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Intercom is an AI-first customer service platform — a shared inbox, tickets, a help centre and the Fin AI agent — built for a support department and priced per seat. Human Reply does one thing, simply: your website's chats land in your team's Telegram group, anyone there can answer, a person writes every reply, and nothing you keep is rationed by plan.
7-day free trial · Starting $10 a month
Choose Intercom if you want AI to answer most questions by itself, a full help desk behind it, and you have the people and the budget to run one.
Choose Human Reply if your team already lives in Telegram, several people should be able to answer without paying per person, and you want something simple — nothing new for the team to learn.
Intercom's agents answer in Intercom's inbox. Human Reply's team answers in the Telegram group it already has.
Intercom
Everyone who answers works in Intercom's own inbox, on the web or in its phone apps, and everyone who answers is a paid seat. Telegram is not one of Intercom's channels: App Store apps can bring customers who write on Telegram into the inbox, but your team still answers inside Intercom.
Human Reply
No extra app and no add-ons: your team answers where it already is. Each chat opens as its own topic in your group, with the lead card at the top: the page and the item they were looking at, where they came from, how many times they've visited. Claim, Won and Lost sit on the card. Whoever is free replies from their phone, and the reply shows on your site.
Intercom is built for a support department, and it shows in the setting up. Human Reply is built for the four or five people who answer between everything else they do.
Intercom
Seats, teams and assignment rules decide who sees what, and someone has to set them up and keep them right. People who only need to follow along take a Lite seat, on the plans that include them. It is a lot of machinery when five people share the answering.
Human Reply
Everyone in the group sees every chat, and whoever is free answers — replying is what claims it, so nobody answers twice and nobody has to hand anything over. The Desk board says who is available, Won or Lost closes a chat in one tap, and the dashboard still shows how each person did: chats picked up, how fast the first reply went out, how many were won. Per person, without a price per person.
Every conversation and every file stays for as long as your account does — and the same chats sit in your own Telegram group, which is yours whatever happens to us.
Intercom
The conversations and the files live in Intercom. You can export them, and while you pay you have them; the copy your team can open on a phone tomorrow is the one inside Intercom.
Human Reply
Unlimited conversations, no storage bill, and no history window that gets shorter on a cheaper plan — there is one plan. Every chat is also a topic in your group, with the photos and documents in it, so the record lives with your team as well as with us. Files go up to 20 MB each, both ways.
Intercom covers far more ground, and there is more of it to run. Human Reply does one job, from the app your team already has, and keeps everything on one plan.
| Compared | Intercom | Human Reply |
|---|---|---|
| The product | ||
| What it is | AI-first customer service platform: shared inbox, tickets, help centre and the Fin AI agent | Live chat for your website, answered from Telegram |
| Where the team answers | Intercom's own inbox, on the web and in its iOS and Android apps | Your team's Telegram group, from the phone; each chat is its own topic |
| Replies written by AI | Fin answers by itself on every plan, at $0.99 an answer1 | None; a person writes every reply |
| Price and plans | ||
| Price | $19–$132 per seat a month billed annually, $29–$139 monthly, plus what Fin and the paid channels use1 | $12 a month per site, or $10 a month billed yearly ($120) |
| Who can answer | Everyone who answers is a paid seat; Advanced adds 20 Lite seats and Expert 50, for people who only follow along1 | Everyone in the group; there are no seats |
| Add-ons | Copilot $29 per agent a month, Proactive Support Plus $99, Pro from $991 | None. One plan, everything in it |
| Trial | 14 days, no card1 | 7 days |
| Conversations | ||
| Visitor context | Deep: the person's attributes, their events and their company, once you send them from your site or app | A lead card at the top of the topic: the page and item, where they came from, visit count, language, device, the message, and a link to an earlier chat |
| Picking up and closing a chat | Assignment rules, teams, tickets and statuses to set up | Claim on the card, or just reply; Won or Lost closes it |
| Chat history | Kept in Intercom while you pay for it; exportable | Kept for as long as the account exists, on the one plan, and every chat is also a topic in your own group |
| Files | Sent and received in the inbox | Any file type, up to 20 MB each, both ways; they live in your group too |
| What the visitor sees | Read receipts and a rating at the end | Delivered, Seen by, picked up by; read receipts both ways; a thumbs up or down at the end |
| When nobody answers | Fin replies, or the conversation waits in the inbox for office hours | The bubble shows the away note your team wrote and asks where the reply should go: WhatsApp, Telegram, email, Instagram or Messenger, whichever you switched on |
| Channels | ||
| Customer channels | Live chat, email and in-app messages on every plan; SMS, WhatsApp, phone and email campaigns are pay-as-you-go1 | The chat on your site; the visitor can ask for the reply on WhatsApp, Telegram, email, Instagram or Messenger |
| Telegram | Not a channel of Intercom's own; App Store apps bring customers who write on Telegram into the inbox2 | Where the team answers every chat from your site, at no extra cost |
| Reports and setup | ||
| Reports | Pre-built reports on every plan; the deeper reporting comes with the higher ones1 | Dashboard: conversations, first reply, answered in time, thumbs up, by page and by person |
| Getting started | A platform to configure: seats, teams, assignment rules, a help centre and Fin's sources | Five guided steps, about ten minutes, then the bubble goes on your site |
Intercom charges for every person who answers, before Fin's answers are counted. Human Reply charges for the site, whatever the size of the team.
| People answering | Intercom Essential | Human Replybilled yearly / monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|
| billed annually | billed monthly | ||
| 1 | $19 | $29 | $10 / $12 |
| 3 | $57 | $87 | $10 / $12 |
| 5 | $95 | $145 | $10 / $12 |
| 10 | $190 | $290 | $10 / $12 |
Essential is Intercom's entry plan. Advanced, where several inboxes and the workflow builder live, is $85 a seat billed annually or $99 monthly, and every question Fin answers is $0.99 on top, on any plan.
Source: Intercom pricing, checked .
Intercom is the better choice when support is a department, and AI is meant to answer most of it.
Human Reply fits a small team that already lives in Telegram and wants to answer its site's visitors from there — together, with nothing new to learn and nothing rationed.
Set it up in about ten minutes, then answer the first chat from your phone.
7-day free trial · Starting $10 a month
Intercom and Fin are trademarks of Intercom, Inc. Human Reply is not affiliated with Intercom, Framer or Telegram.