what makes Zohodesk the best alternative to the intercom.
Its automation features save time for both customers and chat agents.
Its paid plans have more features and are less expensive than the intercom cost.
Moreover, this omnichannel customer service helps in transforming visitors into customers and retaining them, and improving the productivity of chat agents.
8. Helpcrunch - Best customer communication platform and user onboarding!
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Key Features: Live chat, Email marketing, Popups, Mobile apps & SDK, Helpdesk essentials, Chatbot, Integrations, Knowledge base, etc.
Pricing: Standard, Premium, and Enterprise
Trial period: 14 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Helpcrunch can be an Intercom alternative:
It is designed to enhance customer support, sales, and marketing.
Businesses can communicate with customers, send auto messages to generate more leads, and use email follow-ups to finish sales faster.
Apart from best-in-class support, businesses can use this Intercom alternative to lead generation and customer engagement.
Moreover, all plans will have a personal onboarding assistance feature.
9. Gorgias - Best e-commerce helpdesk
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Features: Live chat, Macros & rules, 150+ integrations, Satisfaction survey, self/full onboarding, unlimited users, Revenue statistics, Dedicated success manager, custom services, etc.
Pricing: Basic, Pro, Advanced, and Enterprise.
Trial period: 2 months free with Yearly billing.
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Gorgias can be an Intercom alternative:
It is specially designed for e-commerce support. Its integrations include Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento.
All interactions from live chat, phone calls, email, and social media can be viewed and managed in one place.
Its user interface is simple and effective so it fits all websites.
It helps e-commerce businesses deliver an outstanding customer experience and turn visitors into loyal shoppers by leveling up their customer support with its enterprise-grade features. For instance, customers can findout best eCommerce Dropshipping Plugin within few minutes rather consuming the time in searching for it.
10. Acquire – Best conversational customer experience platform
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Windows, iOS.
Key Features: Live chat, Co-browse, Business rules, Video and audio chat, dedicated CSM, Customer reports, integration with team communication tools or team collaboration tools, and AI-powered chatbot.
Pricing: Starter, Commercial, and Enterprise.
Trial Period: Not available.
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Acquire can be the best alternative to the intercom.
Chat agents can easily share files with customers, translate messages in real-time, and route their issues to other agents who can solve or manage them.
And all chat transcripts and visitors’ or customers’ information can be stored in one place and accessed by all. It acts as a context for future conversations. Thus, it improves customer service.
Businesses can develop conversational and sequence chatbots to automate customer support and gain insights into customers.
Moreover, the chat widget is customizable.
11. Freshworks – Best for unified and contextual conversational engagement!
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Key Features: Freshdesk, Freshchat, Freshsales, Freshmarketer, Chatbots, Analytics, Co-browsing, Live translate, Advanced dashboards, Advanced automation, Priority inbox, Canned responses, Groups, Bulk actions, integrations, and many more.
Pricing: Free, Growth, Pro, Enterprise,
Trial Period: 21 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Freshworks can be an alternative to Intercom.
It is a cloud-based secure chat app and its features are easy to use.
This intercom alternative offers an engaging and seamless experience between customers and businesses.
All members of sales, marketing, and support teams can have meaningful and proactive, and intelligent conversations in one place.
It also provides Freshteam and Freshservice for digital automation and IT management.
12. Helpscout – Best all-in-one support and helpdesk software
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Key Features: Shared inbox, Knowledge base, Messages, Customer management, Live chat, Workflows, Custom reports, API, and Integrations.
Pricing: Standard, Plus, and Company.
Trial Period: 15 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Helpscout can be an Intercom alternative:
It is an ideal alternative to intercom for mid-sized companies.
With Helpscout, businesses can improve customer relationships, level-up teamwork, and automate repeated tasks. Thus, they can improve productivity.
Moreover, they can get real-time data and insights at their fingertips.
13. Smartsupp – Best tool for monitoring the behavior of visitors
Supported Platforms: Desktop, Android, iOS
Key Features: Live chat, chatbot, video recordings, Automatic messages, detailed statistics, out-of-the-box integrations, and API.
Pricing: Free, Standard, Pro, and Ultimate
Trial Period: 14 days
Here’s a quick overview and explanation of why Smartsupp can be an Intercom alternative:
It has omnichannel capabilities. It integrates live chat, social media channels, and email inboxes in a single customer messaging interface.
Businesses can create automated and personalized messages using smart rules.
This intercom alternative powered by the AI chatbot is geared toward improved customer loyalty, customer engagement, and revenue growth.
It also lets users insert shortcuts in messages to speed up answering, and customize the live chat widget as per their preference.
Its web dashboard lets chat agents view their customer information and their actions on websites in one place.
Conclusion:
Live chat app helps businesses make the first best impression. That’s why it has become an integral part of the customer service of every business. Many have seen measurable results from incorporating live chat apps into their websites and mobile applications.
Hope, this article helps. What are you waiting for then?
You have plenty of live chat tools that offer similar features like Intercom yet comes affordably than intercom price. So, supercharge your workflow of customer support service and start your success by choosing one of the best Intercom alternatives from the above list that fit your needs and use cases.
