HomeIntercom alternative
An Intercom alternative not priced per seat
Intercom bills per seat and again per AI resolution, so a good month costs more. Sorraia bills one plan with a conversation allowance and a ceiling you can calculate before you switch it on.
Free plan, no card. Paid plans start at $19 a month.
Why people look for an Intercom alternative
Intercom’s price has two axes and both of them move when things go well. A seat is $29 a month billed annually, and Fin, its AI agent, is $0.99 per resolution on top of that (both as of September 2026) — so a month where the AI successfully handles more questions is a month with a larger invoice, and there is no arrangement of those two numbers that produces a fixed figure you can quote a client at the start of a project. There is no free tier to test the shape on before you commit. Sorraia has one axis: the plan. Two hundred AI conversations are included at $19 a month, and past them it is $15 per hundred against an account-level ceiling on how many packs it will ever buy, defaulting to ten. The worst case is arithmetic you can do in advance, which is a different kind of product decision from a per-outcome meter — not automatically a better one, but a knowable one.
The differences that are structural, not marketing
Every claim below was read from Intercom’s own pricing or documentation on 3 September 2026, and each one links the page it came from. If one of them has gone stale since, the linked page wins and we would rather you found out there than took our word for it.
Intercom’s prices below were read in US dollars on 3 September 2026. Prices change and vary by region, so treat their pricing page as the authority rather than this one.
Per seat, and then per outcome
Intercom charges $29 per seat per month billed annually, and Fin resolutions are $0.99 each on top (as of September 2026). Both lines grow with success: more agents, and more questions the AI answers well. Sorraia charges a flat per-tier subscription with unlimited users — the Stripe quantity is always one — and meters only AI conversations, which are included up to the plan’s allowance before any overage exists at all.
Source: intercom.com · checked 3 September 2026
There is no free tier
Intercom runs trials and startup programmes but no standing free plan, so a first look happens on a paid footing. Sorraia’s Free plan includes 25 AI conversations a month on one verified website, with no card, which is enough to watch the agent answer from your own content and decide whether it is any good before money is involved.
Source: intercom.com · checked 3 September 2026
A per-outcome meter is hard to pass through to a client
This is the agency-shaped consequence of the row above. If you run a site on someone else’s behalf, a bill that moves with resolutions is one you cannot turn into a fixed monthly line on your own invoice without absorbing the variance yourself. Sorraia’s exposure is bounded by design: the allowance is in the plan, the overage is $15 per 100 or part of 100, and the pack ceiling caps the month. You can state the maximum before the traffic exists.
Source: intercom.com · checked 3 September 2026
Side by side
The same four questions for both. Every Intercom cell repeats a claim from the section above and links the page it was read from; where we hold no claim from Intercom’s own pages, the cell says so instead of guessing.
| Compared | Sorraia | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Styling to your site | A launcher on every page; you set its accent colour in the chat builder. | Not compared |
| Client access | A client login is scoped to one site and shows that site’s submissions, bookings and orders, not its chat conversations. No per-seat charge. | Not compared |
| Payments to the client’s own Stripe | Not applicable | |
| Price | Free plan; paid plans from $19 a month | $29 per seat per month billed annually, plus $0.99 per Fin AI resolution (as of September 2026). No free tier.Source: intercom.com · checked 3 September 2026 |
See it working
There is a live one on this page already. The chat button in the bottom corner is a Sorraia AI chat agent — ours, answering from this site’s own content. Open it and ask it something; it will tell you it is an AI before you ask.
What you get with Sorraia
- Answers from the pages it has indexed on your site
- Says so when the answer isn’t there
- An AI disclosure line on every chat
- 25 conversations a month on Free
- Live with one copy-paste
Free plan with no time limit, no card.
More detail in the Help Center: The AI chat agent · Plans and limits
When Intercom is the better choice
When you have a support organisation, Intercom is not the expensive option — it is the right one. A shared inbox with real workload management, SLAs and routing rules, a help centre that Fin answers from, product tours and outbound messaging, ticketing, and reporting built for a team of agents rather than for one person checking a log. Fin is genuinely strong at resolving real tickets. Sorraia is a chat widget with an AI agent and a takeover button, and calling that a replacement for a support platform would be a lie you would discover in week two. If people’s job titles include the word “support”, buy the support platform.
Questions
Can Sorraia replace a support inbox?
No, and it is not trying to. There is a Conversations log where you can read what the agent has been asked and step in to take over a live conversation, and when the agent hands a conversation off, your team gets one email about it. What there is not: ticket assignment, SLAs, workload routing, a help centre the AI answers from, or reporting on agent performance. If those are the requirements, Sorraia is the wrong tool.
What does the AI answer from?
The pages Sorraia has indexed on your site, and when the answer is not there, it says so. It always discloses that it is an AI before the conversation starts, that disclosure is not a setting, and a person from your team can take over at any point, at which point the widget says a human is answering.
What happens when the agent cannot answer?
It says it does not have that detail and offers to hand the visitor to your team. When a conversation is handed off, Sorraia sends one email with the conversation so far — to the address you set in the Handoff tab, or to the account owner — and the conversation can be picked up from the Conversations page.
How do I keep the AI bill predictable?
Each paid plan includes a monthly allowance — 200 conversations on Starter at $19 a month. Past it, extra conversations are $15 per 100 or part of 100, added to your next invoice, and each account has a ceiling on how many packs it will buy: ten by default, so $150 a month at most unless we raise it for you. You can also switch extra conversations off on the Billing page.
Try it on one site before you move anything
The free plan covers one verified website with no card, and the embed is the same one you would use on a paid plan. Build an AI chat widget, put it live with one copy-paste, and see how it looks on a page you already own.
Intercom is a trademark of Intercom, Inc. Sorraia is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Intercom.