Crisp vs Fin by Intercom (2026)
Comparing Crisp and Fin by Intercom? Both are AI Agents & Chatbots and Help Desk & Ticketing tools in the directory, which is why buyers put them on the same shortlist. Below is a side-by-side look at pricing and an estimated monthly bill, channels, compliance claims, and integrations, plus when each is the better fit, so you can pick on the facts rather than either vendor's own sales page.
At a glance
| Attribute |
 Crisp
|
 Fin by Intercom
|
|---|---|---|
| What it is | All-in-one business messaging platform with an AI bot, shared inbox, CRM, and knowledge base. | Intercom's AI agent resolves customer questions instantly using your support content, and hands off to your team when it can't. |
| Pricing | Freemium · Free; $45/mo per workspace | Per resolution · $0.99/outcome; 50 outcomes/mo minimum |
| Est. monthly cost | No published price to estimate | $2,970/mo $0.99 per resolution; Resolutions, procedure handoffs, disqualifications $0.99; qualifications $9.99; minimum applies on standalone helpdesks |
| Founded | 2015 | 2011 |
| Categories | AI Agents & Chatbots Help Desk & Ticketing | AI Agents & Chatbots Help Desk & Ticketing |
| Channels | ||
| Chat | ✓ | ✓ |
| ✓ | ✓ | |
| Voice | — | ✓ |
| ✓ | — | |
| Social | ✓ | ✓ |
| Compliance (vendor-claimed) | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓ |
| HIPAA | — | ✓ |
| GDPR | ✓ | — |
| ISO 27001 | — | ✓ |
| ISO 42001 | — | ✓ |
| Data residency | EU (Netherlands, Germany) | US, EU, Australia |
| Languages | 50+ languages (translation) | Dozens of languages |
| What the AI can do | ||
| Takes actions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hands off to a human | ✓ | ✓ |
| Choice of LLM | ✓ | Not verified |
| Buying | ||
| Free trial | Free plan; 14-day free trial | 14-day free trial |
| How you buy | Self-serve signup | Self-serve signup |
| Minimum commitment | — | 50 outcomes/mo minimum |
| Company | Independent, bootstrapped | Acquired by Salesforce (September 2026) |
| Works with | Shopify Slack WhatsApp Instagram Messenger WordPress | Intercom Salesforce HubSpot Freshdesk Zoho Front Dixa Gorgias Sprinklr Statuspage Stripe |
| Key features |
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| Next step |
Full listing Visit site → |
Full listing Visit site → |
Estimates assume 5,000 conversations a month, 60% handled by AI and 10 agent seats, at each vendor's published list price (the cost calculator's model); treat them as a floor, not a quote. Compliance rows are what vendors publicly claim, and “Not verified” means we have not confirmed that fact yet, not that the tool lacks it.
Choose Crisp or Fin by Intercom?
Choose Crisp if
Best for: Startups and small businesses, especially in Europe, that want a shared inbox, live chat, knowledge base, CRM and an AI agent in one package billed per workspace rather than per seat, with a permanent free plan, EU hosting and Shopify, WhatsApp and Instagram built in.
- you need WhatsApp coverage
- you need a vendor that publicly claims GDPR
- you want to start on a free or low-cost plan
Look elsewhere if you need voice, published certifications beyond GDPR, or an enterprise sales relationship: Crisp is a bootstrapped product aimed at SMBs, and its chat and messaging roots show in those gaps.
Choose Fin by Intercom if
Best for: Teams that want to pay only for resolved questions, at $0.99 per outcome with a 14-day trial and a self-serve start, whether they run Intercom or keep Zendesk, Salesforce, HubSpot or another help desk underneath, with US, EU or Australian hosting and SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 coverage.
- you need Voice coverage
- you need a vendor that publicly claims SOC 2, HIPAA, and ISO 27001
- you would rather pay per resolved ticket than per seat
Look elsewhere if you want a predictable flat bill: the per-outcome model with a 50-outcome monthly minimum means a good month costs more. Also weigh the September 2026 Salesforce acquisition when you need roadmap certainty.
About Crisp
Crisp is the rare all-in-one support platform that is bootstrapped, profitable, and run by a small team, and that shapes everything about it. Founded in 2015 in Nantes, France, by Baptiste Jamin and Valerian Saliou, it grew from a simple live-chat widget into an omnichannel toolkit that bundles a shared inbox, a lightweight CRM, campaigns, and a knowledge base into one affordable package. Its autonomous AI agent, Hugo, answers customer questions from your knowledge base and past conversations and can run no-code workflows, while an AI overlay adds self-service search that deflects a healthy share of questions before they ever reach a person.
What makes Crisp stand out in a crowded field is its pricing philosophy. Where most rivals charge per agent and watch your bill balloon as you hire, Crisp charges a flat rate per workspace on most tiers, so adding teammates does not cost extra. On top of that it offers a genuinely permanent free plan for two seats, not a countdown trial, plus generous discounts for early-stage startups, nonprofits, and students. For a scrappy team watching every euro, that math is very appealing.
Because it started life as a messaging widget, Crisp is strong on the channels small businesses actually use, syncing with Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, Slack, and well over a hundred other tools. It is popular with startups and SMBs precisely because it puts live chat, automation, a help center, and a CRM in one place at a price that does not require a procurement committee.
You will not find Crisp chasing giant enterprise voice deployments, and that is rather the whole point of it. It is a focused, friendly, well-priced platform for smaller teams that want modern AI support without the complexity or the steadily climbing per-seat penalty. If that describes your team, Crisp deserves a serious look.
Read the full Crisp listing → · See Crisp alternatives →
About Fin by Intercom
Fin is Intercom's AI agent, and it has quietly become the product the whole company rallies around. It runs on the same platform as Intercom's inbox, help center, and messenger, so it already knows your customers before it says a word. Point it at your help articles and past conversations and it starts answering questions instantly across chat, email, SMS, and WhatsApp, taking real actions through your integrations and escalating to a human with full context when a question genuinely needs one.
The thing that made Fin famous is how it is billed. Instead of charging per seat or per conversation, Intercom charges roughly a dollar for every question Fin actually resolves, so you only pay when the robot earns its keep. That pay-for-outcomes model was unusual when Fin launched and has since become the template half the industry copies.
Intercom was founded in 2011 by four friends from Dublin, and it spent a decade building the messaging tools Fin now sits on top of. Fin does not insist you live inside Intercom, either. Its platform version bolts the same agent onto other help desks like Zendesk and Salesforce, so teams can keep their existing ticketing setup and still hand the easy questions to AI. It ships with simulation testing, analytics, and tunable tone controls so you can rehearse answers on historical tickets before flipping the switch on real customers.
For buyers, Fin is the safe, well-documented default: enormous scale, a public per-resolution price you can model on a spreadsheet, and a product that resolves millions of conversations every week for companies of every size. If you want an AI agent that is proven, measurable, quick to pilot, and easy to justify to a finance team that wants a number, Fin is usually the first name on the shortlist and rarely a regrettable one.
Read the full Fin by Intercom listing → · See Fin by Intercom alternatives →
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