Fin vs Intercom (2026): What's the Difference and What Does Each Cost?

Fin and Intercom are the same company: Intercom renamed itself Fin on May 12, 2026, Fin is now the name of the company and its AI agent ($0.99 per outcome on any help desk), and Intercom is the name of its help desk, from $29 a seat a month billed annually with Fin included. Salesforce completed its acquisition of Fin on September 10, 2026.

How do Fin and Intercom differ at a glance?

Prices checked September 19, 2026 and rechecked September 24 on fin.ai/pricing and intercom.com/pricing. Ratings read the same day on Gartner Peer Insights and Trustpilot. The cost row is worked out below.

When did Intercom become Fin, and when did Salesforce buy it?

May 12, 2026: Intercom renames itself Fin. In a post titled Today Intercom becomes Fin, CEO Eoghan McCabe wrote that the company would take the name of its AI agent, and that "the name Intercom will still live on as the name of our customer service software platform". The same post says the help desk had just been rebuilt as Intercom 2 and that "all of our 1,400 employees are now employed by Fin." His stated reason is that newer AI-agent vendors "have no baggage", and a 15-year-old name was Intercom's.

June 15, 2026: Salesforce agrees to buy Fin. Salesforce's press release calls the target "Fin, formerly Intercom" and puts the price at "approximately $3.6 billion". It positions Fin next to Agentforce as a fast-to-deploy option "especially well-suited for SMB and some commercial organizations".

September 10, 2026: the deal closes. Salesforce's completion release says Fin "will continue to serve its customers" as part of Salesforce's AI Labs. Fin's site now carries a "Fin from salesforce" logo.

So the rename came first and the acquisition second. Posts that describe Fin as "Intercom rebranded after the Salesforce deal" have the order backwards, and posts that still call the deal pending are out of date.

What is Fin?

Fin is an AI agent that answers customers and, where you've set it up, takes actions. Intercom's help article on Fin (updated July 31, 2026) describes three layers: an app layer where you train, test, deploy and analyze; a retrieval layer that searches your content and applies your guidance; and a model layer of Fin's own models for retrieval, reranking, summarizing and deciding when to escalate. Fin's homepage says it now runs on its own Apex 1.0 and Apex Flash models, and that customers "average a 76% resolution rate, across 12,000+ businesses". Both are Fin's figures.

Fin doesn't need Intercom. The pricing page sells Fin on your current help desk, naming Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshworks, Dixa, Front, Zoho, Sprinklr and Gorgias, at $0.99 per outcome with no seat fee and a 50-outcome monthly minimum that applies only off Intercom. An outcome is billed when "no further help is requested after Fin's last answer", and also for a completed handoff Procedure, a disqualification or self-serve routing; a qualification costs $9.99. The trial runs 14 days with unlimited outcomes and no card. Our Fin guide covers setup, channels and limits in depth.

What is Intercom now, and what do its seats cost?

Intercom is the help desk: a shared inbox and ticketing system, a messenger, a public help center, workflows, reporting and outbound messaging. Every plan now "Includes Fin AI Agent", and the pricing page's FAQ says Intercom pricing "has two components": seats per teammate, and usage such as Fin outcomes and messaging channels.

*$29 billed annually and $39 monthly is Essential's normal price on intercom.com/pricing (September 24, 2026). Intercom is also running a pricing test that shows $19 annually and $29 monthly on some page loads. Advanced and Expert have not moved.

Add-ons sit on top: Copilot, the agent-assist sidebar, at $29 a user a month billed annually ($35 monthly), and Pro (with Operator and AI analytics) from $99 a month. Our Intercom pricing breakdown covers seats, Lite seats and usage charges line by line.

What do Fin and Intercom cost at the same volume?

Take a 10-person support team handling 3,000 conversations a month, where Fin resolves 60% (1,800 outcomes). That rate is our assumption, below Fin's own 76% average, because a new deployment rarely starts at the average.

The 50-outcome minimum and the seats weigh more on a small team. On your own help desk, Fin bills at least 50 outcomes a month, $49.50, even in a month when it resolves 20. A three-person team on Intercom Essential with 200 outcomes pays three seats plus 200 × $0.99 = $198, which at $29 a seat billed annually is $285 a month, so the seats are about a third of the bill.

Fin is the larger line in every row of the 10-seat table. At this volume, the Intercom seats are 14% to 44% of the bill, and the difference between "Fin" and "Intercom" is mostly whether you also move your human team's inbox. If Fin's resolution rate climbs to 76%, outcomes rise to 2,280 and the Fin line to about $2,257, because a better agent bills more.

For reference on the same volume: Macha, an agent layer on Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias, Front, HubSpot or Intercom, charges per ticket whether or not the AI closes it, and 3,000 tickets is the $1,199 tier. Zendesk's own AI agents bill per automated resolution beyond a monthly per-seat allowance. Its pricing page lists $1.50 per committed resolution and $2.00 pay-as-you-go, and its outcome-based pricing post gives the same $1.50. Our Fin vs Zendesk AI pricing comparison runs those two side by side.

What does each billing unit reward?

Per-outcome pricing puts Fin's incentive on resolutions: the company earns when a customer stops asking. That's closer to what a support leader wants than per-message billing, with two catches. Fin decides what counts, and "no further help is requested" includes customers who gave up. And the bill grows with success, so the better Fin gets, the more you pay, with no volume ceiling in the published price.

Per-seat pricing puts Intercom's incentive on your headcount. Every human who needs the inbox is a seat, which is also why Intercom now bundles Fin into every plan: the company earns on both lines, and the more Fin resolves, the fewer seats you need over time. Salesforce now owns that trade-off, alongside Agentforce's per-action Flex Credits, which our Agentforce guide covers.

What do users say about Fin and Intercom?

Gartner Peer Insights rates Fin AI Agent 4.5 from 23 ratings and Intercom 4.0 from 232 (read September 19, 2026). Fin's highlighted review on Gartner is titled "Fin resolves most of our support volume and frees the team for the hard cases", and the same reviewer adds that "the main things we watch are pricing predictability as volume grows and keeping our help center content current". Intercom's highlighted dislike on its Gartner page is about the help desk, not the agent: "It just feels very old fashioned."

Trustpilot has already renamed the company's main profile: the listing at intercom.io now reads "Fin", 3.0 from 528 reviews. One reviewer there wrote on April 28, 2026 that "AI features do not always work as expected, very steep pricing for resolutions." G2 shows the same pattern: its old intercom.com/reviews URL redirects to the Fin product page, rated 4.5 from 3,912 reviews. Capterra's old Intercom listing returned a 404 when we checked, and we found no Fin listing in its search, so there's no Capterra figure here.

Where does Macha fit?

If you're asking "Fin or Intercom" because you like Fin but don't want to move your team off the help desk it already uses (Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias, Front, HubSpot or Intercom), that's the case Macha is built for: an AI agent layer on the help desk you already run, built, tested and monitored by the Macha team. It's priced per ticket, one charge however many replies it takes, from $299 a month for 750 tickets, with setup and monitoring by the Macha team included (see pricing). It isn't a help desk, so it doesn't replace Intercom's inbox, and a team that wants to switch help desks and add an agent in one move is the team Intercom with Fin is priced for. Our list of Fin alternatives and the AI agents for customer service overview compare the rest of the field.

Should you choose Fin, Intercom or neither?

Choose Fin on its own if you're happy with your help desk and want an AI agent that bills only when it resolves. It fits teams already running Salesforce, HubSpot or another help desk Fin connects to, who don't want to retrain agents on a new inbox. Check the 50-outcome minimum that applies off Intercom, ask how outcomes are reported, and set usage alerts before launch.

Choose Intercom with Fin if you're also replacing your help desk, or you're already on Intercom. The seats buy the inbox, ticketing and help center, and Fin works inside them with no integration step.

Consider neither if you want a fixed monthly cost you can predict from ticket volume, you run most support on Salesforce Service Cloud (where Agentforce is Salesforce's own route), or your volume is small enough that the 50-outcome minimum and seat fees outweigh the savings.

How we researched this

On September 19, 2026 we checked fin.ai's homepage and pricing page, Intercom's pricing page in a browser (both billing toggles), the Intercom blog post announcing the rename, Salesforce's two press releases on the acquisition, and Intercom's help article on how Fin works. Ratings came from Gartner Peer Insights, Trustpilot and G2 in a browser the same day (G2's old Intercom URL now redirects to Fin's page, 4.5 from 3,912 reviews); Capterra's Intercom page returned a 404. On September 24 we rechecked fin.ai/pricing (price, minimum, supported help desks, outcome types, trial) and Intercom's seat prices. We did not test Fin: its 14-day trial needs a sign-up, and we don't create vendor accounts for these comparisons. The Guidance screenshot is Intercom's own, from its help center. The 3,000 conversations, 60% resolution rate and 10 seats are our assumptions.

Frequently asked questions

Are Fin and Intercom the same company? Yes. Intercom renamed the company Fin on May 12, 2026. Intercom is now only the name of its help desk product, and Fin is both the company and its AI agent. Salesforce completed its acquisition of Fin on September 10, 2026.

What's the difference between Fin and Intercom? Fin is the AI agent that answers and resolves customer conversations, billed at $0.99 per outcome on any help desk. Intercom is the help desk your human team uses, billed per seat from $29 a month on annual billing, with Fin included in every plan. Intercom has also shown $19 for its entry plan in a pricing test.

Did Intercom rebrand because of Salesforce? No. The rename to Fin was announced May 12, 2026, before Salesforce signed its agreement to buy the company on June 15. The deal closed September 10, 2026.

Who owns Fin AI? Salesforce. It agreed to buy Fin, formerly Intercom, for about $3.6 billion in June 2026 and completed the acquisition on September 10, 2026. Fin operates as part of Salesforce's AI Labs.

Can I use Fin without Intercom? Yes. Fin's pricing page sells "Fin with your current helpdesk" for Salesforce, HubSpot and others at $0.99 per outcome with no seat fee and a 50-outcome monthly minimum that applies only when Fin runs on a help desk other than Intercom.

How does Intercom Fin work? Fin searches your help center and other connected sources, applies your guidance, and generates an answer with its own models. Procedures and data connectors let it take actions such as updating an external system, and it hands off to a human with the conversation context when it can't resolve.

Is Intercom Fin good? Gartner Peer Insights reviewers rate Fin AI Agent 4.5 out of 5 from 23 ratings, and praise how much volume it resolves. The recurring concerns are pricing predictability as volume grows and needing to keep help center content current.

How much does Fin cost compared with Intercom? For 3,000 conversations a month with 60% resolved, Fin on your own help desk is $1,782 in outcomes. Intercom with Fin adds seats: 10 Essential seats billed annually make it $2,072, and 10 Expert seats billed monthly make it $3,172.

Who does Intercom compete with? As a help desk, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias, Front and Salesforce Service Cloud. As an AI agent, Fin competes with Zendesk AI agents, Decagon, Sierra, Ada and Agentforce, which Salesforce also owns.

What is Intercom 2? The rebuilt version of the Intercom help desk. Eoghan McCabe's rename post in May 2026 says the company "just launched a complete rebuild, Intercom 2" and is "dramatically increasing" investment in it, so the help desk is staying and getting new work, under the Intercom name.

Is Fin's logo different from Intercom's? Yes. The company uses a Fin wordmark, now shown on fin.ai as "Fin from salesforce", while the Intercom help desk keeps the Intercom logo on intercom.com.

If your team works in Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias, Front, HubSpot or Intercom and wants an agent in those tickets, see how Macha prices per ticket on the pricing page or start with $50 of free usage.

Sources: Today Intercom becomes Fin (Intercom blog, May 12, 2026) · Salesforce signs definitive agreement to acquire Fin (Jun 15, 2026) · Salesforce completes acquisition of Fin (Sep 10, 2026) · Fin pricing · Fin homepage · Intercom pricing · Fin AI Agent explained (Intercom Help) · Zendesk outcome-based pricing · Gartner: Fin AI Agent · Gartner: Intercom · Trustpilot: Fin (intercom.io)