Intercom Pricing Explained (2026): Seats, Fin Outcomes and What 3, 10 and 25 Seats Cost

Intercom has no free plan. I read its pricing page on 4 November 2026, and it sells three plans priced per Full seat a month: Essential at $29 billed annually or $39 monthly, Advanced at $85 or $99, and Expert at $132 or $139. New customers on Essential see $19 or $29. Fin, its AI, adds $0.99 per outcome.

The seat is the number you can plan for. The meter is the one that moves. On annual billing, at the volumes I assume below, Fin is the largest line for teams of 3, 10 and 25. The real Intercom cost is the whole bill, so that is what this post prices.

How I read Intercom's prices

I read Intercom's pricing page in both billing states, Fin's pricing page, and Intercom's help centre and terms on 4 November 2026. I saw no checkout, tax line or invoice, so every team total here is my arithmetic on list prices.

Intercom plans at a glance

Here are all three plans, per Full seat a month in US dollars, as of 4 November 2026. The minimum is one seat, with no platform fee on top.

Intercom's pricing page in both billing states and its comparison panel, read 4 November 2026. The yearly totals are my arithmetic at list prices.

Annual billing saves 26% on list Essential, 14% on Advanced and only 5% on Expert, by my arithmetic. The page's "Save up to 35%" label is the new-customer figure on Essential. Stepping up costs $56 more a seat a month from Essential to Advanced on annual list, then $47 more to Expert.

Expert prints at $139 monthly, yet Intercom's FAQ says "Monthly or annual self-serve plans are available (Essential, Advanced)". Confirm monthly Expert with Sales before you budget it.

What the $19 Essential seat really is

It is real, for new customers, on Essential only. As of 4 November 2026 the annual tooltip on Intercom's page reads: "New customers save an additional 35% on an annual Essential plan. Discount applies to all seats for as long as you remain subscribed." The monthly one is a separate offer at a different rate: "New customers save 25% on a monthly Essential plan."

That makes $19 on annual billing and $29 on monthly, against list prices of $29 and $39. Advanced and Expert carry no such label, and nothing on the page limits it to a first year. Three other lines sit beside that tooltip:

• The help centre still says $29. Its pricing FAQ reads "the Essential plan starts at $29/seat/month on annual billing".
• Seats past your annual commitment cost more. They are "billed as monthly overages at the standard seat price", and the billing article adds that "Additional Seats and Additional Usage is always charged at list price".
• Renewal has its own clause. Terms 7.2 let Intercom adjust pricing "to the then-current list price upon the start of any renewal term."

Get the new-customer price written on your order. Neither page says how the tooltip and the clause play out at renewal, and I won't guess.

Intercom has no free plan, so here is where $0 actually gets you

Intercom's help centre settles it in one line: "There is no free plan available." The trial costs $0 for 14 days. The startup program costs $65 a month in year one as of November 2026, the closest thing to free on the list.

The 14-day trial switches on everything, which flatters the plan you later buy.

No card is required, and the trial "Includes all features, Fin, and add-ons", with no charge for Fin usage while it runs. Pro, Copilot and Proactive Support Plus are all on, so the setup your team learns costs more than the seat price. Eligible customers may be offered a 7-day extension from day 13.

Then it stops. "Features like Fin, the Messenger, Outbound messaging, and your Help Center will be automatically paused" until you pay.

Early Stage costs $65 a month in year one and $677.25 by year three.

The program is for new customers with up to $10 million in funding and fewer than 15 employees. As of November 2026 the package lists at $903 a month: Advanced with six Full seats and 20 Lite seats, six Copilot seats, Proactive Support Plus, Pro and 2,000 Operator credits a month.

Intercom's Early Stage article and program page, read 4 November 2026. Each year also includes 15 qualifications, and I found no price for year four.

Budget for the third row. "You can't reduce the number of seats to lower the cost", and leaving means "permanently forfeiting the Early Stage discount". Fin past the allowance, phone, SMS and WhatsApp all bill at list.

How the Fin meter bills you

Fin costs $0.99 per outcome on every plan as of 4 November 2026, charged at most once per conversation, "even if Fin takes multiple actions or answers multiple questions". Turn it off and the meter stops: "you won't be billed for Fin if you're not using it." Intercom announced the move "from resolutions to outcomes" on 12 March 2026. For the wider view, here is which other support vendors charge per outcome.

A customer who simply leaves counts as a resolution.

Intercom counts a resolution when the customer confirms the answer or "exits the conversation without requesting further assistance". Its FAQ covers the frustrated version too: "A customer leaving after receiving Fin's answer without requesting further help is counted as an Assumed Resolution and will be charged." So a customer who leaves frustrated is, on your invoice, a $0.99 success.

A human stepping in does not always cancel it. If Fin has answered and the customer never asked for more help, a teammate "self assigning or manually closing the conversation will still be considered as a resolution if the conversation is not escalated by Fin". A reopened conversation is refunded, "even across billing periods".

A handoff can cost $0.99 too, and a sales qualification costs $9.99.

If a Procedure you wrote tells Fin to hand off to a human, that handoff bills as an outcome. These cost nothing, as read on 4 November 2026:

• A customer asking for a human.
• Frustration, your workspace rules or Fin's default behaviour sending the conversation to a person.
• A Procedure that fails.
• Spam, or a greeting with nothing after it.
• A clarifying question the customer never answers.

Fin for Sales runs a different rate. "Booking a call and starting a trial are qualifying outcomes billed at $9.99", and self-serve routing bills $0.99 only if the toggle is set. Fin Voice is $1.99 per voice outcome, through Sales only.

Hard limits stop the meter, though Intercom will not promise exact accuracy.

Alerts only notify you. A hard limit stops the spending: once it is hit, "Fin AI Agent will be disabled for any new and existing conversations for the remainder of your billing period." Intercom also warns, "We cannot guarantee the limit will be 100% accurate", and you cannot set a limit during the Fin trial.

By my arithmetic on the November 2026 prices, 100 outcomes cost $99, the same as one monthly Advanced seat. On annual billing, Fin passes the seat price at about 20 outcomes per seat a month on $19 Essential, 86 on $85 Advanced and 134 on $132 Expert.

Fin on another help desk starts at $49 a month

You can buy Fin and keep your current help desk: "No seats required" and "No setup, integration, or platform fees." As of 4 November 2026 the floor is a "$49/month minimum, which includes 50 outcomes", and a lower cap won't shrink it: "you'll be billed for 50 even if you set the hard limit to 30."

The $19 in that screenshot is the new-customer annual Essential price again. Freshdesk, Freshchat, HubSpot and Zendesk get a self-serve trial, while Salesforce and others go through Sales. This route has no Early Stage discount, no Fin for Sales and no Fin for Ecommerce.

Full seats, Lite seats and the annual lock-in

• One person per seat. "Sharing login credentials is not permitted under Intercom's Terms of Service."
• A seat counts once the invite is accepted.
• All seats sit on one plan, so you cannot mix 3 Essential seats with 4 Advanced ones.
• Lite seats are free on Advanced (20) and Expert (50). Lite teammates read the conversations they are mentioned in and add notes, but they cannot reply to customers or use Copilot.
• Monthly removals become a credit on the next invoice.
• Annual seats and add-ons are paid upfront for 12 months and stay until renewal. "When you pay yearly for your subscription, it's not possible to downgrade your plan or remove seats or add-ons during the current billing period."
• Downgrading can add seats. Move a monthly plan from Advanced to Essential and Intercom "will convert all lite seats to full seats". By my arithmetic, twenty of them at the $39 monthly list (as of November 2026) add $780 a month, so remove them first.

Add-ons: Copilot is per agent, Pro is per conversation

Intercom's pricing page and help centre, read 4 November 2026. Premier Support is sold through Sales, with no published price.

Pro is easy to misread. The card says "From $100", but the help article prices it as "$0.20 per conversation with a 500-conversation monthly minimum", and each conversation counts "regardless of whether it's handled by Fin, a teammate, or a workflow". Intercom's own example of 6,000 conversations costs $1,200. Fin outcomes bill on top.

Channel meters, and the WhatsApp change on 1 December

Live chat, inbound email and replies, inbound WhatsApp, banners and tooltips are free on every plan as of 4 November 2026. The meters start when you send campaigns, text people or pick up a phone.

Intercom's channel pricing panel and "Usage-based channels" article, read 4 November 2026. The examples are my arithmetic on the tiers.

WhatsApp moves to a new model on 1 December 2026: "messages will be billed per message, by recipient country and message category." In the US that is 2.92 cents for a marketing message and 0.40 cents for the other categories, and Meta's free tier covers 1,000 delivered service messages a month per business phone number. New customers "may be on these rates from their order date", so check your order.

I could not settle whether channel fees add to a Fin outcome on SMS or WhatsApp. Nothing I read says either way, so ask before you switch Fin on there.

Three Intercom bills, for 3, 10 and 25 seats

Prices are Intercom's list as of 4 November 2026. The volumes are my assumptions, and nobody's benchmark:

• Fin records an outcome on 40% of conversations, deliberately below Fin's own figure. A second row uses that vendor-reported average of 76%, which comes with no comparator.
• No email campaigns, SMS, WhatsApp or phone.
• No Sales discount. Intercom sends high-volume pricing to Sales, so read the 25-seat column as a list-price ceiling.

My arithmetic on Intercom's list prices, read 4 November 2026. Expert on monthly billing is printed at $139; confirm it with Sales.

• 3 seats: about $255 a month at the $19 price, with $684 of seat cost paid upfront for the year.
• 10 seats on Advanced: $1,840 a month, or $2,630 with Copilot and Pro. Upfront for the year, that is $10,200 for seats plus $3,480 for Copilot.
• 25 seats on Expert: $8,250 a month, or $11,475 with both add-ons. The same team on Advanced pays $10,300 with Copilot and Pro, so SSO, HIPAA, SLAs, multibrand and 30 more Lite seats are what Expert's extra $1,175 a month buys.

Look at which line wins. On annual billing Fin is the largest line for all three teams at either rate: $198 against $57, $990 against $850, $4,950 against $3,300 at 40%. It also bills monthly in arrears, so the largest line is the one you only see afterwards.

At these volumes, the seat is the smaller bill.

Did Salesforce change Intercom's pricing?

Nothing that I could find. Neither company's announcement mentions customer prices, and the price list is the same as on 30 October. Here are the names as of November 2026:

• Company: Fin. CEO Eoghan McCabe announced the new name on 12 May 2026.
• Help desk: Intercom. The help centre says "Intercom remains the name of this helpdesk product."
• Owner: Salesforce, which completed its purchase on 10 September 2026.
• Contract: still Intercom. The Terms name Intercom, Inc. for US and Brazil shipping addresses and Intercom R&D Unlimited Company elsewhere.

I make no prediction. The line that matters for your bill is the renewal clause quoted in the $19 section, so read it before you sign.

What the same money buys at Zendesk, Freshdesk and Help Scout

I read each rival's own pricing page on 4 November 2026. The table puts each entry plan, billed annually, beside its AI price and ranks nothing: an outcome, a resolution and a session are different units.

Each vendor's own pricing page, US dollars per seat, agent or user a month, read 4 November 2026. Zendesk's trial is of Suite Professional and Freshdesk's is on Enterprise.

On one seat billed yearly as of November 2026, Intercom Essential is $29 ($19 for new customers) and Zendesk Support Team is $19. The AI lines are $0.99 per outcome and $1.50 or $2.00 per automated resolution. Here are Zendesk's plans in full, and what AI customer service agents cost on their own.

What the sticker price leaves out

Intercom's help centre and Terms of Service, as read on 4 November 2026, move the real bill. I am reporting what the documents say; none of it is legal advice.

• Tax is extra. "Prices shown on our website do not include tax."
• USD only, by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Stripe Link. PayPal, debit and prepaid cards are out.
• No prorated refund if you cancel an annual plan early, and refunds are "reviewed case by case".
• You cannot pause a subscription.
• Send written notice at least 30 days before renewal if you are on a contract or order form.
• Export your data first. The Terms end your data access 30 days after termination and let Intercom delete it, while the help centre says cancelling "does not delete your data".
• Late payments cost 1.5% a month, or the legal maximum if lower.

Seats for people, a meter for software. If the split between seats and a meter is new to you, start with how per-seat and usage pricing compare, then why vendors now pair seats with a meter.

Which Intercom plan should you pick?

Count the people answering customers, then check which feature forces your hand.

• One inbox, a few people, no automation: Essential, at the new-customer price if you qualify. I would start monthly at $29 a seat ($39 if you do not qualify for the new-customer price) until you know your volume.
• Routing, team inboxes, a private or multilingual Help Center, or people who only read: Advanced at $85 billed annually, as of November 2026.
• SSO, HIPAA, SLAs or several brands: Expert at $132 billed annually.
• Up to $10 million in funding and fewer than 15 staff: check Early Stage, and budget for years 2 and 3.
• Already on another help desk: price Fin alone from $49 a month before you migrate anything.

Whatever you pick, set a Fin hard limit on your first paid day. If the real question is whether software should answer your customers at all, start with choosing an AI support agent rather than a help desk.

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