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Self-hosted alternatives to Intercom, priced
1 open-source tool that can replace Intercom, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. Intercom on the Essential tier costs $290 a month at that size.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Intercom | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot | $46.80 | $272 | -$545 | hard | source-available |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
Chatwoot 36,724 stars
Rails web process plus a Sidekiq worker, PostgreSQL and Redis. The worker is not optional; skipping it silently breaks outbound email and webhooks.
At 10 people it needs 5.4 GB of memory and 28 GB of disk, which fits the Starter 8 GB at VPSServer for $39.00 a month. Setting it up is roughly 16 hours of work, then 3 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Intercom versus Chatwoot breakdown · Chatwoot at every team size
How the pricing was established
Intercom pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-14. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.