/vs/intercom
spookat
vs intercom.
Intercom is a full customer service platform with the Fin AI agent, priced per seat plus per AI outcome. Spookat is a chat widget that loads nothing until the click and lands every chat in Slack or Discord. Here's the honest version.
the short version.
- 01
A whole team for $4.99 a site (early access). On Intercom every teammate is a seat, from $39 a month each.
- 02
Bring your own agent, no per-answer fee. Fin bills $0.99 per outcome, and third-party bots aren't supported natively.
- 03
Nothing loads before the click. Intercom boots about 345 kb gzipped and sets 3 cookies on page load.
side by side.
| what | spookat | Intercom |
|---|---|---|
| cheapest paid plan | $4.99 a site a month, $9.99 after early access | Essential, $39 per seat a month ($19-29 billed yearly; their pages differ). source for Intercom, cheapest paid plan (opens in a new tab) |
| your team | Unlimited and free. We charge per site. | Every teammate who replies is a paid seat. source for Intercom, your team (opens in a new tab) |
| their AI | No bot of ours to sell you. No per-answer fees. | Fin, $0.99 per outcome, at most once per conversation. source for Intercom, their AI (opens in a new tab) |
| your own AI agent | Webhooks, a reply API and MCP on cool guy ($14.99 in early access). | Third-party bots aren't supported natively; it's custom work on the REST API. source for Intercom, your own AI agent (opens in a new tab) |
| remove their logo | On cool guy ($14.99 in early access). | From Advanced, $85 per seat a month billed yearly. source for Intercom, remove their logo (opens in a new tab) |
| answer from Slack | A thread per chat, reply in the thread. Every plan. | Slack is a customer channel. Answering website chats from Slack threads isn't in their docs. source for Intercom, answer from Slack (opens in a new tab) |
| answer from Discord | A forum post per chat, reply in it. Every plan. | A customer channel: you answer Discord users from Intercom, not website chats from Discord. source for Intercom, answer from Discord (opens in a new tab) |
| before anyone clicks | One launcher script under 4 kb gzipped. 0 requests to our API. | About 345 kb gzipped of JavaScript on page load. measured for Intercom, before anyone clicks (opens in a new tab) |
| cookies | None. | 3 cookies on page load, one kept 270 days. source for Intercom, cookies (opens in a new tab) |
| visitor IPs | Never stored. | City and country worked out from the IP, plus sessions and page views, tracked automatically. source for Intercom, visitor IPs (opens in a new tab) |
| free plan | No. 14 days free, no card. | No. 14-day trial. source for Intercom, free plan (opens in a new tab) |
Intercom's side comes from their public pages, checked 2026-09-26. "measured" means we loaded their widget on a test page ourselves and counted what arrived before any click. Prices change: spot something outdated and we'll fix it.
where intercom wins.
- A complete helpdesk: shared inboxes, ticketing, SLAs and a workflow builder.
- A multilingual help center that Fin answers from.
- Chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, phone and social in one inbox, plus product tours and surveys.
- A mature AI agent with actions, QA and reporting, and enterprise features like SSO and HIPAA.
pick intercom if
you run a support team with SLAs, a help center and several channels, and have the budget for it.
pick spookat if
you're a small team that wants to answer visitors from Slack or Discord without a seat bill.