In case you’re searching for customer support software program and evaluating Assist Scout vs. Intercom, this complete comparability of options, pricing, use instances, help, and scalability will make it simple to find out which device is the perfect match for your enterprise.
Each Assist Scout and Intercom are standard buyer help platforms, particularly amongst SaaS and ecommerce companies. The options you’ll discover in each platforms are almost similar — both device will provide you with entry to every little thing your group must help your clients. The choice on which platform is best on your group comes right down to 4 key elements:
Price range: Assist Scout is far more inexpensive than Intercom; you’ll pay between $29 and $57 much less per person/month on Assist Scout’s plans than Intercom’s. Moreover, Assist Scout’s AI chatbot function has a decrease per-resolution value of $0.75/decision in comparison with Intercom’s $0.99/decision.
AI options: Whereas each platforms supply AI chatbots that reply buyer questions for you and AI assistants that assist your group create sooner, higher replies, Intercom has a number of further AI options you gained’t discover in Assist Scout.
Help philosophy: Intercom is an “AI-first” platform, whereas Assist Scout is a “customer-first” platform. Intercom is engaged on automating away as a lot help work as doable; Assist Scout is constructing AI into its platform to allow the people in your help group to do extra participating and rewarding work.
Channel protection: Each instruments allow you to ship e-mail, self-service, dwell chat, and social help. For channels like SMS and telephone, Assist Scout integrates with different SaaS merchandise, whereas Intercom provides these channels natively (with further prices).
Be taught extra about Assist Scout:
Each Assist Scout and Intercom allow you to ship help on the main channels: e-mail, dwell chat, self-service, and social (Fb and Instagram).
Assist Scout contains these channels in all of its paid plans. Intercom contains dwell chat, e-mail, and WhatsApp (which isn’t accessible on Assist Scout) on its Important plan, however Fb and Instagram help are solely accessible on the Superior plan or greater.
For telephone and SMS help, Assist Scout provides integrations with suppliers like Aircall, Talkdesk, Textline, and Textual content Request. Intercom provides these channels natively, although they’re priced individually somewhat than being included in any of the platform’s base plans. SMS campaigns are priced by textual content despatched/obtained, and telephone is priced per minute.
In case you’re on the lookout for a platform that can handle your entire help requests throughout all channels in a single, central system, Intercom is the higher alternative. In case you’re not providing SMS or telephone help (or are keen to combine with different techniques so as to add these channels), Assist Scout is far more inexpensive.
| Channel | Assist Scout’s beginning value | Intercom’s beginning value |
|---|---|---|
E mail | Free plan accessible; paid plans begin at $25/person per 30 days | $29/seat per 30 days |
Stay chat | $25/person per 30 days | $29/seat per 30 days |
Information base | Free plan accessible; paid plans begin at $25/person per 30 days | $29/seat per 30 days |
Social media | $25/person per 30 days | WhatsApp: $29/seat per 30 days Fb and Instagram: $85/seat per 30 days |
Cellphone | Accessible through integration solely | Inbound calls begin at $0.012/minute Outbound calls begin at $0.022/minute for all states within the U.S. apart from Alaska |
SMS | Accessible through integration solely | Beginning at $0.06/message despatched or obtained |
Dialog administration options
Each Assist Scout’s and Intercom’s shared inboxes centralize all help requests from all channels, giving your group a single place to see and handle all buyer inquiries.
Moreover, each instruments supply an virtually similar function set in the case of routing, managing, and responding to requests, although you’ll pay totally different quantities on the totally different platforms to entry these options.
| Function | Assist Scout value | Intercom value |
|---|---|---|
Views | $25/person per 30 days | $29/seat per 30 days |
Saved replies | $25/person per 30 days 10 saved replies are included within the free plan | $29/seat per 30 days |
Dialog assignments | $25/person per 30 days Included within the free plan | $29/seat per 30 days |
Snooze | $25/person per 30 days Included within the free plan | $29/seat per 30 days |
Workplace hours | $25/person per 30 days | $29/seat per 30 days |
Tags | $25/person per 30 days 10 tags are included within the free plan | $29/seat per 30 days |
Satisfaction rankings | $25/person per 30 days | $29/seat per 30 days |
Workflows | $25/person per 30 days | $85/seat per 30 days |
Spherical-robin assignments | $45/person per 30 days | $85/seat per 30 days |
Capability-based assignments | $75/person per 30 days | $132/seat per 30 days |
Information base and self-service options
On Assist Scout’s and Intercom’s paid plans, you’ll be able to create private and non-private information bases, add a vast variety of articles, and kind these articles into collections. The design of the information bases on each platforms will also be personalized to match your organization’s model, and each allow you to create multilingual assist facilities.
One key distinction between the 2 platforms is that you would be able to solely create a number of assist facilities on Intercom’s Knowledgeable plan ($132/seat per 30 days). All of Assist Scout’s paid plans include a number of assist facilities: Normal ($25/person per 30 days) comes with two, Plus ($45/person per 30 days) comes with three, and Professional ($75/person per 30 days) comes with 5.
Collaboration options
Each Assist Scout and Intercom supply numerous options that make it simple on your groups to collaborate on requests:
Collision detection to see when one other agent is already engaged on a request.
Inner notes to offer further context when assigning a request to another person.
Mentions to tag teammates on requests and notify them that their assist is required.
Groups to create teams of brokers who work on particular kinds of requests.
Options to handle mail from a number of e-mail addresses in a single shared inbox.
A number of inboxes for companies with a number of manufacturers or privateness necessities.
Collision detection (known as “teammate presence” in Intercom), inside notes, @mentions, and managing a number of e-mail addresses in a single inbox are all accessible on all plans that each platforms supply.
Groups (known as “segments” in Intercom) are included in all of Intercom’s plans and so they’re included in Assist Scout’s Plus and Professional plans.
Assist Scout provides one inbox on its free plan, two on its Normal plan ($25/person per 30 days), 5 on its Plus plan ($45/person per 30 days), and 10 on its Professional plan ($75/person per 30 days). A number of inboxes are solely accessible on Intercom’s Superior plan and better, with pricing for these plans beginning at $85/seat per 30 days.
Intercom additionally provides gentle seats — a approach to carry non-support group members into the queue with out having to pay per-user prices for them. As much as 20 gentle seats are included within the Superior plan, and 50 gentle seats are included within the Knowledgeable plan.
Reporting and analytics options
Each Assist Scout and Intercom supply pre-built and {custom} experiences — in addition to report exporting — so you’ll be able to simply monitor your KPIs and monitor quantity traits total and by channel. Each additionally supply workplace hours (accessible on Assist Scout’s paid plans solely), which is a approach to outline the instances if you supply help so your experiences aren’t negatively impacted by days/instances when nobody is working.
AI options
In the case of AI options, Assist Scout has every little thing your group wants, and Intercom has every little thing your group might ever presumably need.
Assist Scout has 4 AI options:
AI Solutions: A generative AI-powered chatbot that robotically replies to buyer questions over chat through the use of info out of your information base and any web sites you add. (Three-month free trial accessible, then $0.75/decision.)
AI Help: Makes use of AI to refine what you’ve already written in a help reply or information base article, making it shorter/longer, translating it into one other language, or adjusting the tone/voice. (Included in all paid plans.)
AI Drafts: Helps you to use AI to create a draft response to a question through the use of info out of your information base, earlier help interactions, and web sites. (Included within the Plus and Professional plans.)
AI Summarize: Makes use of AI to create a abstract of an extended back-and-forth help dialog, both on your historic information or to assist brokers engaged on the request rise up to hurry rapidly. (Included within the Plus and Professional plans.)
Intercom’s model of AI Solutions is its Fin AI Agent, which prices $0.99/decision. In contrast to Assist Scout’s chatbot which solely works inside the platform’s dwell chat widget, Fin can be utilized to robotically reply to questions obtained through chat, e-mail, social, WhatsApp, and SMS.
Intercom’s model of AI Drafts and AI Help can be found by means of its Copilot add-on (free for the primary 10 makes use of/agent per 30 days, $35/seat per 30 days for 11+ makes use of). Copilot writes draft replies for brokers, can be utilized to develop responses or regulate the tone of voice, and even reveals which sources the data it included got here from.
AI Summarize is included in Intercom’s Superior and Knowledgeable plans.
Intercom additionally provides a number of AI options that you simply gained’t discover in Assist Scout, however take into account that all of those options are bought as add-ons and should not included in Intercom’s base pricing:
Fin Duties: Join Fin to different techniques (like your billing software program or ecommerce platform) so it could actually robotically make updates in these techniques for you.
CX Rating: Use AI to interpret how happy clients have been with their help interactions to get satisfaction rankings even when clients don’t depart them.
AI Insights: Get AI-generated insights on how your group is performing and the place there’s room for enchancment.
Fin Voice: Create a voice chatbot that may reply to clients’ questions on the telephone.
Fin over Slack: Use Fin to reply clients’ questions in Slack.
One ultimate distinctive function of Fin is that you simply don’t must subscribe to an Intercom Suite (its assist desk) plan to make use of it, so if you have already got a help platform that you simply like however aren’t proud of its AI chatbot options, you should purchase Fin individually.
Proactive help options
Along with the entire options that allow you to help customers after they ask for assist, each Assist Scout and Intercom additionally supply a number of proactive help options that allow you to supply help earlier than somebody has to ask for it or establish points earlier than they begin impacting clients. You’ll be able to:
Pop up a message in your web site or in your app when a person meets sure circumstances you set, comparable to viewing a particular web page, spending a sure period of time a web page, or a web page a number of instances.
Add a banner to the highest of your web site or app to get a message in entrance of all customers in a outstanding area.
Ship surveys to gather NPS® rankings from clients or to ask a custom-written query.
Create webhooks (i.e., occasion listeners) to get notifications when particular occasions happen.
Intercom additionally has a couple of further proactive help options you gained’t discover in Assist Scout. You should use it to construct product excursions within your app to stroll clients by means of the best way to use particular options, add tooltips within your product to offer temporary explanations of options, and create checklists to offer customers with to-do lists for carrying out duties.
Intercom’s banner message and tooltip options are included in all of its plans. All of its different proactive help options are a part of its Proactive Help Plus add-on, which prices $99/month.
In Assist Scout, you’ll get totally different options in several plans:
As much as 2,000 distinctive views for surveys, banners, and proactive messages are included in all paid plans, with further views supplied as a pay-as-you-go possibility.
Webhooks are included on Plus and Professional plans.
Each Assist Scout and Intercom use hybrid pricing fashions. The bottom software program for each merchandise is user-based, which means your per-month value will improve as you add new customers to your account. Nevertheless, pricing for his or her AI chatbots is usage-based, which means you’ll pay extra based mostly on the variety of requests that your AI assistants resolve.
Assist Scout has 4 pricing packages:
Free: $0/month for as much as 5 customers.
Normal: $25/person per 30 days.
Plus: $45/person per 30 days.
Professional: $75/person per 30 days.
As for usage-based pricing, AI Solutions begins at $0.75/decision after a three-month free trial. AI Help is included in all paid plans at no further value, and AI Summarize and AI Drafts are included in Plus and Professional at no further value.
Intercom has three pricing packages:
Important: Beginning at $29/seat per 30 days.
Superior: Beginning at $85/seat per 30 days.
Knowledgeable: Beginning at $132/seat per 30 days.
As for usage-base pricing, the price of Fin is $0.99/decision. If you wish to use Intercom for telephone or SMS help, you’ll be liable for further per-message/per-minute charges.
To get entry to Intercom’s different AI options, you’ll must pay for add-ons. Its Copilot add-on can be utilized 10 instances/agent per 30 days; if you wish to use it greater than that, you’ll must pay a further $35/seat per 30 days for every particular person in your group who will probably be utilizing it. Pricing shouldn’t be public for its different add-on AI merchandise.
Total, Assist Scout is far more inexpensive than Intercom. It has a free plan that’s excellent for small groups and startups, and its paid plans run between $4 and $57 much less per person/month than Intercom’s plans.
What clients say about Assist Scout’s and Intercom’s pricing
Assist Scout has the next score on Capterra for “worth for cash” with a 4.4 out of 5-star score versus Intercom’s 4.0 out of 5 stars.
Clients evaluations of Intercom — even people who reward each different facet of the platform — continuously cite Fin’s excessive decision prices and the steep bounce in value from its base plan to the mid-tier plan as huge downsides of the platform:
“The principle disadvantage is value. In comparison with different AI chatbot options we’ve evaluated, Fin’s pricing feels excessive, particularly for groups dealing with massive ticket volumes.” Learn the total evaluate.
“The most important draw back is pricing — it could actually scale up rapidly as your person base or contact quantity grows. Some options that really feel core (like superior reporting or sure automation instruments) are gated behind higher-tier plans.” Learn the total evaluate.
“When you exit the 95% low cost of the startup program, the pricing turns into fairly hefty. This has led us to downgrade a number of the wonderful instruments and options with a view to save prices, which is a bit disappointing given how worthwhile they have been for our operations.” Learn the total evaluate.
Ease of use and setup
In the case of buyer evaluations on G2, Assist Scout scores greater than Intercom for ease of use, ease of setup, and ease of admin.
Assist Scout is well-known for its ease of use. You’ll be able to learn to use it in a day and change into an influence person in per week, and it’s so intuitive that little or no coaching is required when including new group members to the system. As one Assist Scout buyer writes:
“What I like most about Assist Scout is the convenience of use. Assist Scout is straightforward to arrange and, typically, you’ll be able to keep away from working together with your IT group. Assist Scout additionally has a really intuitive interface, which makes coaching your group simple! The Assist Scout group bought it proper!”
Integrations
In the case of integrations, Intercom has a barely greater rating than Assist Scout on G2, with an 8.6/10 score versus Assist Scout’s 8.5 out of 10. Intercom additionally provides extra integrations than Assist Scout, with Intercom providing round 450 and Assist Scout providing round 100.
Nevertheless, each instruments supply integrations with the first instruments groups need to connect with their help techniques, comparable to Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, Jira, and Linear. Moreover, each instruments additionally supply an API that lets builders join the platforms to any device they need, even when a particular integration isn’t accessible (e.g., company-built apps).
Scalability
Each Assist Scout and Intercom have the essential options that groups want whereas they’re small and the extra superior options they’ll want as they develop, so scaling the dimensions of your group on both platform is seamless.
With that stated, Assist Scout is mostly the higher possibility for small companies and startups that wish to scale, whereas Intercom is mostly the higher possibility for giant corporations which might be planning to scale even additional.
Intercom’s large pricing jumps between plans could make profiting from the entire options it provides prohibitive for smaller groups with smaller budgets. On the flip aspect, its potential to supply telephone and SMS help natively make it extra interesting for bigger help groups that don’t need to have to purchase further help instruments with a view to add new channels.
Buyer help
Assist Scout has the next G2 score for its buyer help than Intercom, with a 9.1/10 in comparison with Intercom’s 8.6/10. It’s not unusual for Assist Scout’s clients to write down evaluations like this one: “The client help is over-the-top, wonderful, above-and-beyond useful. These should not clichés, they need to be taken actually.”
Each person at your organization can contact Assist Scout’s help group 24/6, there are dwell coaching lessons supplied each week, and if you wish to self-serve, you’ll be able to entry the platform’s complete information base.
If the entire info above didn’t make it clear which platform is the perfect on your group, right here’s a ultimate abstract that will help you select the best possibility:
In case you’re a small or mid-sized enterprise that’s on the lookout for a help platform that’s simple to make use of and inexpensive, select Assist Scout. In case you’re already a big firm that’s anticipating much more progress and doesn’t have funds constraints, select Intercom.
In case you plan to do most of your help over e-mail, dwell chat, and self-service, select Assist Scout. If you could ship telephone, SMS, or WhatsApp help, select Intercom.
If you would like entry to AI options that assist your groups do extra participating work, select Assist Scout. If you wish to automate as a lot as you presumably can, select Intercom.
Each Assist Scout and Intercom are leaders within the buyer help area, and you actually can’t go improper with both alternative. Take into account the variations between the 2 platforms, choose the platform that seems like it’ll finest help your enterprise’s distinctive wants, after which begin a trial to make it possible for it really works for you each in concept and in follow.
