HiverIntercomHiver vs Intercom

Hiver vs Intercom: $250 or $850 for ten people

A Gmail-based shared inbox against a customer messaging platform: Hiver is $300 a month cheaper for five people. The six differences, what five people pay on each, and a third option.

By Khalid Nouri, founder of SellioPricing check dates are listed with each vendor below

Try the third optionSellio pricing

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The short answer

Pick Hiver if your agents live in Gmail or Outlook and you do not want them to learn a new tool. Pick Intercom if your support lives in the website messenger and in-app, and you want product tours and outbound messages in the same tool. For five people, Hiver is $300 a month cheaper than Intercom ($125 a month on Hiver against $425 on Intercom), before AI. Sellio Mini, at $45 for the workspace, is $80 under Hiver. Hiver and Intercom both include email in the price; only Intercom has website chat. Neither Hiver nor Intercom includes WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram outright. Below, a third option for a team of two to ten that wants what Hiver and Intercom sell here at one price.

At a glanceHiverHiverIntercomIntercom
Built aroundGmail and Outlook · nothing new to learnThe Messenger · tickets came later
Entry plan$25/user/mo · Growth, yearly$29/seat/mo · Essential: inbox and Messenger
Chat in the price$45/user/mo · Pro adds live chat$29/seat/mo · Essential, with tickets
AI agentHarvey AI · features by plan, no per-use priceFrom $0.99 per outcome · Fin, printed on the pricing page
Copilot for agentsBy plan · Harvey$29/agent/mo
Free planYes · core shared inboxNone · 14-day trial

The six differences that decide it

Everything else on this page follows from these.

  1. 01

    Where a conversation starts

    HiverHiver

    As an email in a Gmail or Outlook inbox with Hiver's assignment, status and notes layered on it. Intercom raises a ticket where Hiver keeps a conversation.

    IntercomIntercom

    As a message in the Messenger, with ticketing available from Essential. Hiver has no ticket queue behind its conversations.

  2. 02

    What the seat buys

    HiverHiver

    $25 buys the shared inbox on Growth; seats come in packs of 2, 5 and 10, so a sixth user means buying ten. $125 for five people, against $425 on Intercom.

    IntercomIntercom

    $29 buys the inbox, Messenger and ticketing. Advanced at $85 adds workflows and round-robin routing. $425 for five people, against $125 on Hiver.

  3. 03

    How the AI is billed

    HiverHiver

    Harvey AI features are tied to the plan you are on rather than metered per conversation. Intercom meters AI (from $0.99 per outcome) above the seats instead.

    IntercomIntercom

    Fin is $0.99 or more per outcome on every plan, printed on the pricing page, on top of seats. Hiver folds AI (Harvey AI) into the plan instead.

  4. 04

    Channels in the price

    HiverHiver

    Email first; live chat and WhatsApp on the higher plans, no Instagram or Telegram. Intercom adds website chat, which Hiver lacks.

    IntercomIntercom

    Messenger and email on every plan; WhatsApp, SMS and phone are pay-as-you-go lines. website chat is here and not on Hiver.

  5. 05

    Beyond the inbox

    HiverHiver

    SLAs, CSAT and analytics on top of the mailbox; strong for finance and operations teams. Intercom is a customer messaging platform instead.

    IntercomIntercom

    Product tours, banners, surveys and outbound campaigns; Proactive Support Plus is $99 a month. Hiver is a Gmail-based shared inbox instead.

  6. 06

    Time to the first reply

    HiverHiver

    An hour: install the Gmail extension and share the inbox. Intercom is an afternoon for a website-first team.

    IntercomIntercom

    An afternoon for a website-first team: install the Messenger, invite the team, answer. Hiver is an hour.

Sources: Hiver pricing · Intercom pricing. Each vendor’s own comparison of the other is linked so you can weigh both sides against ours.

What each one looks like

A look at the agent workspace. Interfaces can vary by plan and product version.

The Hiver sidebar inside Gmail: assignment, status and notes beside the email
HiverHiver. The Hiver sidebar inside Gmail: assignment, status and notes beside the email
The Intercom Inbox: a conversation list with the Messenger thread and the customer profile
IntercomIntercom. The Intercom Inbox: a conversation list with the Messenger thread and the customer profile

What your team would pay

Move the sliders. Yearly-billing rates from each vendor’s pricing page, next to Sellio’s plan for the same number of seats.

5 people who answer customers

50

300 AI conversations on Hiver, Fin outcomes on Intercom

3000+
HiverHiver

$125/mo

Shared inbox, assignment, notes.

5 × $25 seats
$125
300 AI conversations × $0
$0

Yearly billing; monthly costs more. Hiver ties Harvey AI to the plan rather than metering it; no per-conversation rate is printed. Rates recorded on 2026-09-06.

IntercomIntercom

$722/mo

Adds workflows, multiple inboxes and round robin.

5 × $85 seats
$425
300 Fin outcomes × $0.99
$297
Copilot, 5 × $29
$0

Yearly billing; monthly costs more. From $0.99 per Fin outcome on every plan, as printed on the pricing page. Rates recorded on 2026-09-06.

Sellio · Mini

$55/mo

One price for the workspace: 3 channels, 2 AI agents, $5 AI credit a month.

Workspace, 5 of 5 seats
$45
AI past 100 included conversations
$10
Copilot for agents
Included

About $0.05 per AI conversation past the credit, with a daily and monthly cap you set. Yearly billing takes 20% off. See every plan.

Pricing references: Hiver pricing page (recorded 2026-09-06; needs verification); Intercom pricing page (recorded 2026-09-06). Calculator uses yearly-billing rates. Prices change; confirm current terms with each vendor.

5 people, website chat plus 2 more channels, 2 AI agents: $45 a month. Start free, no card.

Start freeSee every plan

Hiver, Intercom and Sellio, side by side

Fifteen things a support team checks. A dash means the product does part of it or charges extra for it.

FeatureHiverHiverIntercomIntercomSellio

Pricing

Pricing model
Per user, sold in seat packs.
Per seat; Fin per outcome; channels metered
Per workspace; seats and channels are plan limits
Free plan
Core shared inbox features.
None; 14-day trial
2 seats, 1 channel, 1 AI agent, no trial clock

Channels

Website live chat
Live chat on higher plans.
The Messenger, all plans
One script tag; guides for HTML, React, Next.js and more
Email in the inbox
Gmail or Outlook, the core.
All plans
From Mini: forward your support address; reply from the thread
WhatsApp
On higher plans.
Pay-as-you-go
From Mini: WhatsApp Business API, several agents on one number
Instagram DMs
Not a channel.
Via integration
From Mini: Instagram DMs beside web chat
Telegram
Not a channel.
Not native
From Mini: paste a bot token; the webhook is set for you
Slack, Discord, Teams (two-way)
Slack integration.
Slack notifications
From Mini: two-way threads; a reply there reaches the customer

AI

AI agent trained on your docs
Harvey AI assists agents; limited autonomous answering.
Fin, trained on your help center
Crawl your site, upload PDFs and FAQs; answers only from those
How AI is billed
By plan.
From $0.99 per outcome, on top of seats
Metered from an included credit, with caps you set
AI hands off to a person
Not applicable to an assist model.
Fin hands to a teammate
On low confidence, a keyword, or a teammate taking over

Support operations

Tickets
Email conversations with status.
Included from Essential
On Plus: raise from any chat; customer, back-office and tracker
Visual workflow automation
Automations on Pro and up.
Visual builder, Advanced and up
From Mini: 11 triggers, 18 actions, no code
Analytics and CSAT
Analytics and CSAT.
Reports; custom on higher plans
From Essentials: response times, resolution, CSAT; topics and email reports on Plus

Apps

Desktop app (Windows, macOS)
Runs inside Gmail and Outlook.
Browser and mobile only
Native Windows and macOS apps

Which one, for whom

Pick Hiver if

  • Your agents live in Gmail or Outlook and you do not want them to learn a new tool.
  • Email is nearly the whole job and you need SLAs and analytics on it.
  • Five people cost $300 a month less than on Intercom ($125 against $425), before AI.
  • You want a free plan to start on; Intercom offers a 14-day trial, no card.

Pick Intercom if

  • Your support lives in the website messenger and in-app, and you want product tours and outbound messages in the same tool.
  • Fin's AI quality matters more to you than its per-outcome price.
  • You need website chat in the price, which Hiver does not include outright.
  • You need a ticket queue, which Hiver does not have.

The third option: Sellio

  • You are two to ten people on Hiver or Intercom who answer chat, messaging and email, and want to compare workspace pricing with $125 a month on Hiver against $425 on Intercom for five people.
  • You want the AI bill known before the month starts: Hiver folds AI (Harvey AI) into the plan, Intercom meters AI (from $0.99 per outcome) above the seats; Sellio includes a credit and lets you cap it.
  • You need Telegram and native Windows and macOS apps, which neither Hiver nor Intercom includes.

What two, five and ten people pay

Hiver on Growth: $50, $125 and $250 a month for two, five and ten people, before AI. Intercom on Advanced: $170, $425 and $850 a month for two, five and ten people, before AI. Sellio: Free for two seats; Mini at $45 for five, $80 less than Hiver and $380 less than Intercom for five people; Essentials at $95 for ten, the AI credit included. At ten people, Essentials at $95 is $155 under Hiver and $755 under Intercom.

Where the two agree, and where they split

Hiver is a Gmail-based shared inbox built around Gmail and Outlook; Intercom is a customer messaging platform built around the Messenger. Only Hiver has a free plan (core shared inbox); Intercom offers a 14-day trial, no card. Hiver and Intercom both include email in the price; only Intercom has website chat. Neither Hiver nor Intercom includes WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram outright. Hiver folds AI (Harvey AI) into the plan; Intercom meters AI (from $0.99 per outcome) above the seats. Intercom has tickets and Hiver does not, and neither Hiver nor Intercom ships a desktop app. Hiver is an hour; Intercom is an afternoon for a website-first team.

What each price leaves out

Hiver: Harvey AI features by plan. Intercom: Fin AI agent from $0.99 per outcome on every plan; Copilot $29 per agent per month yearly ($35 monthly). WhatsApp, SMS and phone are pay-as-you-go. Beside Hiver's Harvey AI and Intercom's from $0.99 per outcome, Sellio includes an AI credit with each paid plan. Usage consumes that credit; additional credits cost extra, and you can set a spending cap.

How these figures were read

Hiver does not print the figures above in a form a fetch can read (Per user per month with yearly and monthly rates and seat packs (2, 5, 10 and so on). Hiver renders its table in the browser; figures confirmed from published summaries.), so they are marked unverified here beside Intercom's, and Hiver's pricing page should be checked before you decide.

How to decide in an afternoon

  1. Step 1

    Count agents and channels

    Anyone who replies is a seat. List the channels customers actually use.

    5 people reply5 seats
    Website chat61%
    WhatsApp27%
    Email12%
  2. Step 2

    Price the AI you would use

    Estimate monthly conversations the AI could close, then apply each vendor's per-resolution or per-session rate.

    1,200 conversations × 40% AI closes480
    HiverHiverAssumed $0$0
    IntercomIntercom$0.99$475
    Sellio$0.05$19

    Illustrative AI-only estimate; vendor units differ. Pack billing is rounded up. Sellio assumes Mini’s $5 credit and $0.05 per conversation.

  3. Step 3

    Trial the shortlist

    Check each vendor’s trial, free plan or demo terms. Where access is available, test one real channel before committing.

    HiverHiver · Free trial offered
    IntercomIntercom · 14-day trial, no card
    Sellio · Free plan, no card

    Confirm trial access and limits, then evaluate one real channel on each.

Continue your research

FAQ

Hiver vs Intercom: the questions people ask

Hiver is a Gmail-based shared inbox built around Gmail and Outlook; Intercom is a customer messaging platform built around the Messenger. Intercom has tickets and Hiver does not, and neither Hiver nor Intercom ships a desktop app.

  • Entry plan: Hiver $25/user/mo (Growth, yearly); Intercom $29/seat/mo (Essential: inbox and Messenger).
  • Chat in the price: Hiver $45/user/mo (Pro adds live chat); Intercom $29/seat/mo (Essential, with tickets).
  • Sellio's inbox: WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram, which neither Hiver nor Intercom has outright, plus the rest of the five, on every paid plan.

The shared inbox page puts Sellio beside Hiver and Intercom on the same rows.

Still have a question? Contact us or browse the docs.

Or the third option: one price, every channel.

Sellio puts website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram and email in one inbox with tickets and an AI agent, for $45 to $295 a month per workspace.

Get startedRead the docs

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