Intercom vs Zendesk in 2026: pricing, AI agents and which one fits

Intercom charges per seat plus usage: $29, $85 or $132 per seat a month billed annually, and $0.99 for each outcome its Fin AI Agent delivers. Zendesk charges $19 to $115 per agent a month, quotes Suite Enterprise through sales and bills its AI agents per verified resolution beyond an allowance included with each seat.

Intercom is built around its chat Messenger and Fin, and Salesforce now owns the company behind both. Zendesk is built around ticketing, with telephony in every Suite plan and add-ons for workforce engagement and a contact center. All prices in this guide are USD list prices from the vendors’ own pages, checked September 27, 2026: Intercom pricing, Fin pricing and Zendesk pricing. It covers plans, AI billing, channels, help centers, what changed in 2026, what 10 seats pay and how to move between the two, and ends with a third option for software teams.

Intercom vs Zendesk at a glance

Prices are billed annually and were checked on September 27, 2026.

Seat prices and plans

Both vendors charge per teammate: Intercom calls them seats, Zendesk agents. On September 27, 2026, Intercom’s pricing page showed Essential at $29 per seat a month billed annually to some visitors and at $19 to others, as part of a price test; this guide uses $29.

Prices are per seat or agent per month, and each plan includes the one above it from the same vendor. Lite seats on Intercom’s Advanced and Expert plans give colleagues limited access for internal use; every teammate who answers customers needs a full seat. Our guides to Intercom pricing and Zendesk pricing list the add-ons and more example bills.

AI agents: Fin outcomes versus Zendesk AI resolutions

Both vendors include an AI agent on every plan and bill it by usage, but they count different things.

Intercom: $0.99 per Fin outcome. Intercom charges one outcome per conversation, even when Fin takes several actions (Fin AI Agent outcomes, accessed September 27, 2026):

1. Resolution. After Fin’s last answer, the customer confirms the answer helped or leaves without asking for more help. A reply to a greeting alone does not count.
2. Procedure handoff. Fin completes a Procedure you configured to end in a handoff to a person or a workflow.
3. Sales outcomes. A disqualification or a self-serve routing costs $0.99, and a qualified lead costs $9.99.

If a customer returns to a resolved conversation for more help, even in a later billing period, Intercom deducts the resolution. You can set usage reminders and hard limits. Fin Voice, for phone support, is priced through Intercom’s sales team.

Zendesk: per verified resolution. Each agent seat adds a monthly resolution allowance: $2 on Support plans and Suite Team, $5 on Suite Professional and $10 on Suite Enterprise, up to $5,000 a year, and unused allowance does not carry over (Managing resolution allowances, accessed September 27, 2026). Since May 18, 2026, assisted escalations and contained resolutions do not count against the allowance; verified resolutions, which a language model confirms after the conversation ends, do (About automated resolution tiers, accessed September 27, 2026). Beyond the allowance, resolutions are billed pay-as-you-go by default, or the AI agents pause if you turn overage off. Zendesk does not publish the price per resolution.

The difference matters in practice. Intercom publishes its unit price and bills handoffs that a Procedure completes. Zendesk bills only verified resolutions, but you need a quote to know what each one costs.

Assistants for agents. Intercom’s Copilot costs $29 per agent a month billed annually, or $35 monthly, and every agent gets 10 Copilot conversations a month free. Zendesk’s Copilot costs $50 per agent a month billed annually and can be added to Suite Professional and higher plans.

Fin on Zendesk. You do not need the Intercom helpdesk to use Fin. Fin for Zendesk answers in Zendesk messaging on web, mobile and social channels, on Zendesk tickets from email and contact forms, and in Fin’s own Messenger. When Fin cannot resolve a conversation, it hands it to your team in Zendesk, which stays the system of record. Fin’s help center lists $49 a month including 50 AI resolutions, then $0.99 per additional resolution, with no seat-based pricing and minimum commitments (Fin for Zendesk explained, updated July 22, 2026).

Inbox, channels and ticketing

Intercom. Essential includes the Messenger for live chat, a shared inbox and ticketing, pre-built reports and basic automation. Advanced adds a workflow automation builder, multiple team inboxes and round robin assignment, and Expert adds SLAs, SSO and HIPAA support. Intercom handles email, live chat through the Messenger, phone, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and SMS in one inbox (Intercom, checked September 27, 2026). WhatsApp, SMS, phone and email campaigns are billed by usage, while inbound email support is included. Product tours, surveys, in-app messages and mobile push come with the Proactive Support Plus add-on, at $99 a month for 500 messages.

Zendesk. Support Team covers email ticketing with routing, prebuilt dashboards, pre-written responses, automations and triggers. Suite Team adds messaging and live chat, telephony, omnichannel routing and social messaging through WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct, LINE, WeChat, X direct messages and Apple Messages for Business (Getting started with social messaging, accessed September 27, 2026). Suite Professional adds skills-based routing and an IVR phone tree. Zendesk bills App Builder, Action Builder and Voice by usage beyond the plan’s allowances, and sells a Contact Center product at $83 per agent a month.

In short, Intercom is built around the Messenger and outbound messages for support inside a website or app. Zendesk is built around ticketing, with an IVR phone tree on Suite Professional and add-ons for workforce engagement and a contact center.

Help center and knowledge

Intercom includes a help center on every plan: public on Essential, private and multilingual on Advanced, and multibrand on Expert. On Zendesk, a help center is included from Suite Team; for Support plans, Zendesk sells its Knowledge product separately (About the Zendesk Knowledge plan types, accessed September 27, 2026).

Some teams run both: a Zendesk help center that feeds Fin in Intercom. Intercom’s current Zendesk article sync connects with a Zendesk API token (Sync public articles with Zendesk, dated August 25, 2026). Zendesk accounts created on or after July 28, 2026 cannot use API tokens, no account can create new ones from October 27, 2026, and all tokens stop working on April 30, 2027 (Zendesk announcement, accessed September 27, 2026). If you sync articles this way, ask Intercom how the sync will connect after that date.

What changed in 2026

1. Salesforce owns Fin. Salesforce agreed to acquire Fin, the company formerly called Intercom, on June 15, 2026, for about $3.6 billion (announcement), and completed the acquisition on September 10, 2026 (Salesforce). Fin joins Salesforce’s AI Labs, and Salesforce says Fin “will continue to serve its customers”. The release names a customer base of more than 30,000 companies and places Fin next to Agentforce, Salesforce’s own AI agent platform. It does not mention prices or plans, and on September 27, 2026, Intercom’s pricing page still sold the Intercom helpdesk and Fin AI Agent.
2. Zendesk bills AI in three tiers. Since May 18, 2026, only verified resolutions count against the allowance; assisted escalations and contained resolutions do not.
3. Zendesk bought Forethought. Zendesk completed its acquisition of Forethought on March 26, 2026, and sells Forethought AI agents that work within Zendesk and on other platforms, across chat, email and voice (Zendesk).
4. Zendesk is retiring API tokens. Tools that read Zendesk data with a token need another sign-in method, such as OAuth, before April 30, 2027.

For Intercom customers, the practical step is to read the renewal terms before a long contract. Prices and packaging can change after an acquisition, so check the current pricing page on the day you sign.

What a 10-seat team pays

These examples use annual list prices from September 27, 2026, before tax, with 1,000 AI conversations a month. The Fin rows assume that 60 percent of conversations end in a billable outcome, including Procedure handoffs; that rate is our assumption, not an Intercom figure. Zendesk does not publish its price per resolution, so its rows show seats and the included allowance.

Two lines grow on both. Seats grow with every hire. AI usage grows with automation: the more conversations Fin or Zendesk’s AI agents close, the larger that line.

Moving between Intercom and Zendesk

From Zendesk to Intercom. Intercom’s importer, under Settings, Data, Imports & exports, then Import from Zendesk, brings users, organizations and tickets with their data attributes and attachments. Intercom says it suits accounts with fewer than 150,000 tickets that move all their tickets. Tags, side conversations and call recordings do not move, and running it again deletes and reimports the tickets imported before. The importer is enabled per workspace, so ask Intercom’s support team if you do not see it (Intercom help, dated June 23, 2026).

From Intercom to Zendesk. Zendesk says you cannot migrate everything through its interface. Tickets come in through its Ticket Import API, where triggers do not run and first reply and first resolution times are not imported, or through Marketplace apps, partners and Zendesk Professional Services (Zendesk help, accessed September 27, 2026).

Keep Zendesk and add Fin. If Fin is the main reason to move, Fin for Zendesk runs on your Zendesk account without Intercom seats. Either way, import a sample first and keep the old account read-only until you no longer need it.

Which one to choose

Choose Intercom if:

1. Most of your support happens in chat on your website or app, and you want the Messenger and Fin from one vendor.
2. You want a published AI price: $0.99 per outcome, with usage reminders and hard limits.
3. You need Expert features such as HIPAA support, SLAs and multibrand help centers.
4. You want product tours, surveys and in-app messages from the same vendor, as an add-on.

Choose Zendesk if:

1. You run email and phone support and want an IVR phone tree in the plan, plus Zendesk’s workforce engagement and contact center add-ons.
2. You want AI billed only for verified resolutions, and you can get the price per resolution in writing.
3. You only need email ticketing for now: Support Team costs $19 per agent a month.
4. You depend on apps and integrations built for Zendesk. If you want Fin anyway, it runs on Zendesk.

Before a multi-year contract with either vendor, run a sample of real conversations through both trials and get the renewal terms in writing. If Freshdesk is also on your list, see our Freshdesk vs Zendesk comparison.

A third option for software teams

Intercom and Zendesk sell help desks. If you build software and many conversations end in a bug report or a feature request, Gleap is a third option to consider.

Gleap prices the workspace, not the seat. Starter costs $49 a month with one seat, Team $149 with unlimited seats and projects, and Pro $299, billed annually ($59, $179 and $359 billed monthly); Enterprise starts at $999 a month billed annually. Kai, the AI support agent, is on every plan, with no fee per outcome or per resolution: AI usage is billed separately through prepaid credits, by the tokens and model each task uses. Kai averages about $0.05 per conversation, so 1,000 conversations use about $50 of credits; real usage varies with the model, the context and the length of each conversation (Gleap pricing). For 10 seats, that is $149 a month on Team or $299 on Pro, billed annually, plus AI credits.

Kai answers customers from the knowledge you connect, and a teammate takes over in the same conversation when the customer asks for a person. At Commonplace, Kai handles 50 to 60 percent of inbound support, according to Benjy Meyer, Chief Product and Technology Officer (Commonplace customer story). On Team, bug reports from your app carry a screenshot and technical details, and feature requests collect votes on a roadmap. On Pro, Kai Resolve investigates hard tickets and prepares coding tasks, and once a teammate starts a task, Kai Code opens a pull request that your team reviews and merges.

The trade-offs are real. Gleap has no free plan, and AI usage comes on top of every plan. Starter has one seat and one project, and the knowledge base, in-app bug reporting, the feature roadmap and the WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Slack and Telegram channels need Team. Kai Resolve, Kai Code and Kai PM need Pro. Gleap has no phone or SMS channel, so teams that support customers by phone are better served by Intercom or Zendesk.

Gleap imports from both. From Intercom, it brings contacts, conversations and help center articles; from Zendesk, companies, contacts and tickets with their comments and attachments. The Intercom migration guide and the Zendesk migration guide walk through each move, and the Gleap and Intercom comparison lists the differences.

Gleap publishes this comparison and competes with both products. Every Intercom, Fin and Zendesk fact above comes from the vendors’ own pages, with the date we checked it.