Intercom Has No Free Plan, Only a 14-Day Trial
Two meters run at once: a seat price and a charge every time the AI resolves something. Neither of them starts at zero.
Intercom does not offer a free plan. New customers get a 14-day free trial of Fin AI Agent, and a payment method is required to continue afterwards. Essential costs $19 per seat per month plus $0.99 per Fin outcome, Advanced $85, Expert $132, all billed annually. Live chat, support email and in-app messages are unlimited within a plan.1
This is the second tool in this category with no free tier, alongside Zendesk. Both are built for teams with a budget and both price per seat.
The difference is the second meter. Intercom bills per AI resolution on top of the seat, which makes the total harder to predict than any flat plan here.
What you actually get
| Essential | Advanced | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $19/seat/mo | $85/seat/mo |
| Fin AI outcomes | $0.99 each | $0.99 each |
| Minimum seats | 1 | 1 |
| Live chat, email, in-app | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Shared inbox and ticketing | Yes | Yes |
| Public help centre | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple teamwork inboxes | No | Yes |
| Workflow automation builder | No | Yes |
| Free Lite seats | None | 20 included |
| Card required | Yes, after trial | Yes, after trial |
Expert at $132 per seat adds SSO, HIPAA support, service level agreements and multibrand configuration.
The per-outcome meter changes everything
Every time Fin resolves a conversation without a human, Intercom bills $0.99.
At a thousand automated resolutions a month that is $990, several times the seat cost of a small team.
Buyers who assume the seat price is the price are in for a surprise. Intercom's own comparison table lists Fin separately from seats for exactly this reason.
What is genuinely unlimited
Live chat, support email, in-app chats, banners and tooltips carry no volume charge on any plan.
Email campaigns, SMS, WhatsApp and phone are pay-as-you-go on top, and Copilot is an add-on at $29 per agent monthly billed annually.
The structure is coherent: humans are per-seat, AI is per-result, and outbound channels are per-message. Four meters in total.
The trial is card-gated
Fourteen days of Fin AI Agent, and a payment method required to transition to a paid plan. Fail to add one and the service pauses.
That is the standard commercial trial rather than a free tier wearing a different name. Nothing here is free after day fifteen.
Compare Tidio, whose trial ends by reverting to a genuinely usable free plan. Intercom's ends with a decision.
How it compares
Zendesk also has no free plan, starting at $19 per agent for Sales Team and $55 for Suite Team, with no per-resolution charge.
Crisp offers two seats and unlimited conversations at zero, flat per workspace rather than per agent.
tawk.to is free forever with unlimited agents, which is the opposite end of the market entirely.
Intercom is not competing with free tiers. It is competing with Zendesk for teams that have already decided to pay.
When the trial is worth taking
When you are choosing between Intercom and Zendesk and need to see Fin resolve real conversations before committing.
When your support volume is high enough that per-outcome pricing could beat per-seat pricing, and you want the numbers from your own traffic.
When a team is migrating from a tool that has become too limited and needs two weeks of parallel running.
When it stops making sense
For any team that was hoping to run support for free. There is nothing to fall back to.
When automated resolutions climb and the $0.99 meter becomes the largest line on the invoice.
When you need three or more teammates and no automation, at which point the seat cost buys features you are not using.
Frequently asked questions
Does Intercom have a free plan?
No. Intercom offers a 14-day trial and then requires a paid plan.
How much does Intercom cost?
Essential $19 per seat a month, Advanced $85, Expert $132, billed annually, plus $0.99 per Fin outcome.
What counts as a Fin outcome?
A conversation resolved by the AI agent without a human reply. It is billed separately from seats.
Is live chat unlimited?
Yes. Live chat, support email and in-app messages carry no volume charge on any plan.
Does the trial require a card?
A payment method is required to continue after the 14-day trial, and the service pauses without one.
Are there free seats?
Advanced includes 20 free Lite seats and Expert includes 50, for internal collaboration only.
Absence of a free plan, seat prices, the per-outcome Fin charge and trial terms verified against Intercom's pricing page and its Fin trial help article on 20 October 2026.
Sources
- Intercom pricing: www.intercom.com/pricing. Used for: No free plan; seat prices and the per-outcome Fin charge.
All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 20 October 2026. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.
