Modeled team
Annual difference at 25 agents
Updated 2026 helpdesk comparison
Intercom alternative for account-based SaaS support.
Intercom is excellent when the messenger is the center of your customer experience. Ochre fits B2B SaaS teams whose support happens across email, chat, Slack Connect, and account context, with AI billed through your own model keys.
AI billing
BYOK vs platform AI
Migration
Avg 18 hours, max 48 hours
Ochre fits best if...
- You run B2B SaaS support where most volume is email + Slack Connect, not website chat.
- You'd rather pay OpenAI or Anthropic at retail than Fin's $0.99/resolution markup.
- You want Stripe context and account hierarchies in the inbox without the Advanced tier upcharge.
- You're tired of seats, add-ons, and per-resolution AI compounding into surprise bills.
Stick with Intercom if...
- You're a B2C or PLG product where the in-app messenger is your primary support surface.
- Fin AI Agent's no-touch resolution rate genuinely covers >40% of your volume — the per-resolution math pencils out.
- You depend on Intercom's Series (proactive messaging, tours, surveys) as your activation funnel, not just support.
- You're already deep on Intercom's Workspace API and the engineer-time to migrate exceeds the seat savings.
Pricing snapshot
5 agents · 300 AI resolutions/mo
$195/mo ($39 × 5 + your LLM cost ~$15)
$722/mo ($85 × 5 Advanced + 300 × $0.99 Fin)
10 agents · 800 AI resolutions/mo
$390/mo ($39 × 10 + ~$40 LLM)
$1,642/mo ($85 × 10 Advanced + 800 × $0.99 Fin)
25 agents · 1,500 AI resolutions/mo
$975/mo ($39 × 25 + ~$75 LLM)
$3,610/mo ($85 × 25 Advanced + 1,500 × $0.99 Fin)
Annual difference at 25 agents
—
+$31,620/year vs Ochre
Feature comparison
Per-agent base
Intercom: Essential $29, Advanced $85, Expert $132 (annual list, checked 2026-05)
$99/mo Starter (fixed 3 seats) or $39/seat Per Seat
$29–$132/seat (Essential → Expert)
AI assistant for agents
Intercom Copilot is bundled, but per-resolution Fin is the costly line
Included, BYOK
Copilot included on all plans
Autonomous AI resolutions
Fin's flat per-resolution price is one of the cleanest in the industry — also one of the highest
Your LLM cost (~$0.005/resolution at retail OpenAI)
$0.99 per Fin resolution
Quality assurance
Included
Surveys + reports (no rubric QA)
In-app messenger
Intercom's messenger is the gold standard — they invented this category
Embedded chat (good)
Yes
Slack Connect as a channel
Intercom has Slack notifications, not Slack Connect-native channels
Yes
No
Stripe context in inbox (MRR / plan / LTV)
Yes
Stripe app (basic)
Bring your own LLM keys (OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini)
Yes
No
Proactive messaging / tours / Series
Intercom Series is genuinely a separate product — buy it for that, not just support
No
Yes
Self-serve setup
15 minutes
1–4 weeks (depending on Series + Fin tuning)
HIPAA BAA
Available on request
Expert tier + add-on
Migration from Intercom
Concierge, 24h, IDs preserved
—
Verdict
Intercom built the modern support messenger and Fin is one of the clearest AI pricing models in the category. The trade-off is fit: Advanced seats plus Fin outcomes add up, while B2B SaaS support often needs Slack Connect and account context more than outbound messenger campaigns. If you are B2C, messenger-first, or deep on Series, Intercom may be right. If support is account-based and AI volume is rising, Ochre is easier to model.
FAQ
Is Fin really $0.99 per resolution? What counts as a resolution?
Yes — Intercom advertises $0.99 per resolution as a clean flat rate, and that's part of why Fin's pricing is easy to model. A resolution is counted when Fin answers a customer question and the customer doesn't reply within 24 hours, or marks the answer as helpful. The pricing is fair; what gets expensive is volume. At 1,500 resolutions/month Fin is $1,485/mo. The same answers cost about $7 in OpenAI tokens through Ochre's BYOK setup.
Will I lose Intercom's messenger quality?
Honestly, Intercom's messenger is best-in-class. Ours is good but not the gold standard. If website chat is your primary support channel and your customers expect that polish, the trade is real. If your support is mostly email + Slack Connect with a website chat option for logged-in users, Ochre's messenger is plenty. We'd rather you stay on Intercom than oversell here.
What happens to Series, tours, and proactive messaging?
Ochre doesn't ship a Series-equivalent in v1. Two paths. (1) Keep Intercom on a Messenger-only / Engage plan just for Series and use Ochre for support inbox + AI. The combined bill is usually still cheaper than full-suite Intercom. (2) Move proactive messaging to a dedicated tool — Userflow, Chameleon, or Appcues. We help with both during migration scoping.
How does BYOK math actually compare to Fin at $0.99/resolution?
A typical autonomous resolution costs $0.003–$0.008 in model tokens when a mini-class model handles triage and a larger model is used only when needed. Fin at $0.99 per outcome is much easier to budget but materially higher on marginal usage. The trade-off: Fin includes hosted retrieval, ranking, and tuning UX. With BYOK you bring your provider account and Ochre handles retrieval and prompting.
Can you migrate Intercom conversation history without breaking customer threads?
Yes. We import every conversation with its original Intercom ID stored as an alias. When a customer replies to an old email thread post-migration, the reply lands in Ochre on the imported conversation — no orphaned tickets, no "start a new conversation" friction. We've migrated workspaces with 250K+ conversations cleanly.
When is Intercom genuinely the right call?
Three honest cases. (1) You're a B2C or PLG product where website chat is your primary funnel and Intercom's messenger quality is a competitive advantage. (2) You depend on Series for proactive messaging, tours, and surveys — Intercom is genuinely two products in a trench coat, and the second one is worth keeping. (3) You're on Expert with Premier Support and SSO/HIPAA dependencies that took procurement months to clear. Otherwise, the seat math + Fin compound make the move worth modeling.