Eight Intercom Fin alternatives publish a free trial you can start yourself on the web: Lorikeet (30 days), Zendesk (14 days), Help Scout (15 days, plus 3 months of free AI Answers resolutions), Gorgias (7 days), Front (14 days), Tidio (7 days), eesel AI (a free 100-credit plan) and Freshdesk (14 days). Six of them say outright that no card is needed to start. The 30-day trial asks for a card at checkout and charges nothing until it ends.

Fin (now part of Salesforce) is also still self-serve on its own pricing page: a 14-day trial, no credit card, and monthly or annual self-serve plans. The catch is that the self-serve path runs on the Intercom helpdesk. If you want Fin on a different helpdesk, the pricing page sends you to sales.

Key takeaways

• Fin is still self-serve today. Its pricing page lists a 14-day trial with no credit card and self-serve Essential and Advanced plans. Salesforce's own release says Fin will continue to serve its customers as part of Salesforce's AI Labs.

• If you keep your current helpdesk, the trial picture changes. Fin on another helpdesk is a "Contact sales" card. Lorikeet, eesel AI and Tidio (Lyro) are the tools in this list that publish a self-serve route for adding an AI agent to a helpdesk you already run.

• Trial length ranges from 7 to 30 days. Gorgias and Tidio give 7 days, Zendesk, Front and Freshdesk 14, and Help Scout 15 (with AI Answers free for 3 months).

• Seat-based tools are cheaper for very small teams. Lorikeet's Start plan is $2,100 a month paid annually after the trial, which is more than a few seats on Help Scout, Front or Zendesk.

• Decision rule: pick the trial whose AI pricing unit (outcome, resolution, automated interaction, session or credit) you can model against last month's ticket volume before the trial ends.

Is Intercom Fin still self-serve after the Salesforce acquisition?

Yes, on the pages Fin publishes today. Salesforce announced on 10 September 2026 that it had completed its acquisition of Fin, formerly Intercom, and that Fin will continue to serve its customers as part of Salesforce's AI Labs. Fin's own facts page now describes the company as "Fin (formerly Intercom)", with two products: the Fin AI Agent and the Intercom Helpdesk.

On fin.ai/pricing, the Fin AI Agent costs $0.99 per outcome, and the Intercom helpdesk starts at $19 per seat per month. The trial terms are stated plainly: a 14-day free trial, no credit card required, all features, Fin and add-ons included, and you pay only once you choose a plan and add payment details. The same page says monthly or annual self-serve plans are available on Essential and Advanced, with a minimum of one Full seat and no contract required. The Intercom pricing page lists Essential at $19 per seat per month for new customers, Advanced at $85 and Expert at $132, each with Fin at $0.99 per outcome.

Two details matter if you are shopping for an alternative. First, the "Fin with your existing helpdesk" card shows "Contact sales" rather than a trial button. Fin's FAQ puts that option at $0.99 per outcome with a $49 monthly minimum that includes 50 outcomes, no seat costs. Second, Fin Voice is sold through sales at $1.99 per voice outcome. Fin also has real strengths for self-serve buyers. Its Fin CLI page invites you to point an AI coding agent at the CLI to set up Fin and configure the Intercom helpdesk, and the @intercom/cli package (version 0.13.0) has a setup command that provisions a new workspace with no token required. Intercom also runs an MCP server for US and EU hosted workspaces, and offers an Early Stage Program for startups. Check fin.ai/pricing before you decide, as terms can change.

For a head-to-head on features and pricing, see our head-to-head comparison with Fin. For a wider list that includes sales-led vendors, see our guide to Fin AI alternatives.

How we chose and checked these tools

We included a tool only if its own website lets a support team start a free trial or free plan without speaking to sales, and the trial includes an AI agent that answers customers (not only an AI assistant for human agents). We then checked each vendor's own public pricing, sign-up and product pages on 22 Oct 2026 and linked them in each section. Where a vendor does not state something, the table says "Not published". We did not sign up to every trial, so the table reflects what each vendor publishes, not a hands-on test.

Lorikeet publishes this guide and is one of the tools listed. We have tried to describe every product, including our own, using only what each vendor publishes, and we link to the source for each claim.

Intercom Fin alternatives with a free trial: comparison table

1. Lorikeet: for teams in complex or regulated support who want to keep their helpdesk

Lorikeet is an AI customer support platform for complex and regulated businesses. One agent works across chat, email, SMS and voice, and it runs on the helpdesk you already have. The published pricing lists ticket platform integrations with Zendesk, Slack, Intercom, HubSpot, Front, Help Scout, Salesforce, Genesys Cloud and its own SDK, and telephony integrations with Amazon Connect, Twilio, Vonage, Five9, Aircall and Dialpad. That matters for Fin buyers, because the self-serve trial does not ask you to move off Intercom or any other supported helpdesk.

Trial and sign-up. A 30-day free trial with a work email at lorikeetcx.ai/free-trial. You add a card at checkout to start the trial, and nothing is charged until the trial ends. After sign-up, Coach, a setup agent, guides you through setting up your first concierge. An AI assistant can also start the sign-up for you: the agent sign-up endpoint takes your work email and name over plain HTTP with no API key and nothing to install, you get an email link, and you finish in your own browser. If you would rather talk to the team first, an assistant can also book a demo through the agent demo booking API. We cover that flow in signing up for AI customer support from ChatGPT or Claude.

Pricing. Start is $2,100 a month and Scale $5,100 a month, both paid annually, with a forward deployed engineering support package included. Resolutions cost $0.99 (Start) or $0.90 (Scale) for chat, email or SMS and $1.50 or $1.20 for voice, based on a 3 minute average call. You are charged only for successfully resolved tickets; escalations to a person are not charged. It holds ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2, with US data residency on Start and Scale.

Proof. GiveCard, a payouts company, went from signing to live in 3 days, and its Head of Product built the workflows herself; the agent then answered more than 60,000 calls during its emergency program.

Limits. It needs a card at checkout, unlike most tools here. After the trial, Start costs $2,100 a month paid annually, more than seat-based tools for a team of two or three. The pricing page says time to first live ticket can be as little as hours but averages under 29 days, so a 30-day trial may not be enough to go fully live on complex workflows.

2. Zendesk AI agents: for teams that want helpdesk and AI agent from one vendor

Zendesk includes AI agents in every Suite and Support plan, and its pricing page says they can resolve issues across messaging, email and voice (voice requires Zendesk voice). An AI agent builder creates agents from natural-language procedure descriptions, and reasoning controls show the steps an agent took to reach a resolution.

Trial. The Zendesk sign-up page offers a free 14-day trial, "100% free. No credit card required", with a work email. The pricing FAQ says the trial gives you the Suite Professional plan, and that trial access to AI features is available for evaluation, though the capabilities included may vary.

Pricing. Seats are US$55 per agent per month paid yearly on Suite Team and US$115 on Suite Professional (US$69 and US$149 monthly). AI agents are billed per automated resolution: plans include 5 to 10 automated resolutions per agent per month, and pay-as-you-go resolutions are listed at US$2.00.

Best for: teams leaving Intercom entirely for one helpdesk plus AI. Trade-off: you pay for both seats and resolutions, and the trial's AI capabilities may differ from what you buy, so confirm the agent features you need during the 14 days.

3. Help Scout: for small teams that want the longest no-cost AI test

Help Scout is a shared inbox and help centre with an AI agent called AI Answers (sold as the Envoy add-on on its pricing page). It answers from your website and other sources you add, and hands off to your team when the customer needs more help.

Trial. Standard and Plus come with a 15-day trial and no credit card. Separately, every new account gets 3 months of free, unlimited AI Answers resolutions from the day you sign up, which is the longest no-cost window for AI resolutions in this list. Trialling the Pro plan goes through sales.

Pricing. Standard is $25, Plus $45 and Pro $75 per user per month as listed, and AI Answers costs $0.75 per resolution. A resolution counts only when the customer does not escalate or ask for more help, and you are charged at most once per conversation. You can set a monthly cap on AI spend.

Best for: small and mid-size teams with email and chat volume who want low entry cost. Trade-off: Help Scout is a helpdesk replacement, so using AI Answers means running support in Help Scout, and HIPAA and SSO sit on the sales-led Pro plan.

4. Gorgias: for ecommerce brands

Gorgias is a helpdesk with an AI agent built for online stores. Its pricing page says the AI Agent is on every plan and is pre-trained on 18+ verticals, and higher plans add brand voice controls and actions such as cancel, discount and apply.

Trial. The Gorgias sign-up page offers a 7-day trial with all features included and no credit card required.

Pricing. The helpdesk starts at $10 a month on Starter (50 tickets, monthly billing only) and runs to Advanced at 5,000 tickets a month. The AI Agent is charged per automated interaction: $1.00 on Starter, $0.90 on Basic and Pro, and $0.85 on Advanced. Advanced and custom plans go through sales.

Best for: Shopify-style ecommerce teams handling order, return and product questions. Trade-off: 7 days is the shortest trial here, so prepare your help content and a test plan before you sign up. Brand voice and actions are not on the Starter plan.

5. Front: for teams that run support from a shared inbox

Front is a shared inbox and ticketing tool. Its pricing page lists an omnichannel AI agent called Autopilot and an AI Copilot for human agents. Front also lets you connect external AI agents built with Claude, Codex, Sierra and others to work alongside your team in Front.

Trial. A free 14-day trial with all Professional plan features. Front says you do not need a credit card to start, continue or complete the trial.

Pricing. Billed annually, Starter is $25 per seat per month (up to 10 seats), Professional $65 (up to 50 seats) and Enterprise $105. Autopilot is an add-on on every plan, listed as starting at $0.05 per conversation with a "Talk to sales" button.

Best for: B2B and operations-heavy teams that live in email and want collaboration first. Trade-off: the trial covers Professional features, but Front does not state whether the Autopilot AI agent is included, and Autopilot is bought through sales. Ask before you start if testing the AI agent is your main goal.

6. Tidio: for small businesses that want live chat plus an AI agent cheaply

Tidio combines live chat, ticketing and an AI agent called Lyro. Its pricing page offers two routes: Lyro with the Tidio help desk, or Lyro AI Agent only, added to Zendesk, Salesforce or any other help desk. That second route is a self-serve way to put an AI agent on a helpdesk you already run.

Trial. A 7-day free trial on Starter and Growth with no credit card. At the end of the trial the account drops to the Free plan unless you upgrade. Your first 50 Lyro conversations are free for the lifetime of the account.

Pricing. Starter is listed at $24.17 a month and Growth from $49.17 a month when billed annually, with Plus from $300 a month plus usage. Lyro is sold as a monthly quota of AI conversations, from 50 up to 1,000, with custom plans above that.

Best for: small online businesses and startups where chat is the main channel. Trade-off: Lyro is priced per AI conversation in quota packs, so you pay for conversations whether or not they resolve; check how the quota maps to your monthly volume.

7. eesel AI: for teams that want to add AI to an existing helpdesk with no card

eesel AI adds an AI agent to tools you already use, including Zendesk, Freshdesk, Slack and Shopify, according to its pricing page. Every plan includes every integration and channel (helpdesk, Slack, chat bubble, email, extension), EU or US data residency, and unlimited agents and seats.

Trial. The Free plan is described as a trial: 100 credits to try every feature and integration, no card. You add a card only when you pick a plan. eesel also publishes a CLI that a coding agent such as Claude Code or Codex can use to set up an agent; you sign in or create your workspace in your browser first.

Pricing. The Teammate plan starts at $299 a month for 500 credits and scales in steps to $1,749 for 5,000 credits. A ticket or a chat is 1 credit however long it runs, there is no per-seat price, and you can cancel any time.

Best for: teams on Zendesk or Freshdesk who want to test AI drafts and replies on real tickets before paying. Trade-off: credits count tickets the agent works on, not resolutions, and eesel says its SOC 2 Type II audit is still in progress, with HIPAA available only on Enterprise.

8. Freshdesk Freddy AI Agent: for teams that want a full trial of an enterprise helpdesk

Freshdesk is Freshworks' helpdesk, and Freddy AI Agent is its AI agent, built and monitored in AI Agent Studio according to the Freshdesk pricing page.

Trial. The FAQ says that when you sign up you get the Enterprise plan for 14 days. Freshdesk alerts you before the trial expires, and you then pick a plan and pay by credit card to continue; if you do not, the account is suspended. The page does not say whether a card is needed to start the trial.

Pricing. Growth is $19, Pro $55 and Enterprise $89 per agent per month billed annually. Each of these plans includes the first 500 Freddy AI Agent sessions, once per account, then $49 per 100 sessions. A session is a unique interaction between a customer and the AI agent; for email it is a 72-hour window from the customer's first email.

Best for: teams that want to evaluate a broad helpdesk with AI at Enterprise level before committing. Trade-off: sessions are billed whether or not the AI resolves the issue, and the 500 included sessions are a one-time allowance.

Sales-led alternatives without a self-serve trial

These well-known Fin alternatives may suit large enterprise programmes, but none publishes a self-serve trial today.

• Decagon: the Decagon homepage offers "Get a demo" and "Contact Sales"; we found no public pricing page.

• Sierra: the Sierra homepage describes outcome-based pricing and agents across chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice and ChatGPT, but publishes no prices or trial.

• Ada: ada.cx/pricing is a demo booking page for a 30-minute call; no prices or trial are shown.

Questions to ask before you pick

1. Do I want to keep my helpdesk? If yes, shortlist tools that add an agent to it (Lorikeet, eesel AI, Tidio Lyro). If you are moving off Intercom anyway, Zendesk, Help Scout, Front, Gorgias and Freshdesk replace the helpdesk too. Our Intercom alternatives guide covers the helpdesk side.

2. What exactly is billed? Outcomes (Fin), resolutions (Lorikeet, Zendesk, Help Scout), automated interactions (Gorgias), conversations (Tidio, Front Autopilot), sessions (Freshdesk) or credits (eesel) behave differently. Ask whether handoffs to a person are charged.

3. Is the trial long enough to test real tickets? Seven days suits a help-content test, not workflows that take actions in your systems.

4. Is the AI agent in the trial? Zendesk notes trial AI capabilities may vary and Front does not state whether Autopilot is included. Confirm before you start.

5. What does it cost the month after? Seat tools look cheap for two agents and grow with headcount. Plan-fee tools cost more at small scale and less per resolution at volume.

6. Can my AI assistant do the setup? Fin publishes a CLI whose setup command provisions a new Intercom workspace, eesel publishes a CLI for coding agents, and Lorikeet publishes a plain-HTTP agent sign-up endpoint that any assistant can call without installing anything.

For more trials beyond Fin alternatives, see our roundup of AI customer service software with a free trial. If Lorikeet fits, you can start a 30-day free trial with a work email.