Comparisons / AI Agents & Chatbots
Chatwoot vs Fin (formerly Intercom)
Chatwoot bills flat rate and Fin (formerly Intercom) bills per resolution. Which one is cheaper changes as your volume grows, so the headline rates will not tell you.
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Which One to Pick
Pick Chatwoot if
- Teams that cannot use vendor clouds. Data residency requirements, regulated sectors, or policy constraints. This is the only option here that fully qualifies, and for those teams it is the answer regardless of the alternatives.
- Teams with idle engineering capacity. If you already have the skills in-house and spare time, self-hosting genuinely is cheap. If you are hiring or diverting people to do it, it is not.
- Cost-sensitive teams wanting a cheap cloud help desk. At $19 per agent with a free two-agent tier, Chatwoot Cloud is among the cheapest hosted options in this directory.
Look elsewhere if: Chatwoot is the wrong choice if autonomous resolution is your goal — Captain AI is competent but not competitive with Fin, Ada or Lyro, and the platform does not claim otherwise. It is also the wrong choice if you are attracted to self-hosting purely because it is free: price your own engineering time first, because that number usually exceeds several years of cloud subscription. And with estimated revenue under $1 million, teams needing enterprise vendor support should weigh that carefully.
Pick Fin (formerly Intercom) if
- Existing Intercom customers. If you already run Intercom, Fin is close to a default. The integration advantage is real and the deployment cost is genuinely low. You are mostly deciding whether the per-resolution economics work at your volume.
- Teams with low to moderate ticket volume. Under roughly 2,000 resolutions a month, per-resolution pricing is predictable and comfortably cheaper than headcount. This is where the model is genuinely well suited.
- Teams that need quality over cost. Where a wrong answer is expensive, Fin's confidence gating and maturity justify the premium. Paying more per resolution to resolve fewer things badly is a reasonable trade.
Look elsewhere if: Do not buy Fin if you have high ticket volume and a tight support budget. Above roughly 5,000 monthly resolutions the per-resolution model works against you, and the better you tune it the worse the economics get. Teams in that position should model the invoice at their actual volume before committing, and look seriously at flat-rate or per-seat alternatives.
Evidence Scores Compared
Five criteria verifiable from published material. Green at 3.0 and above, red below. Not a performance rating.
| Criterion | Chatwoot | Fin (formerly Intercom) |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing transparency | ||
| Capability | ||
| Independence | ||
| Independent evidence | ||
| Cost predictability | ||
| Overall | 3.8 | 4.2 |
Pricing Compared
Different billing models, so the only honest comparison is total cost at your own volume. The arithmetic at 500, 5,000 and 50,000 tickets.
| Chatwoot | Fin (formerly Intercom) | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $19 /agent/mo | $29 /seat/mo |
| Billing model | Flat rate | Per resolution |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Buy without a sales call | Yes | Yes |
| Who owns it | Independent | Salesforce (pending) |
| Independent review evidence | Thin | G2 4.5/5 from 3,409 |
| HIPAA | Unknown | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that cannot send customer data to a third-party cloud | Teams already on Fin who can absorb variable per-resolution billing |
Chatwoot pricing
- Hacker (cloud) — $0. Up to 2 agents
- Startups (cloud) — $19 /agent/mo. Includes 300 Captain AI credits/mo
- Business (cloud) — $39 /agent/mo. Most popular tier
- Enterprise (cloud) — $99 /agent/mo. Top cloud tier
- Community (self-hosted) — $0. Open source. Your infrastructure, your maintenance
Two models. Self-hosted: the community edition is free, with paid tiers available for premium support and enterprise features. Cloud: Hacker at $0 for up to two agents, Startups at $19 per agent per month with 300 Captain AI credits, Business at $39, Enterprise at $99. Additional AI credits run about $20 per 1,000.
The free self-hosted option deserves an honest accounting, because free licence is not free software. Standing up Chatwoot, configuring channels, maintaining it, handling upgrades and — if you want real automation — building an n8n pipeline on top is realistically a week of competent engineering time to start and ongoing hours thereafter. At any reasonable contractor rate that first week exceeds a year of Chatwoot Cloud Startups for a five-agent team, which would be $1,140.
Self-hosting becomes correct in three situations: data residency rules genuinely prohibit vendor clouds, you have idle in-house engineering capacity, or you are at a scale where per-seat pricing has become punitive. Outside those, the cloud tier is almost always the cheaper real cost.
Note also that Captain AI credits are metered separately from seats, so the $19 does not cover unlimited AI usage. This is the same two-meter structure Tidio uses and it makes total cost less predictable than the seat price suggests.
Fin (formerly Intercom) pricing
- Essential — $29 /seat/mo. Fin included at $0.99 per outcome
- Advanced — $85 /seat/mo. Multiple team inboxes, workflow automation
- Expert — $132 /seat/mo. SSO, identity management, HIPAA support
- Fin AI Agent standalone — $0.99 /outcome. No seats. 50-outcome monthly minimum. Works on Salesforce, HubSpot and others
- Fin sales qualification — $9.99 /qualification. Ten times the support rate for the same mechanical act
- Copilot add-on — $29 /agent/mo billed annually. $35 billed monthly. 10 conversations a month free per agent
- Pro add-on — $99 /mo. 1,000 conversations analysed, 2,000 Operator credits; extra credits $0.01
- Proactive Support Plus — $99 /mo. Includes 500 messages, then per unit
Fin costs $0.99 per resolution. That is the headline and it is genuinely published, unlike most enterprise competitors. Underneath it you also need Intercom seats, which one user reported at a $74 monthly seat fee before any AI usage.
The arithmetic is where this becomes contentious. At 10,000 resolutions a month, Fin costs $9,900 before seat costs. In many markets that exceeds the loaded cost of the support agents it replaces. The model works well at low volume and inverts at high volume, which is the opposite of how software pricing usually behaves.
The structural criticism is sharper than a simple cost complaint. Because you are charged per successful resolution, improving your help content, tuning your prompts, and getting Fin to work better all directly increase your bill. One support leader described it as being financially punished for making the product work. That is not a pricing tier problem; it is the model.
For context, Sierra prices on a similar outcome basis at roughly $1.50 per resolved interaction, negotiated rather than published. Fini publishes $0.69. Per-seat competitors like Zendesk and Freshdesk avoid the dynamic entirely but charge whether or not the AI does anything.
Both Tools in Depth
Chatwoot
Chatwoot is the answer to a question nothing else in this directory addresses: what if you cannot send customer conversations to somebody else's cloud? Founded in 2020, it is an open-source support platform you can run on your own infrastructure, and the community edition is free.
There is also a hosted option, and it is competitively priced. Cloud plans run Hacker at $0 for up to two agents, Startups at $19 per agent per month including 300 Captain AI credits, Business at $39 and Enterprise at $99. Additional AI credits are billed around $20 per 1,000. At $19 a seat, Chatwoot Cloud undercuts Freshdesk's $18 Growth tier only marginally but comes in well below Zendesk's $25 entry and $69 Suite Team.
The company is small. Third-party estimates put revenue somewhere between $319,000 and $870,000, which is a fraction of the venture-funded platforms elsewhere in this directory. For an open-source project that is not necessarily a problem — the code outlives the company, which is much of the point, but it is relevant if you are buying the cloud product and expecting enterprise support.
In practice Chatwoot appears most often in discussions among teams pairing it with n8n to build a custom AI layer. That combination recurs across self-hosting communities and is the realistic shape of a Chatwoot deployment for anyone who wants serious automation.
Self-hosting and data control
The community edition runs on your infrastructure with no licence cost and no customer data leaving your environment. For teams under data residency rules, in regulated sectors, or simply unwilling to send conversations to a vendor cloud, this is the only option in this directory that qualifies.
Captain AI
Chatwoot's own AI layer, included with credit allowances on paid cloud plans — 300 monthly on Startups, with more at roughly $20 per 1,000. It is competent for knowledge-base answering and nowhere near Fin, Ada or Decagon on autonomous resolution. Chatwoot is not competing on agent quality.
Fin (formerly Intercom)
Two things changed in mid-2026 and both matter more than any feature on this page. Intercom renamed itself Fin in May, folding the company identity into the product. A month later, on 15 June 2026, Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire it for approximately $3.6 billion, with closing expected in the fourth quarter of Salesforce's fiscal 2027. The deal has not closed, so Fin is still buyable on its own terms today — but anyone signing a multi-year term should ask directly how Fin and Salesforce's own Agentforce will coexist, because Salesforce now owns both.
Fin is the autonomous support agent formerly sold as Intercom's, and by most accounts the most polished product in this category. Intercom itself has been around since 2011, which matters here: Fin arrives attached to a mature help desk, an established content model, and an inbox that support teams already know. Where newer entrants have to solve both the agent problem and the workflow problem, Fin only had to solve one.
That maturity shows in deployment. Because Fin trains on help-centre content and past conversations already inside Intercom, teams that are Intercom customers can have it answering real tickets in hours rather than weeks. This is the single most consistent piece of praise it receives, including from people who are otherwise critical of it.
The controversy is entirely about price. Fin is billed at $0.99 per resolution on top of Intercom seat costs that start around $74 per seat per month. The rate is published, which is more than most competitors manage, but the model itself is what generates the complaints, and the complaints are loud, numerous, and unusually specific.
Resolution quality and confidence gating
Fin answers from your existing content and declines when confidence is low, passing the conversation to a human rather than guessing. This is the correct behaviour and it is implemented better here than in most cheaper tools, which tend to answer confidently regardless. The trade-off is that a conservatively-gated agent resolves fewer tickets, and since you pay per resolution, a well-tuned Fin is also a more expensive Fin.
Custom actions
Fin can call your APIs mid-conversation to look up an order, check a subscription state, or trigger a workflow. This is what separates an agent that answers questions from one that resolves them. Setting this up is engineering work, not configuration, and teams routinely underestimate it during evaluation.
Where Each One Breaks
Strengths and weaknesses on both sides, stated plainly.
Chatwoot
What works
- Open-source community edition, free to self-host
- Cloud plans from $19 per agent, undercutting most competitors
- Full data control — nothing leaves your infrastructure
- Free Hacker tier covers up to two agents on cloud
- Captain AI included with credits on paid plans
- Frequently paired with n8n for custom automation
Chatwoot is the only genuinely open-source, self-hostable option in this directory, and for teams under data residency constraints that makes it the answer regardless of how it compares on features. The community edition carries no licence cost and no customer data leaves your infrastructure. The cloud option is competitively cheap at $19 per agent with a free tier covering two agents, undercutting Zendesk substantially. Captain AI is included with credits on paid plans rather than gated behind a top tier, which compares favourably with Zoho holding Zia at $40. And the platform has an active pattern of being paired with n8n for custom automation, which means teams wanting to build rather than buy have a well-trodden path.
What does not
- Self-hosting is free in licence only — engineering time is the real cost
- Captain AI credits metered separately from seats
- Small company with estimated revenue under $1M
- AI capability trails the dedicated agent platforms
- Community edition lacks enterprise features and support
The free self-hosted edition is free in licence only, and the real cost — deployment, configuration, maintenance, upgrades, and building an n8n pipeline if you want serious automation — is realistically a week of engineering to start plus ongoing hours. For most teams that exceeds several years of cloud subscription, which makes self-hosting an expensive option that looks cheap. Captain AI is metered separately from seats at around $20 per 1,000 credits, so the $19 seat price is not the total. The AI itself trails the dedicated agent platforms and is not intended to compete with them. And the company is small, with third-party revenue estimates under $1 million, so teams expecting enterprise-grade vendor support should be realistic about what that buys.
Fin (formerly Intercom)
What works
- Product quality conceded even by the reviewers complaining about the price
- Fastest deployment in the category on content already in Intercom
- Confidence gating is well implemented
- Handoff preserves context because it is the same product, not an integration
- Publishes its rate, which most enterprise competitors here do not
The product quality is not seriously disputed, including by its critics. Reddit threads complaining about the price routinely open by conceding that Fin works — one described it as probably the most polished AI agent available, immediately before objecting to the cost. Deployment speed on existing Intercom content is the fastest in the category. Confidence gating is well implemented, and the handoff into the human inbox preserves context because it is not an integration but the same product. Intercom also publishes its rate, which sounds like a low bar until you notice that most enterprise competitors in this directory publish nothing at all.
What does not
- Every successful resolution is billable, so improving the system raises the bill
- An r/SaaS thread of 70+ comments reported billing rising 120% after enabling AI
- An analysis of 215 Intercom reviews repeatedly calls the per-resolution charge a trap
- Cannot be bought standalone; it needs Intercom seats underneath, reported around $74
- The resolution definition that decides your invoice is easy to miss during a trial
The pricing model is the defining problem and it is structural rather than a matter of tiers. Because every successful resolution is billable, every improvement you make to the system increases your costs — a support leader on r/CustomerSuccess described being financially punished for making Fin work well. Public reports of bill shock are numerous and specific: one r/SaaS thread with 70+ comments described billing rising 120% after enabling AI, and an analysis of 215 Intercom reviews found the per-resolution charge repeatedly characterised as a trap. You also cannot buy Fin standalone; it requires Intercom seats underneath, reported around $74 each. Finally, the resolution definition that determines your invoice is not something most buyers examine closely during a trial, and it should be the first thing they check.
Where Each One Lands
Our reading of each, unchanged from its own review page.
Chatwoot
Chatwoot exists for teams that cannot put customer conversations in somebody else's cloud, and for them it is the only option here that qualifies. Everyone else should treat the free self-hosted edition sceptically and price their own engineering time before choosing it — that number usually exceeds several years of the $19 cloud tier. As a cheap hosted help desk it is competitive; as an AI agent it is not trying to compete with Fin or Ada, and does not pretend to.
Fin (formerly Intercom)
Fin is the best autonomous support agent most teams can buy today, and whether you should buy it is almost entirely a maths question rather than a product question. Under roughly 2,000 resolutions a month it is excellent and the pricing is fair. Above 5,000 the model turns against you, and it turns against you faster the better you make it work. Model your actual volume before signing, and read the resolution definition carefully.
Frequently Asked
Questions people search about Chatwoot and Fin (formerly Intercom).
Is Chatwoot really free?
The self-hosted licence is free. Standing it up is roughly a week of engineering, and you then own hosting, upgrades, backups and on-call. Cloud plans run $19-99 per agent.
Is Intercom the same as Fin?
They are now the same company. Intercom renamed itself Fin in May 2026, folding the company name into its AI agent product. Comparisons that still treat them as two things are out of date.
Is Chatwoot a good Zendesk alternative?
For data residency or full control, yes. As a cost saving it frequently is not — a week of engineering plus hosting plus maintenance often exceeds a small team's Freshdesk or Zoho bill.
Who owns Fin?
Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fin, formerly Intercom, for approximately $3.6B on 15 June 2026. The deal is expected to close in Q4 of Salesforce FY2027 and has not closed, so Fin still operates independently today.
Does Chatwoot have AI?
It ships Captain and an OpenAI integration. Anything more capable means wiring your own service or n8n, which is where the honest cost of self-hosting sits.
Is Fin worth it for a small team?
Under roughly 2,000 monthly resolutions, usually — it is the most capable agent available and the seat cost is modest at five or six agents. Above that the per-resolution model compounds against you faster than headcount would.
Is Chatwoot really free?
The self-hosted community edition carries no licence fee. It is not free in practice — deployment, maintenance and any custom AI pipeline is realistically a week of engineering to start plus ongoing time.
How much does Fin actually cost?
$0.99 per resolution, plus Intercom seats underneath at a reported ~$74 per seat per month. At 10,000 monthly resolutions that is $9,900 in usage before seat costs.
How much is Chatwoot Cloud?
Hacker $0 for up to two agents, Startups $19 per agent per month with 300 Captain AI credits, Business $39, Enterprise $99. Extra AI credits run about $20 per 1,000.
What counts as a resolution?
This is the question that determines your invoice, and vendors define it differently. We are documenting each vendor's definition from their own materials; until that is published we will not summarise Intercom's for you second-hand.
Sources
Every external fact above traces to one of these.