Intercom vs Zoho Desk
A side-by-side comparison of Intercom and Zoho Desk 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 AI resolution and AI assist. Intercom starts at $29/seat/mo, Zoho Desk at Free, then $7/seat/mo.
| Measure | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $29/seat/mo | Free, then $7/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Each agent seat | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | $0.99 per AI resolution | API credit allowance, no rate published |
| Included, where the other says no | 4 capabilities | 1 capability |
Capability by capability
8 of the 39 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| IncludedAll plans | IncludedAll editions, including the three-user free plan | |
| Live chat | IncludedAll plans | IncludedBusiness messaging widget from Standard. Zoho SalesIQ live chat is an Enterprise bullet. |
| In-app messenger | IncludedAll plans | Not published |
| Voice | IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go | IncludedTelephony from Professional. Multi-level IVR is Enterprise. |
| SMS | IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go | Not published |
| IncludedAll plans, pay-as-you-go | IncludedStandard and above, in the instant messaging module | |
| Instagram / Facebook | Not published | IncludedSocial module from Express; Instagram and Messenger as instant messaging channels from Standard |
| X / Twitter | Not published | IncludedExpress and above. |
| 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. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Microsoft Teams | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| 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. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Video | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Co-browsing | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
Ticketing
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| 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 |
| Merge & split | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Side conversations | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Custom fields | Not published | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| Custom objects | Not published | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Ticket forms | Not published | IncludedExpress and above. |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Skills-based routing | Not publishedNot published. Round-robin assignment and workload management are named; routing on agent skill is not. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Round-robin assignment | IncludedAdvanced | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| 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. | Not published |
| Workflow builder | IncludedAdvanced | IncludedExpress and above. |
| 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. | IncludedExpress and above. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | IncludedAll plans, metered | IncludedExpress and above. Bring your own key or use Zoho's LLM, with up to 30M tokens a month free. |
| 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". | IncludedStandard and above. |
| 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. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Handoff to human | IncludedAll plans | Not publishedThe Answer bot and AI Agents are described by what they answer, not by what they do when they cannot. |
| 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 publishedNothing on the pricing page addresses citation or grounding limits. |
| Multilingual AI | IncludedAll plans | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
AI assist
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | IncludedExpress and above, but you bring the model: connect your own OpenAI or DeepSeek key. Zoho meters no per-use AI price because the inference is billed by whoever holds the key. |
| Tone rewrite | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Summarization | 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. | IncludedExpress and above, but you bring the model: connect your own OpenAI or DeepSeek key. Zoho meters no per-use AI price because the inference is billed by whoever holds the key. |
| Translation | IncludedAll plans, metered: 10 AI auto-translation conversations per agent per month are included free, matching the 10 free Copilot conversations. | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Next-best-action | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Auto-tagging | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Sentiment analysis | Not publishedNot published as a product feature. The Pro add-on analyses conversations for quality; sentiment is not named as an output. | IncludedExpress and above, but you bring the model: connect your own OpenAI or DeepSeek key. Zoho meters no per-use AI price because the inference is billed by whoever holds the key. |
AI voice
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | NoNot on any edition. Telephony arrives on Professional and a multi-level IVR on Enterprise, both of them conventional, with no AI layer over the call. |
| IVR replacement | Not publishedNot published. Fin Voice is sales-gated and no IVR or phone-tree capability is described on any reachable page. | NoNot on any edition. Telephony arrives on Professional and a multi-level IVR on Enterprise, both of them conventional, with no AI layer over the call. |
| Real-time transcription | Not published | NoNot on any edition. Telephony arrives on Professional and a multi-level IVR on Enterprise, both of them conventional, with no AI layer over the call. |
| Call summarization | Not published | NoNot on any edition. Telephony arrives on Professional and a multi-level IVR on Enterprise, both of them conventional, with no AI layer over the call. |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | IncludedAll plans | IncludedKnowledge base and ASAP self-service widget from Standard |
| Custom domain | Not published | IncludedExpress and above |
| Multi-brand | IncludedExpert | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Localization | IncludedAdvanced | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| 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. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| 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. | IncludedStandard and above. |
Self-service
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Order lookup | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Returns / RMA | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Account actions | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
QA & workforce
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| 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". | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Calibration | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Agent scorecards | Not published | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Forecasting | NoNo workforce management product. Workload management at Expert distributes conversations against capacity; it does not forecast contact volume or build a staffing plan. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| 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. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
| Adherence tracking | NoNo adherence tracking. Nothing in the plan comparison measures agents against a schedule, because there is no schedule to measure against. | NoNot on any edition. None of the five tiers lists quality assurance or workforce management. |
Reporting
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | IncludedAll plans, as pre-built reports. | Not published |
| Custom reports | IncludedAdvanced and above. Essential is limited to the pre-built set. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| 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. | IncludedModule export is self-serve on all editions, capped at 50,000 records per export. Attachment-inclusive Data Backup is Standard and above, one full backup per month. |
| 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. | Not published |
| CSAT / NPS | Not publishedNot published in the plan comparison. Conversation ratings are widely used in the product but appear on no reachable pricing or plan page, so the tier gate cannot be established. | IncludedStandard and above. |
| Real-time reporting | IncludedExpert only. The real-time dashboard sits with SSO, HIPAA and SLAs behind the top tier. | Not published |
Collaboration
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| @mentions | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| 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. | IncludedExpress and above. |
| Collision detection | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
| Approvals | Not published | NoNot on any edition. The five tiers each enumerate what they add and this is in none of them. |
Enterprise
| Capability | Intercom | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | IncludedExpert | Not publishedThe matrix publishes SAML single sign-on for the help center (end users, Standard and above) and federated login, but has no row for agent-side SAML. Zoho handles agent identity at the Zoho Directory layer, outside this page. |
| SCIM provisioning | IncludedExpert in effect | Not publishedNot a row in the Desk comparison matrix. |
| 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. | IncludedFree and Express get default non-editable profiles. Standard 5 profiles and roles, Professional 25 and 25, Enterprise 50 profiles and 250 roles. |
| Audit logs | IncludedTeammate Activity Logs exist as a feature. Intercom does not publish which plan they require, and they have no documented export path. | IncludedEnterprise only. Unavailable on all four cheaper editions. |
| IP allowlist | IncludedIP restrictions are listed on the security page alongside SSO, 2FA and SCIM. No plan gate is published. | Not published |
| Sandbox environment | 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. | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| Multi-brand | IncludedExpert | IncludedEnterprise only. |
| HIPAA / BAA | IncludedExpert | Not publishedHIPAA appears as a datacenter certification for the US and Canada, and Desk gates ePHI field labeling to Professional and field encryption to Enterprise. Whether Zoho executes a BAA is not stated on either page. |
| SOC 2 | IncludedNot plan-gated | IncludedNot plan-gated. SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II attested at datacenter level for the US, Canada, Japan, UAE and Singapore facilities. |
| ISO 27001 | IncludedNot plan-gated | IncludedNot plan-gated. Listed for every datacenter region. |
| GDPR | IncludedNot plan-gated | IncludedNot plan-gated. Desk publishes anonymisation of agent and customer records as outlined in the GDPR. |
| Data residency | IncludedNot published | IncludedNot plan-gated, but fixed at signup: "Based on the country chosen there, the corresponding datacenter is chosen for your account." Nine regions (US, Europe, India, Australia, Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore) plus China on a separate datacenter. |
| 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 | Zoho Desk |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedAll plans | IncludedAll editions, budgeted in daily credits rather than a call rate. Free 5,000 credits per 24 hours. |
| 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. | IncludedProfessional and above. |
| 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 | IncludedPer-edition daily credit budgets are published, along with a 50-record cap per request. The separate per-edition concurrency limit is acknowledged but its value is not published. |
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 Zoho Desk costs
$7/seat/month
5 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
Per agent seat - Free tier
Yes - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
API credit - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Not offered
4 of 9 not published by Zoho Desk, checked