In short
- Intercom charges per seat plus $0.99 per Fin outcome; Kommio Cloud has neither.
- Kommio's AI agent answers only from your knowledge base with a cited source, on the free AI allowance or your own key and budget, and is off by default.
- Intercom is stronger for in-app messaging, product tours and outbound campaigns, which Kommio does not do.
- An Intercom importer is planned; today contacts move by CSV and history through the API.
What Intercom costs, and what Kommio costs
Intercom charges per seat per month plus usage: Essential $29, Advanced $85 and Expert $132 per seat, with the Fin AI Agent at $0.99 per outcome (counted when a customer confirms a resolution, stops asking after Fin answers, or Fin completes a workflow, hand-offs included). There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. (Intercom's pricing page, checked 20 October 2026.)
Kommio Cloud is free: no seat pricing, no plan tiers, every feature and every channel, under the fair-use limits. The limits enforced today are request rates (600 API requests a minute per key) and file rules (25 MB per attachment); the published reference levels, such as 50,000 new conversations a month or 20 GB of files per workspace, are where Kommio would talk to you, not cut you off. Sign-up is self-serve at app.kommio.io.
Where Intercom is stronger
- A polished in-app messenger with product tours and outbound messaging in the same tool.
- Fin, a capable AI agent with a large share of resolved conversations in Intercom's own reporting.
- Strong for SaaS onboarding and engagement, not only support.
Where Kommio is different
AI with no per-outcome fee
AI assist (reply suggestions, tone, translation, summaries) and the AI agent run on Kommio Cloud's free monthly AI allowance, or on your workspace's own key with a monthly budget. The AI agent answers customers only from your knowledge base, shows an "Automated reply" label with its source, and hands over on uncertainty, upset customers, set topics or a reply limit.
Email as a first-class channel
Email threads are conversations with proper threading, signatures and bounce handling, through Microsoft 365 or Google sign-in or IMAP and SMTP, in the same list as chat, WhatsApp and Telegram.
Data a contractor cannot see
Roles show, mask or hide fields per role, payment and ID-document fields are never sent to the AI provider, and every reveal of a masked value is audited.
Built to be built on
A versioned OpenAPI contract with a generated TypeScript client, signed webhooks with a delivery ledger and replay, agent bots, apps with panels beside the conversation, and a Reports API for BI tools.
Choose Intercom when
- Your support lives inside your own web or mobile app and you want product tours and campaigns in the same tool.
- You want an AI agent priced per outcome without managing a provider key.
- Cloud only is fine and per-seat pricing fits your budget.
Choose Kommio when
- Email and chat matter equally and you also answer WhatsApp, Telegram or Slack.
- You want AI with no per-outcome fee: on a free monthly allowance, or on your own provider account with a budget you set.
- You have compliance requirements around who sees customer data.
Kommio and Intercom, feature by feature
Checked against Intercom's public documentation and pricing page on 20 October 2026; Intercom is a trademark of its owner and Kommio is not affiliated with it. Plans change, so check their site before you decide, and tell [email protected] if a mark is out of date.
| Feature | Kommio | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Core | ||
| Conversation model | One conversation model with data-driven statuses (chat speed plus ticket states) | Conversations |
| Channels | ||
| Shared email inboxKommio: IMAP and SMTP, or Microsoft 365 and Google sign-in | ✓ | ✓ |
| Website live chat | ✓ | ✓ |
| WhatsAppKommio: your number on the WhatsApp Business Cloud API, through your own Meta app | ✓ | ✓ |
| Messenger, Instagram, TelegramKommio: Messenger and Instagram through your own Meta app, Telegram through a bot; Slack channels shared with business customers too | ✓ | ✓ |
| Two-way SMSKommio: through your own Twilio account, with MMS and STOP opt-outs | ✓ | ◐ |
| Deployment | ||
| Self-hosted option | ✓ | — |
| Choice of data regionKommio: cloud region or your own infrastructure | ✓ | ◐ |
| Access control | ||
| Custom roles and permissions | ✓ | ◐ |
| Conversation visibility by team, inbox or assignment | ✓ | ◐ |
| Per-role field masking (show, mask or hide an email, phone or payment field)Kommio: also on custom attributes you tag as ID, payment or other personal data | ✓ | — |
| Audit trail with before and after values | ✓ | ◐ |
| Productivity | ||
| Automation rules and macros | ✓ | ✓ |
| SLA policies and business hoursKommio: first-response and resolution targets by inbox and priority, wall clock or business hours with holidays, attainment in reports and a breach trigger | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visual chatbot flow builder with hand-off to a personKommio: several bots and flows per inbox, in order, with conditions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full-text search across every message | ✓ | ✓ |
| Knowledge | ||
| AI reply suggestions and summaries for agentsKommio: on your own Anthropic or OpenAI-compatible key | ✓ | ✓ |
| Help center and knowledge baseKommio: versioned articles in your languages, public or internal, and a Help tab in the chat | ✓ | ✓ |
| Developers | ||
| No-code data pulls from your own systems into the conversationKommio: data connectors with recipes for Stripe, Shopify and HubSpot | ✓ | ✓ |
| Public REST API and webhooks | ✓ | ✓ |
| Versioned OpenAPI contract with a generated client | ✓ | ◐ |
| Plugins or apps inside the agent screen | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reporting | ||
| Reporting with medians and p90Kommio: backlog, SLA attainment, staffing and channel mix too, with saved views, CSV and Excel exports and a Reports API for BI tools | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys with reportsKommio: by agent, team, inbox, tag and channel, with the responses and comments behind every number | ✓ | ✓ |
| Branding | ||
| Brand theming by tokens across the chat widget and the agent app | ✓ | ◐ |
✓ Included◐ Partial, add-on or higher plans— Not offered◷ On the Kommio roadmap
What Kommio does not do yet
- No product tours, outbound campaigns or broadcast messages; SMS and WhatsApp are for conversations, and WhatsApp template messages are planned.
- No Intercom importer yet: it is planned after the Zendesk importer.
- The free AI allowance is small and covers one model (Claude Haiku 5.5); heavier AI use needs your own provider key, as Kommio does not resell model usage. Search by meaning on Kommio Cloud is still being built (keyword search today).
- The chat widget is for websites; there are no native mobile SDKs.
Moving from Intercom to Kommio today
An Intercom importer is planned on the same framework as the Chatwoot importer. Until it ships:
- Contacts by CSV. Export your people from Intercom and upload the file in Contacts › Import, mapping columns to emails, phones, company, tags and custom attributes; preview before importing.
- Swap the messenger. Replace the Intercom snippet with Kommio's one script tag. For signed-in users, sign their identity on your server with the HMAC Kommio documents (server code in five languages and test vectors).
- Bring the knowledge. Recreate your help articles in the knowledge base (versioned, per language), or add your public help pages as a website source for the AI agent.
- History through the API. Past conversations can be written through the REST API; write to [email protected] to plan it.
Identify signed-in visitors: server code and test vectors
Frequently asked questions
How much does an AI agent cost on Kommio?
Kommio charges nothing for it. On Kommio Cloud it can run on the free monthly AI allowance (Claude Haiku 5.5 on Kommio's Anthropic account, under fair use); with your workspace's own Anthropic or OpenAI-compatible key instead, you pay the provider for the tokens used, within a monthly budget you set. It is off until an administrator turns it on.
Can I import my Intercom conversations?
Not with a one-click importer yet: an Intercom importer is planned. Today contacts come in by CSV and history through the REST API, with help from [email protected].
Does Kommio have product tours or outbound campaigns like Intercom?
No. Kommio is a support platform: it has proactive chat messages on your website, but no product tours, email campaigns or broadcasts.
What does Kommio send to the AI provider?
Only what a task needs: recent messages and the customer's name, with emails or phones only when the person asking may see them. Payment and identity-document fields, card numbers typed into messages and custom attributes are never sent, and Kommio stores no prompts or answers.
Facts on this page describe Kommio as it is on the date above; anything marked planned is on the roadmap, not shipped. Corrections to [email protected].