Helpdesk and support inbox
Open-source 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.
The cheapest way to replace Intercom here is Chatwoot, at $237 a month against $290, with your own time already counted.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Intercom | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot | $12.07 | $237 | +$705 | 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 CX33 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $10.06 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.
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- Where to host it
What you would be running
| Tool | Licence | Written in | Setup | Upkeep | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot | Other | Ruby | 16 h | 3 h a month | 36,724 |
Questions people actually ask
Is there a free open-source alternative to Intercom?
There are 1 on this page. 0 of them are open source, published under no standard open-source licence, with no licence to buy. Chatwoot ships its source under its own licence rather than a standard open-source one, so check its terms before commercial use. None of them is free to run: the cheapest, Chatwoot, costs $237 a month at 10 people once the server, backups and the time to look after it are counted.
How much does Intercom cost?
Intercom Essential costs $290 a month at 10 people: USD 29.00 per seat per month. That figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-14.
What does it cost to self-host Chatwoot?
$237 a month at 10 people. That is $10.06 for the CX33 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud, plus backups, plus 3 hours a month of your own time priced at the published hourly rate.
How long before Chatwoot is cheaper than Intercom?
23 months, counting $1,200 of first-time setup. Over 36 months the difference is $705.
Which Intercom alternative is the easiest to run?
Chatwoot, rated hard: about 16 hours to set up and 3 hours afterwards.