The Intercom alternative with flat pricing and AI on every plan
miniDesk is an Intercom alternative that charges one flat price per workspace instead of per seat and per AI resolution. Starter is $39 a month for 5 seats with 375 AI conversations included, and there is a free plan with the AI on it. Intercom is the better buy if you need its CRM, product tours or integrations.
- Free plan, no card
- AI on every plan
- One flat price per workspace
The short version
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.
| Capability | miniDesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Channels | ||
| Live chat widget on your site | Included | Included |
| Shared email inbox | Included | Included |
| Web form, separate from the chat widget | Included | Not available |
| Every channel on the free plan | Included | Not available |
| AI | ||
| AI that answers customers on its own | Included | Included, then billed by use |
| Answers drawn from your own documents | Included | Included |
| Agent-assist copilot in the inbox | Included | Sold as a paid add-on |
| Developer | ||
| REST API | Included | Included |
| MCP server, published and supported | Included | Included |
| What the price covers | ||
| A free plan with the AI on it | Included | Not available |
| Unlimited free conversations | Included | Not available |
| Adding a teammate costs nothing | Included | Not available |
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%
scale to $500+
Growing team
8 seats · 2,250 AI conversations a month
miniDesk Growth, all in$99
Intercom~$2,540+2,470%
scale to $1,000+
Large team
25 seats · 12,000 AI conversations a month
miniDesk Scale, all in$349
Intercom~$12,855+3,580%
scale to $3,000+
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.
Checked against: Intercom pricing
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
No. They provide a free trial and a discounted program for qualifying early-stage companies, but no permanent free tier. miniDesk's free plan is permanent: one seat, unlimited conversations, 75 of them handled by AI monthly, no card.
Three variables shifting independently. $39 a seat a month on Essential, $29 if you commit annually, from $0.99 each time Fin produces an outcome, and a tier jump for what Essential excludes: custom reports and round robin on Advanced, SLAs on Expert. Volume pushes the second, so your busiest month is your priciest, and headcount pushes the first.
Not completely, and claiming otherwise would waste your time. You receive the shared inbox, live chat, web forms, knowledge base, AI replies, agent copilot, REST API, and MCP server. You do not receive product tours, outbound campaigns, a CRM, or Intercom's app marketplace. If your team depends on those daily, switching is a step down.
Partially, and enabling it is worthwhile. Intercom lets you set a ceiling on Fin outcomes per billing period, after which Fin deactivates. Note what that is not: it is a count rather than a budget, it cannot drop below whatever minimum your subscription locks in, usage is recalculated only hourly so overshooting is possible, Intercom does not guarantee accuracy, and you cannot configure one during the Fin trial. So the decision is between a bill that fluctuates with volume and a cap someone must monitor, instead of a figure that simply holds still.
Once, regardless of how many times the AI speaks within it. A thread requiring six exchanges to resolve counts as one conversation. Intercom counts a resolved outcome, Crisp deducts credits for every conversation Hugo touches, and Freshchat counts each session. Those are four distinct denominators, which is why the chart above lets you input the volume yourself rather than throwing one figure at you.
This one. The free plan is one seat, unlimited conversations, 75 handled by AI monthly, plus knowledge base, agent copilot, REST API, and MCP server. No card, and it never converts to a trial.
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.
