Freshdesk vs Intercom
A side-by-side comparison of Freshdesk and Intercom on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
8 of the 39 capabilities tracked on both differ, mostly in QA & workforce. Freshdesk starts at $19/seat/mo, Intercom at $29/seat/mo.
| Measure | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $19/seat/mo | $29/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | $0.49 per AI session | $0.99 per AI resolution |
| Included, where the other says no | 1 capability | 3 capabilities |
Capability by capability
8 of the 39 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Included | IncludedAll plans | |
| Live chat | Not published | IncludedAll plans |
| In-app messenger | Not published | IncludedAll plans |
| Voice | Not published | IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go |
| SMS | Not published | IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go |
| Not published | IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go | |
| Community forum | IncludedPro and above. Forums are also included in the account XML export. | NoNo community product. Nothing in the plan comparison offers forums, member profiles or moderation, so a team that wants customers answering each other buys that elsewhere. |
Ticketing
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | Not published | IncludedAll plans. Multiple team inboxes arrive at Advanced, so the entry plan is a single shared inbox. |
| Ticket queues | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | IncludedAll plans carry the ticketing system. The customer-facing tickets portal is Advanced and above. |
| SLA policies | IncludedMultiple SLA policies require Pro. | IncludedExpert |
| Business hours | IncludedPro $55 an agent and above. Not on Growth. | IncludedExpert only, as team office hours, alongside team reply time settings. Neither is available on Essential or Advanced. |
| Side conversations | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | Not published |
| Custom fields | IncludedPro $55 an agent and above. Not on Growth. | Not published |
| Custom objects | IncludedEnterprise $89 an agent only. | Not published |
| Ticket forms | IncludedPro $55 an agent and above. Not on Growth. | Not published |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Skills-based routing | IncludedEnterprise. Intelligent routing arrives on Pro. | Not publishedNot published. Round-robin assignment and workload management are named; routing on agent skill is not. |
| Round-robin assignment | IncludedPro $55 an agent and above. Not on Growth. | IncludedAdvanced |
| Load balancing | IncludedPro $55 an agent and above. Not on Growth. | IncludedExpert only, as workload management. Advanced gets round-robin assignment but not capacity-aware distribution. |
| Triggers | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | IncludedSimple automations are on every plan; the Workflows automation builder starts at Advanced. |
| Workflow builder | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | IncludedAdvanced |
| Escalation rules | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | IncludedAll plans, and they carry billing consequences that are published: an escalation triggered by workspace-level guidance or escalation rules is not charged as an outcome, while a handoff written into a Procedure is. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedAll plans. 500 Freddy AI Agent sessions included, then $49 per 100. Billed per session, not per resolution. | IncludedAll plans, metered |
| Resolution over knowledge base | IncludedAll three plans, first 500 Freddy AI Agent sessions included, then $49 per 100 sessions. | IncludedAll plans. Fin answers from the help centre and the Procedures a team writes, and the vendor is explicit about the boundary: "Fin trains only on your knowledge and Procedures, never on data you haven't approved". |
| Action-taking (API calls) | Not published | IncludedAll plans, through Procedures, which Fin executes and which can end in a configured handoff to a workflow, a team or a teammate. A successful Procedure handoff is itself a billable outcome at $0.99. |
| Handoff to human | Not published | IncludedAll plans |
| Guardrails & citations | Not published | IncludedAll plans. Fin can be tested before it reaches anyone: "Before Fin ever talks to a real customer, run realistic Simulations against edge cases, including vulnerable-customer and compliance scenarios." Fine-tuning is opt-out, with data deleted within 30 days. |
| Multilingual AI | Paid add-onFreddy AI Copilot add-on ($29/agent/mo annual), Pro and Enterprise only. Live translation in 60+ languages. | IncludedAll plans |
AI assist
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | Paid add-onFreddy AI Copilot add-on at $29 an agent a month billed annually, and only on Pro $55 and Enterprise $89. Not sold on Growth at any price. | Paid add-onCopilot, sold per seat on any plan at $29 per agent per month billed annually or $35 billed monthly. Every full seat gets 10 conversations a month included; unlimited use is the paid add-on. |
| Tone rewrite | Paid add-onFreddy AI Copilot add-on at $29 an agent a month billed annually, and only on Pro $55 and Enterprise $89. Not sold on Growth at any price. | Not published |
| Summarization | Paid add-onFreddy AI Copilot add-on at $29 an agent a month billed annually, and only on Pro $55 and Enterprise $89. Not sold on Growth at any price. | Not publishedNot published. Copilot is described as an assistant for agent efficiency without an itemised feature list, so which of drafting, summarising and rewriting it covers cannot be read off a published page. |
| Translation | Paid add-onFreddy AI Copilot add-on at $29 an agent a month billed annually, and only on Pro $55 and Enterprise $89. Not sold on Growth at any price. | IncludedAll plans, metered: 10 AI auto-translation conversations per agent per month are included free, matching the 10 free Copilot conversations. |
| Next-best-action | Paid add-onFreddy AI Copilot add-on at $29 an agent a month billed annually, and only on Pro $55 and Enterprise $89. Not sold on Growth at any price. | Not published |
| Sentiment analysis | Paid add-onFreddy AI Copilot add-on at $29 an agent a month billed annually, and only on Pro $55 and Enterprise $89. Not sold on Growth at any price. | Not publishedNot published as a product feature. The Pro add-on analyses conversations for quality; sentiment is not named as an output. |
AI voice
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | NoNot on any plan. The three Freddy sections cover an email agent, a copilot and insights. Voice is Freshcaller, a separate product with its own bill. | IncludedFin Voice exists and is the one part of Fin with no published price: "To use Fin Voice and for pricing details, please contact Sales." Outcome pricing at $0.99 is stated to cover chat and email only. |
| IVR replacement | NoNot on any plan. The three Freddy sections cover an email agent, a copilot and insights. Voice is Freshcaller, a separate product with its own bill. | Not publishedNot published. Fin Voice is sales-gated and no IVR or phone-tree capability is described on any reachable page. |
| Real-time transcription | NoNot on any plan. The three Freddy sections cover an email agent, a copilot and insights. Voice is Freshcaller, a separate product with its own bill. | Not published |
| Call summarization | NoNot on any plan. The three Freddy sections cover an email agent, a copilot and insights. Voice is Freshcaller, a separate product with its own bill. | Not published |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | IncludedAll plans. Portal customisation and article versioning require Pro. | IncludedAll plans |
| Multi-brand | Not published | IncludedExpert |
| Versioning | IncludedPro and above. Approval workflow and flexible KB hierarchy are Enterprise. | Not published |
| Localization | IncludedPro and above (multilingual helpdesk and knowledge base translation). | IncludedAdvanced |
| In-product widget | Not published | IncludedAll plans. The Messenger is included everywhere, and the pricing page bundles "free, unlimited live chat, support email, in-app chats, banners, and tooltips" into every tier. |
| AI answers over KB | IncludedAll three plans, first 500 sessions included, then $49 per 100 sessions. | IncludedAll plans. Fin is included on every tier and answers from help centre content; only the outcomes it produces are charged. |
Self-service
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot flows | NoNot on any plan. The AI Agent answers email from the knowledge base; the plan matrix describes no bot builder and no transactional actions. | IncludedAdvanced and above, as the Workflows automation builder. Essential is limited to simple automations, so scripted multi-step flows are the main reason to leave the entry plan. |
| Order lookup | NoNot on any plan. The AI Agent answers email from the knowledge base; the plan matrix describes no bot builder and no transactional actions. | Not published |
| Returns / RMA | NoNot on any plan. The AI Agent answers email from the knowledge base; the plan matrix describes no bot builder and no transactional actions. | Not published |
| Account actions | NoNot on any plan. The AI Agent answers email from the knowledge base; the plan matrix describes no bot builder and no transactional actions. | Not published |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation QA scoring | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix enumerates nine sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Paid add-onThe Pro add-on, from $99 a month, covering analysis of 1,000 conversations a month plus 2,000 credits, with extra credits at $0.01. Sold on any plan. |
| Automated QA coverage | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix enumerates nine sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Paid add-onSame Pro add-on, pitched at full coverage rather than sampling: "see and continuously improve 100% of your customer conversations" and "check if quality meets your standards". |
| Calibration | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix enumerates nine sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Not published |
| Agent scorecards | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix enumerates nine sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | Not published |
| Forecasting | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix enumerates nine sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | NoNo workforce management product. Workload management at Expert distributes conversations against capacity; it does not forecast contact volume or build a staffing plan. |
| Scheduling | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix enumerates nine sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | NoNo shift scheduling. Team office hours at Expert set when a team is open, which is not the same as rostering people against a forecast. |
| Adherence tracking | NoNot on any plan. The plan matrix enumerates nine sections and none of them is quality assurance or workforce management. | NoNo adherence tracking. Nothing in the plan comparison measures agents against a schedule, because there is no schedule to measure against. |
Reporting
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | IncludedAll plans, as pre-built reports. |
| Custom reports | IncludedPro $55 an agent and above. Not on Growth. | IncludedAdvanced and above. Essential is limited to the pre-built set. |
| Raw data export | IncludedNot plan-gated. The account export is self-serve on every plan. | IncludedAll plans, and self-serve, but split by object: contacts export to CSV from the UI, while conversations are reachable only through the API or the S3 export. |
| Data warehouse sync | NoNot on any plan. The analytics section lists six capabilities and none of them moves data out. | IncludedBulk conversation export to Amazon S3 as JSON is documented with no plan condition, which is a stronger position than the UI export it sits beside. |
| Real-time reporting | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | IncludedExpert only. The real-time dashboard sits with SSO, HIPAA and SLAs behind the top tier. |
Collaboration
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Internal notes | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | Not publishedNot published as a plan-matrix row. Lite seats are included at 20 and 50 on Advanced and Expert, which implies a collaborator class, but Intercom does not state what a Lite seat can do on any page reached here. |
| Assignment | IncludedAll three plans, from Growth at $19 an agent. | IncludedAll plans have assignment; the automation around it is gated. Round-robin arrives at Advanced with multiple team inboxes, and capacity-aware workload management at Expert. |
| Approvals | IncludedEnterprise $89 an agent only. | Not published |
Enterprise
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | IncludedAll three plans including Growth. JWT authentication is Enterprise. | IncludedExpert |
| SCIM provisioning | Not publishedNot listed in the published plan matrix. | IncludedExpert in effect |
| Role-based access control | Not published | IncludedTeammate roles exist and can be mapped from identity provider groups, which ties the useful version of this to SCIM and therefore to Expert. |
| Custom roles | IncludedRole-based access control on all three plans. Field-level access control is Enterprise. | IncludedTeammate roles, mappable from identity-provider groups. The plan gate is not published. |
| Audit logs | IncludedEnterprise only. Unavailable on Growth and Pro. | IncludedTeammate Activity Logs exist as a feature. Intercom does not publish which plan they require, and they have no documented export path. |
| IP allowlist | IncludedEnterprise only (allowed domains and IP whitelisting). | IncludedIP restrictions are listed on the security page alongside SSO, 2FA and SCIM. No plan gate is published. |
| Sandbox environment | IncludedEnterprise only. | Not publishedNo test workspace is published in the plan comparison. Fin Simulations let a team rehearse AI behaviour before launch, which is narrower than a sandbox of the whole workspace. |
| Multi-brand | Not published | IncludedExpert |
| HIPAA / BAA | Not publishedNot mentioned on the security page or in the pricing matrix. | IncludedExpert |
| SOC 2 | Not publishedThe security page describes controls but names no certification, pointing to a separate Trust Center for attestations that is not publicly reachable. | IncludedNot plan-gated |
| ISO 27001 | Not publishedNot named on the security page. | IncludedNot plan-gated |
| GDPR | Not publishedA sub-processor list and regional data instances are published, but no explicit GDPR compliance statement was found on the security page. | IncludedNot plan-gated |
| Data residency | IncludedNot plan-gated. US, EEA, UAE, India and Australia, chosen at signup. Moving regions later requires contacting support. | IncludedNot published |
| Data retention policy | Not published | IncludedPublished for AI data specifically rather than as a general policy: fine-tuning is opt-out "with data deleted within 30 days", and third-party model providers are "contractually barred from training on your data, with zero retention once a response is generated". |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | Not published | IncludedDocumented as a GDPR workflow, covering both export and deletion of a contact's data on request. |
Developer
| Capability | Freshdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | Included | IncludedAll plans |
| GraphQL API | NoNot on any plan. The published interface is REST, with per-tier rate limits. | Not published |
| SDKs | Not published | IncludedAll plans. The Messenger ships as a web and in-app component, and "in-app chats" are bundled free into every tier alongside banners and tooltips. |
| App framework | IncludedAll three plans. Connector app tasks are metered at $80 per 5,000 regardless of tier. | IncludedAn app store exists and apps can be built against it. Intercom does not publish an app count on any page that renders, so the size of the ecosystem is unverified. |
| Published rate limits | IncludedGrowth 100 req/min, Pro 400, Enterprise 700, trials 50. Per-endpoint sub-limits are lower and extra capacity is purchasable. | IncludedAll plans |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What Freshdesk costs
$19/seat/month
3 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
Seat (agent) + usage hybrid - Free tier
No, 14-day trial - AI pricing
$0.49 per AI session - Vendor calls it
Freddy AI Agent session - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Billed again - AI billing window
3d of inactivity - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Not offered
1 of 9 not published by Freshdesk, checked
What Intercom costs
$29/seat/month
4 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
Seat + usage hybrid - Free tier
No, 14-day trial - AI pricing
$0.99 per AI resolution - Vendor calls it
Outcome - Human handoff
Still billed - Reopened chat
Refunded - AI billing window
1d of inactivity - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Not offered