The Intercom alternative with flat pricing and AI on every plan
Intercom bills per seat and per AI resolution. miniDesk bills a single fixed amount per workspace, with AI bundled into every plan, including the free one. Zero per-resolution fees, zero per-seat costs, zero add-ons to purchase.
- Free plan, no card
- AI on every plan
- One flat price per workspace
TL;DR
Intercom runs $39 a seat a month on Essential, or $29 on an annual commitment, and from $0.99 each time Fin produces an outcome, with custom reports and round robin on Advanced and SLAs on Expert. miniDesk is a single fixed cost per workspace with AI already bundled, so a high-volume month matches a slow one. Intercom remains the better pick if you rely on its CRM, product tours, outbound campaigns, or its integration marketplace. We offer none of those and have no plans to build them.
Flat versus metered are two separate products, not two price points
Intercom's invoice contains three independent variables: seats, Fin resolutions, and add-ons. Each fluctuates on its own timeline, which is how a team that planned for $500 receives a $2,000 bill with no straightforward way to trace it. Ours has a single variable, displayed on the pricing page. The tradeoff deserves to be stated plainly: metered billing means Intercom only charges when its AI performs. Month to month they cannot undercut us, because a single Essential seat is $39 and that matches our entire Starter plan with five seats. On a twelve-month commitment they can: $29 a seat with fewer than roughly ten resolved conversations beats our $39, and we lack an annual plan to counter that. Our free tier handles the case at zero cost, which is the response we would offer, but the math belongs to them.
The full comparison
Arranged in four groups, following the sequence a buyer follows. Capabilities come before costs, because cheaper than what is the first question a pricing comparison must settle.
Channels
Live chat widget on your site
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Included
Shared email inbox
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Included
Web form, separate from the chat widget
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Not available
AI
AI that answers customers on its own
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Included
Answers drawn from your own documents
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Included
Agent-assist copilot in the inbox
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Sold as a paid add-onpaid add-on
Developer
REST API
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Included
MCP server, published and supported
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Included
What the price covers
The AI costs nothing beyond the plan price
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Included, then billed by usebilled by use
A free plan with the AI on it
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Not available
Unlimited free conversations
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Not available
Adding a teammate costs nothing
- miniDesk
- Included
- Intercom
- Not available
Checked against each vendor's own published documentation, September 2026.
What you actually pay at scale
Three actual teams, both sides priced on the identical day. Ours comes from the plan list Checkout charges against. Intercom is its Essential tier at $39 a seat month to month, plus $0.99 for each conversation Fin resolves. Their page highlights $29, which is the same seat on an annual commitment; we sell no annual plan, so the monthly rate is the apples-to-apples comparison. Drag the sliders to plug in your own figures.
Your numbers
miniDesk Starter, one flat price per workspace, sized by the 375 AI conversations you set above. Intercom is priced on the cheapest tier that fits these seats and has an AI agent answering customers, at their month-to-month rate wherever they publish one, because we sell no annual plan to hold an annual rate against. Intercom is cheaper on a yearly commitment, so this is the dearer of their two rates and the only one comparable to ours.
Intercom charges for the outcome rather than the attempt, at $0.99 a resolution on top of the seat, and is costed above with its AI settling every conversation it answers. A conversation it opens and hands to one of your people costs them the seat and nothing more, so that is the dearest their bill can honestly be made to look. Ours is the flat plan price whatever the AI does with them.
Three real teams
Startup
5 seats, 375 AI conversations a month
- miniDesk Starter, all in
- $39
- Intercom
- ~$566
- +1,350%
Growing team
8 seats, 2,250 AI conversations a month
- miniDesk Growth, all in
- $99
- Intercom
- ~$2,540
- +2,470%
Large support team
25 seats, 12,000 AI conversations a month
- miniDesk Scale, all in
- $349
- Intercom
- ~$12,855
- +3,580%
Each vendor's own list prices, September 2026, in USD, on the cheapest plan that fits the seats and includes an AI agent. Monthly rates where published, so no annual discount. Volumes count the conversations the AI handles. Intercom is $0.99 a resolution, counted on every AI conversation as if Fin resolved them all, so their figure is the highest it can honestly be. Check their pricing pages before you decide.
Which one should you actually buy?
You want a single figure on the invoice each month
Seats, AI replies, knowledge base, copilot, API, and MCP server are bundled into one fixed cost per workspace. A busy month matches a slow one, so support drops off the list of items finance questions.
Pick miniDesk
An AI client should be able to operate your inbox
miniDesk bundles an MCP server on every plan, so Claude or Cursor can triage, draft, and resolve in natural language with zero glue code to maintain. Intercom hosts one as well, with no plan gate documented, though its own connector listing still restricts to US-hosted workspaces while the developer docs mention US and EU. The distinction is structural: theirs requires a paid seat, ours is available on the free tier.
Pick miniDesk
You need a CRM, product tours, and outbound campaigns
Intercom is a customer platform, not solely a helpdesk. Tours, series, outbound messaging, and an integration marketplace are capabilities we lack and will not build. If your support tool doubles as your marketing tool, go with Intercom.
Pick Intercom
You are a large team with procurement and an audit trail to satisfy
Intercom carries the enterprise controls, compliance documentation, and dedicated account team that accompany fifteen years of selling to organizations that demand them. We are a compact product with a free tier and a public price list. Buy the one your security review will approve.
Pick Intercom
Questions, answered honestly
Other comparisons we have written
One price. All of customer support.
Start free, no card. When you upgrade, every feature is included, rather than a starting point with a list of add-ons to buy.