Chatisto
IntercomChatisto vs Intercom - Affordable Alternative for Small Teams
Comparing Chatisto and Intercom for AI customer support. See why small teams choose Chatisto at $29/mo vs Intercom's $74+/seat pricing.
Pricing
The elephant in the room
Core Features
What you get for your money
AI Safety
Preventing embarrassing mistakes
Best For
Who should use what
The Honest Comparison
Why teams switch from Intercom to Chatisto
Price shock. Intercom's pricing looks reasonable until you add seats. A 5-person support team costs $370/month before you even use AI features. Chatisto is $29/month for everyone.
Per-resolution AI fees. Intercom's Fin AI costs $0.99 per resolution on top of your subscription. Handle 500 AI conversations? That's another $495/month. Chatisto includes AI in every plan.
Complexity. Intercom has features for enterprise teams you'll never use. Chatisto focuses on what small teams actually need.
Why some teams stay with Intercom
Ecosystem. If you need help centers, product tours, outbound messaging, and enterprise integrations all in one place, Intercom delivers.
Polish. Intercom's Messenger is best-in-class. The user experience is genuinely excellent.
Scale. For 100+ seat deployments with complex workflows, Intercom's enterprise features make sense.
The guardrails difference
Here's something Intercom doesn't talk about: AI chatbots make things up.
Intercom's Fin AI is powerful, but when it hallucinates—recommending products that don't exist, quoting wrong prices, making up policies—you find out when customers complain.
Chatisto validates AI responses before customers see them:
- Links checked against your actual site
- Product recommendations verified against inventory
- Domain restrictions prevent off-brand responses
We built this because we've seen what happens when AI gets "creative" with customer inquiries. It's not pretty.
Real cost comparison
| Team Size | Chatisto | Intercom (Essential) | Intercom + AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 person | $29/mo | $74/mo | $74 + AI fees |
| 3 people | $29/mo | $222/mo | $222 + AI fees |
| 5 people | $29/mo | $370/mo | $370 + AI fees |
| 10 people | $29/mo | $740/mo | $740 + AI fees |
Intercom AI (Fin) costs $0.99 per resolution. 500 AI resolutions = $495/month extra.
Who should use Chatisto
- Small teams (2-10 people) who need AI support
- Startups watching their runway
- E-commerce stores on Shopify
- Anyone tired of per-seat pricing
- Teams who want guardrails against AI mistakes
Who should use Intercom
- Enterprise companies with 100+ support seats
- Teams that need product tours, help centers, and outbound messaging
- Organizations where $74+/seat is a rounding error
- Companies already deep in the Intercom ecosystem
The bottom line
Intercom built amazing software for enterprise companies with enterprise budgets. If that's you, they're excellent.
If you're a small team that needs AI-powered customer support without the enterprise price tag—and with guardrails that prevent AI from embarrassing you—that's exactly what we built Chatisto for.
Conclusion
Intercom is the industry leader for a reason - they have every feature you could want. But they also charge like one. At $74/seat/month plus AI usage fees, a 5-person team pays $370+/month just to get started. Chatisto gives small teams 80% of the functionality at 8% of the price. If you're a startup or small business that needs AI support without enterprise pricing, Chatisto is the obvious choice.