Comparison
Airclou Helpdesk vs Intercom
The closest comparison on this site: both products bet the helpdesk on AI. Intercom’s Fin resolves conversations out front and bills $0.99 per outcome. Airclou’s AI drafts and executes under approval gates you set, included in one per-agent price.
Free 14-day trial · No credit card required
The honest verdict
Same bet on AI, opposite bets on control
Both teams believe the AI should work the queue. They disagree about where the human sits — and about what happens to your bill when the AI succeeds.
Fin resolves out front. Airclou executes behind gates.
Fin answers customers directly and hands off what it can’t handle. Airclou’s AI goes further into the work — refunds, plan changes, account fixes — but everything irreversible waits at an approval gate, on an audit trail your team owns.
A bill that doesn’t grow with success
Intercom charges seats plus $0.99 per Fin outcome — deflect more, pay more. Airclou includes the AI in one per-agent price: the month the AI finally handles half your queue, your bill is the same as the month before.
Where Intercom is ahead
The Messenger is the industry benchmark, Fin is battle-tested at enormous scale, and the outbound side — product tours, banners, campaigns — has no Airclou equivalent. If support and marketing share one surface for you, Intercom is the safer pick.
Side by side
Feature by feature
| Feature | Airclou Helpdesk | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| Helpdesk core | ||
| Email, live chat & help center in one inbox | Included | Included |
| SLAs, business hours & escalations | Included | Included |
| Reporting & CSAT | Included | Included |
| Voice / phone channel | — | Add-on |
| WhatsApp & social channels | — | Add-ons |
| App marketplace | Stripe + your own APIs | 350+ apps |
| AI | ||
| AI-drafted replies, grounded in your knowledgebase | Every paid plan | Copilot, per-seat add-on |
| Drafts cite their sources (articles, account data) | Included | Included |
| AI executes real work (refunds, plan changes) | Growth plan and up | Via Fin Tasks & workflows |
| Human approval gates on AI actions | Included | — |
| Full audit trail of every AI action, approver included | Included | — |
| Pricing | ||
| Starting price | $19 per agent / month | $29–$139 per seat / month |
| AI pricing | Included in the plan | $0.99 per Fin outcome (50/month minimum) |
| Free plan | 1 agent, no AI | — |
| Free trial | 14 days, no credit card | 14 days |
Intercom features and pricing are from their public pages at the time of writing and can change — check intercom.com for current details.
The difference, shown
What gated autonomy looks like on a real ticket
Drafts that arrive with receipts
Before an agent opens the ticket, a reply is waiting — written from your knowledgebase and the customer’s actual account data, with the sources attached. Verify in a glance, not a re-research.
- Grounded in your articles, SOPs, and live billing data
- One click to send, or edit in place
- Low-confidence drafts are flagged, never auto-sent
Refunds that wait for your approval
The AI can verify a duplicate charge and prepare the refund — but anything irreversible parks at a gate you configured. Your team stays in charge of the money; the AI does the legwork.
- Approval envelopes by action, amount, or customer segment
- Idempotent execution — a retry can never double-refund
- Every action logged with who approved it and why
Switching
Questions teams ask when weighing the two
Both products lead with AI. What’s actually different?
Where the human sits. Fin works your front line and hands off what it can’t resolve. Airclou’s AI drafts and executes real work — refunds, plan changes — but anything irreversible parks at an approval gate you configured, and every action lands on an audit trail with who approved it. If your bar is “the AI may act, but inside provable limits”, that’s the Airclou design.
How does the pricing actually compare?
Intercom bills seats ($29–$139 each) plus $0.99 for every Fin outcome, with a 50-outcome monthly minimum — the better the AI performs, the bigger the bill. Airclou is one per-agent price with the AI included: the AI resolving more of your queue doesn’t change what you pay.
We live in the Intercom Messenger. Does Airclou have a widget?
Yes — Airclou ships a live-chat widget for your site and app, backed by the same AI and the same inbox as email. What Airclou doesn’t try to replace is Intercom’s outbound side: product tours, banners, and marketing messages. If those are core to you, keep them — support can still move.
Can we try Airclou without leaving Intercom?
Yes, and we recommend it. Forward a portion of your support address to Airclou, import your help center articles, and compare the drafts against your real queue for two weeks — no cutover, no risk to your current setup.
Intercom is being acquired by Salesforce. Does that matter?
As of this writing, Salesforce has signed an agreement to acquire Fin (the company formerly known as Intercom); the deal hasn’t closed and pricing hasn’t changed. What it means for roadmap and pricing later is genuinely unknown — worth factoring into a long-term platform decision, whichever way you lean.
Are we locked into a contract?
No. Airclou bills monthly per agent and you can cancel anytime. Annual billing exists for the discount, not as a lock-in — and your data is exportable either way.
Make the call
Judge both AIs on the same real queue
Forward part of your inbox, import your articles, and compare Airclou’s drafts against what you get today — while Intercom keeps running.
Free 14-day trial · No credit card · Cancel anytime