HomeIntercom alternative
An Intercom alternative that is not priced per seat and per answer
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 a 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
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
A chat agent that answers from your own content, floating in the corner of every page on your website — with 200 conversations a month included on the $19 plan, and a person able to take over at any point.
200 conversations a month on the $19 plan
The monthly allowance is 25 conversations on Free, 200 on Starter at $19/month, 1,000 on Growth, 5,000 on Business and 20,000 on Enterprise. A conversation counts once when it starts, not per message, and the counter resets at the start of each UTC month.
Past the cap it keeps answering, at a price you can see
On any paid plan the agent carries on past its allowance at $15 per 100 additional conversations — or part of 100, so one conversation over the line is one $15 pack, and we would rather say that than let you discover it on an invoice. Every account also carries a ceiling on how many packs it will buy, defaulting to ten ($150 of extra exposure), and at the ceiling the widget behaves exactly as it does with overage switched off. Free does not run an overage; it stops at 25.
It says it is an AI, always
Every conversation opens with a line naming the agent as your business’s AI assistant and noting that a human can take over. That line is not a setting — the widget will not render without it. When someone from your team does take over, the status changes to say so.
It answers from your site, not from the open internet
The agent is grounded in your own content, which is why it can answer a question about your pricing or your opening hours and will not invent a policy you never wrote. If a calendar is wired up it can also take a booking mid-conversation — and it only claims it can book when one actually is.
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 there are workflows that can email or Slack you when something needs attention. 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, this is the wrong tool and Intercom is a reasonable answer.
What does the AI answer from?
Your own content — the agent is given your site’s material as context rather than being asked to improvise. 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.
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 the ai chat, paste one line, 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.