Zono vs Intercom

The Intercom alternative you can start for free.

Start free with email and live chat in one inbox, a branded help center and customers verified on first contact. No credit card needed. When you grow, AI credits come included instead of metered per outcome.

Start free See what's free

No credit card. Email, live chat, portal and knowledge base included.

Intercom facts checked 3 October 2026 from its public pages. Sources at the bottom.

What you get free

A real helpdesk. Free.

Free plan, not a trial. Everything a small team needs to answer customers well.

Zono Free

  • Email and live chat in one inbox
  • A help portal or help center on your own domain, with automatic SSL
  • A knowledge base
  • One brand kit for your portal, chat widget and customer emails
  • One extra language for your portal, widget and emails, with your own translations
  • Sign customers in with your own app
  • Customers verified on first contact: Envato, Shopify, WordPress, Gumroad, LemonSqueezy or your own license server
  • Limited AI credits each month
  • A small team with unlimited tickets
  • No credit card

Intercom

No free plan. A 14-day trial.

Side by side

Zono and Intercom, line by line

Free plan

Zono:Free plan, not a trial: a small team with unlimited tickets, email and live chat, a branded portal and knowledge base, customer verification and free AI credits every month. No credit card

Intercom:No free plan. A 14-day trial

Channels

Zono:Email and live chat on Free; Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, LINE and TikTok on Premium. Replies go back where the customer wrote

Intercom:Live chat, email and in-app chat on every plan; WhatsApp, SMS and phone billed pay-as-you-go

AI agent and controls

Zono:An AI agent on Premium, grounded in your knowledge base, saved replies and resolved tickets. Confidence threshold, escalation keywords, a live activity feed and a stop button; it acts on its own only once you switch it on. Cap it with a monthly budget or bring your own OpenAI or Anthropic key

Intercom:Fin AI agent on every plan, billed per outcome; unlimited Copilot is a per-agent add-on

Help center and languages

Zono:Portal, chat widget and customer emails in your customers' language, with your own translations: one extra language on Free, no limit on Premium. Right-to-left languages supported

Intercom:Public help center on Essential; private and multilingual on Advanced and Expert

Customer sign-in

Zono:Free: sign customers in with your own app, with one identity secret for chat and portal and portal single sign-on. Premium: "Continue with" Okta, Auth0, Microsoft Entra ID, Keycloak or any OpenID Connect provider

Intercom:Messenger security with signed JWTs

MCP server

Zono:Premium: 14 tools for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code, with OAuth sign-in or API tokens

Intercom:Hosted MCP server with OAuth or a bearer token

Marketplace customer verification

Zono:Envato, Shopify, WordPress, Gumroad, LemonSqueezy or your own license server, verified on first contact on every plan

Intercom:Not part of Intercom's published plans

Switching from Intercom

  • Start on the free plan. No credit card needed.
  • Run Zono alongside Intercom on email and live chat until you are sure.
  • Import customers and knowledge base articles from CSV.
  • There is no automatic ticket importer. If you want help moving over from Intercom, we help by hand.
  • Upgrade to Premium when your team grows.
  • Want a hand moving over? Email [email protected].
When your team grows

If you grow into Premium

Free covers a small team. Premium brings the whole team, every channel and the AI agent, at one flat price for the whole team. List prices in USD.

How you pay

Zono:Free to start. Premium is one flat price for the whole team: $49 a month or $490 a year, unlimited seats

Intercom:Per seat: Essential $39, Advanced $99, Expert $139 a month ($29 / $85 / $132 billed annually)

AI agent

Zono:Free includes limited AI credits each month and Premium includes 10× more, shared by the AI agent and copilot. At the limit AI stops and conversations go to your team, with no overage charges

Intercom:Fin: $0.99 per outcome on every plan, billed by usage

AI copilot

Zono:Included, sharing the same monthly allowance. No per-seat add-on

Intercom:10 free conversations per agent a month; unlimited is $29 per agent billed annually or $35 billed monthly

Zono Premium against Intercom Essential, its cheapest plan, before Fin outcomes and Copilot.

TeamZonoIntercom
3 agents$49$117You save $816 a year
5 agents$49$195You save $1,752 a year
10 agents$49$390You save $4,092 a year

Intercom Essential is $39 a seat billed monthly or $29 a seat billed annually. Fin is billed on top at $0.99 per outcome, and unlimited Copilot is an extra $29–35 per agent. Zono Premium is $49 a month, or $490 a year (shown per month on annual billing). Zono Premium includes 10× more AI credits than Free.

FAQ

Zono or Intercom?

Sources

Intercom facts come from its public pages, checked 3 October 2026. Prices and plans change; if something here is out of date, tell us at [email protected] and we'll fix it.

Every channel. One inbox.

Answer your next customer free.
Upgrade when you grow.

Start free Compare other helpdesks

No credit card. Email, live chat, portal and knowledge base included.