Intercom vs Pylon
A side-by-side comparison of Intercom and Pylon on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
Capability by capability
Nothing we track differs between them.
Channels
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| IncludedAll plans | IncludedAny address, plus Gmail and Outlook Mail connectors. | |
| Live chat | IncludedAll plans | IncludedChat widget with mobile SDKs. |
| In-app messenger | IncludedAll plans | Not published |
| Voice | IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go | IncludedListed as a Phone and SMS channel. No voice pricing or minute rate is published. |
| SMS | IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go | IncludedListed as a Phone and SMS channel. |
| IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go | Included | |
| Slack Connect | Not publishedA Slack integration is included on every plan, but Intercom does not say whether it covers Slack Connect shared channels, which is the thing a B2B support team actually needs. Recorded as Unknown rather than credited. | IncludedUnknown. No plan table is published, so no channel can be shown as gated or ungated. |
| Microsoft Teams | Not published | IncludedUnknown. No plan table is published. |
| Community forum | 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. | Not published |
Ticketing
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | IncludedAll plans. Multiple team inboxes arrive at Advanced, so the entry plan is a single shared inbox. | Not published |
| Ticket queues | IncludedAll plans carry the ticketing system. The customer-facing tickets portal is Advanced and above. | Not published |
| SLA policies | IncludedExpert | Not published |
| Business hours | IncludedExpert only, as team office hours, alongside team reply time settings. Neither is available on Essential or Advanced. | Not published |
| Macros / saved replies | Not published | IncludedProduct feature with a dedicated API endpoint, so saved replies are extractable. |
| Custom fields | Not published | Included |
| Custom objects | Not published | Included |
| Ticket forms | Not published | Included |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Round-robin assignment | IncludedAdvanced | Not published |
| Load balancing | IncludedExpert only, as workload management. Advanced gets round-robin assignment but not capacity-aware distribution. | Not published |
| Triggers | IncludedSimple automations are on every plan; the Workflows automation builder starts at Advanced. | IncludedDocumented product feature. Absent from the API reference index, so trigger logic cannot be exported. |
| Workflow builder | IncludedAdvanced | Not published |
| Escalation rules | 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. | Not published |
AI resolution
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedAll plans, metered | Not published |
| Resolution over knowledge base | 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". | Not published |
| Action-taking (API calls) | 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. | Not published |
| Handoff to human | IncludedAll plans | Not published |
| Guardrails & citations | 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. | Not published |
| Multilingual AI | IncludedAll plans | Not published |
AI assist
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | 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. | Not published |
| Translation | IncludedAll plans, metered: 10 AI auto-translation conversations per agent per month are included free, matching the 10 free Copilot conversations. | Not published |
AI voice
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | 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. | Not published |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | IncludedAll plans | Not published |
| Multi-brand | IncludedExpert | Not published |
| Localization | IncludedAdvanced | Not published |
| In-product widget | 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. | Not published |
| AI answers over KB | IncludedAll plans. Fin is included on every tier and answers from help centre content; only the outcomes it produces are charged. | Not published |
Self-service
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot flows | 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. | Not published |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation QA scoring | 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. | Not published |
| Automated QA coverage | 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". | Not published |
| Forecasting | NoNo workforce management product. Workload management at Expert distributes conversations against capacity; it does not forecast contact volume or build a staffing plan. | Not published |
| Scheduling | 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. | Not published |
| Adherence tracking | NoNo adherence tracking. Nothing in the plan comparison measures agents against a schedule, because there is no schedule to measure against. | Not published |
Reporting
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | IncludedAll plans, as pre-built reports. | Not published |
| Custom reports | IncludedAdvanced and above. Essential is limited to the pre-built set. | Not published |
| Raw data export | 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. | Not published |
| Data warehouse sync | 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. | IncludedUnknown. No plan table is published. |
| Real-time reporting | IncludedExpert only. The real-time dashboard sits with SSO, HIPAA and SLAs behind the top tier. | Not published |
Collaboration
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment | 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. | Not published |
Enterprise
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | IncludedExpert | Not publishedRoles and User Management documentation exists, but SSO is not named on the trust page or in the docs security overview. |
| SCIM provisioning | IncludedExpert in effect | Not publishedNot named anywhere on the trust page or in the security documentation. |
| Role-based access control | IncludedTeammate roles exist and can be mapped from identity provider groups, which ties the useful version of this to SCIM and therefore to Expert. | Not published |
| Custom roles | IncludedTeammate roles, mappable from identity-provider groups. The plan gate is not published. | IncludedUnknown. No plan table is published. |
| Audit logs | IncludedTeammate Activity Logs exist as a feature. Intercom does not publish which plan they require, and they have no documented export path. | IncludedUnknown. No plan table is published. |
| IP allowlist | IncludedIP restrictions are listed on the security page alongside SSO, 2FA and SCIM. No plan gate is published. | Not published |
| Multi-brand | IncludedExpert | Not published |
| HIPAA / BAA | IncludedExpert | IncludedEnterprise tier only. Verbatim: "We're happy to sign a BAA in the enterprise plan". |
| SOC 2 | IncludedNot plan-gated | IncludedNo gate stated. SOC 2 Type 2, monitored via Vanta. |
| ISO 27001 | IncludedNot plan-gated | IncludedNo gate stated. ISO 27001 plus ISO 42001 for AI management systems. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated | IncludedNo gate stated. DPA available on request. |
| Data residency | IncludedNot published | Not publishedNo region choice is stated on the trust page, in the docs security overview, or on the trust center at trust.usepylon.com. |
| Data retention policy | 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". | Not published |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | IncludedDocumented as a GDPR workflow, covering both export and deletion of a contact's data on request. | Not published |
Developer
| Capability | Intercom | Pylon |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedAll plans | Included |
| Webhooks | Not publishedNot published on the pricing page or in the plan comparison. The REST API is documented with generous limits; webhooks are not named. | Included |
| SDKs | 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. | Not published |
| App framework | 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. | Not published |
| Published rate limits | IncludedAll plans | Not publishedNo rate limit is stated on the API reference index, the Authentication page or the Errors page. |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
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
What Pylon costs
- Billing unit
No price is published anywhere - Free tier
Not published - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
Not published - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Partial
6 of 9 not published by Pylon, checked