Crisp vs Intercom 2026: GDPR, Data Hosting and Pricing

Crisp vs Intercom: Side-by-Side Comparison

This table sums up the Crisp vs Intercom comparison on the points European buyers ask about most. Prices are list prices in US dollars, as both vendors publish them. Euro and pound figures are approx. conversions at the ECB reference rate of 23 October 2026 ($1 = €0.893 = £0.748).

Sources, all checked October 2026: Crisp pricing, Crisp GDPR status, Intercom pricing, Fin pricing and Intercom sub-processors.

Data Hosting and GDPR: Crisp vs Intercom

On GDPR, Crisp starts from a stronger position: it is an EU company that hosts in the EU by default. Intercom can reach a similar setup, but only on higher plans, with a contract, and on a new workspace. Both offer a DPA. The main open question for both is the AI layer.

Is Crisp GDPR compliant?

Crisp's GDPR compliance page gives clear answers (checked October 2026):

• Company: Crisp IM SAS, a French company based in Nantes. Its lead supervisory authority is the CNIL.
• Hosting: messaging data in the Netherlands, plugin data in Germany. The main provider is DigitalOcean, through its EU subsidiary.
• Relay servers in the US, the UK and Singapore handle connections only. Crisp says they keep connection logs and store no data.
• Sub-processors listed: Cloudflare, DigitalOcean, Stripe (card payments) and Mirage, Crisp's own AI service for features such as live translation.

The DPA is self-serve. A workspace owner opens Settings, then Workspace Settings, then "Data, Limits & Legal". There, you download the contract, sign it and upload it back (Crisp DPA guide). No sales call is needed.

One point to check: DigitalOcean has a US parent company. Crisp contracts with its EU subsidiary. If your DPO treats US-parent providers as a risk, ask Crisp how it handles this.

Intercom GDPR and the Intercom DPA

Intercom, Inc. is a US company. By default, a new Intercom workspace is hosted in the United States. The Intercom DPA is part of the customer agreement, so you do not sign a separate document. For transfers out of Europe, it relies on Intercom's certification under the EU-US, UK-US and Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework. Where that does not apply, it uses Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum.

EU data hosting exists, on AWS in Dublin. But Intercom's regional data hosting article sets clear limits (checked October 2026):

• Only on the Advanced and Expert plans, for customers on a contract. Not on Essential.
• An existing workspace cannot be moved to another region. You create a new workspace and move data by CSV or API.
• Historical conversations cannot be migrated.

So if you start on Intercom Essential in the US region and later need EU hosting, you lose your conversation history. Decide on the region before you sign up.

Intercom is a US company, so US law can apply to it even when data sits in Ireland. Many EU companies accept this under the Data Privacy Framework. Regulated sectors should ask their DPO first. Our guide to AI chatbot data sovereignty in the EU explains the trade-offs.

Where your messages go for AI processing

Hosting is only half the story. When an AI agent answers, the message goes to a language model provider.

• Crisp Hugo: the auto-selected model is OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Luna. You can switch to Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Mistral or a Crisp-hosted model. Crisp also offers a "European Union" processing region when the selected model supports it (Hugo AI models, updated September 2026). The pages we checked do not say whether conversations are used for training. Ask Crisp before you sign.
• Intercom Fin: US workspaces use OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and AWS Bedrock in the USA. EU workspaces use Microsoft Azure, AWS and OpenAI with EU processing. Intercom says its AI providers keep no copy of inputs or outputs and cannot train on them (Intercom AI guide for legal teams).

One Intercom detail to know: since August 2025, Intercom fine-tunes its own Fin models on anonymised customer data. You can opt out in your workspace security settings. Intercom processes the request within 30 days (Intercom AI training policy).

Crisp vs Intercom Pricing for a 3-Seat Team (€ and £)

For a 3-seat team, Crisp is three to six times cheaper than Intercom once an AI agent is switched on. The reason is the pricing model. Crisp charges per workspace and includes AI credits. Intercom charges per seat and bills every Fin outcome on top.

Crisp chat pricing in 2026

Crisp shows prices in US dollars on its pricing page (checked October 2026). Each paid plan includes a seat bundle and monthly AI credits for Hugo. When the credits run out, you can turn on pay-as-you-go.

• Free: $0, 2 seats, chat widget and shared inbox, no AI. Too small for 3 people.
• Mini: $45 a month (≈ €40 / £34), 4 seats, about $5 of AI credit (around 90 automated conversations).
• Essentials: $95 a month (≈ €85 / £71), 10 seats, about $25 of AI credit (around 450 conversations), knowledge base, workflows, routing and analytics.
• Plus: $295 a month (≈ €264 / £221), 20 seats, about $75 of AI credit (around 1,350 conversations), ticketing, white label, 100+ integrations.

Extra seats cost $10 a month. All plans come with a 14-day trial. Our Heeya vs Crisp comparison goes deeper into Hugo credits.

Intercom pricing in 2026

Intercom also shows US dollar prices on its pricing page (checked October 2026):

• Essential: $19 per seat a month billed annually, $29 billed monthly.
• Advanced: $85 per seat a month billed annually, with 20 free Lite seats.
• Expert: $132 per seat a month billed annually, with 50 free Lite seats.
• Fin AI agent: $0.99 per outcome on every plan (Fin pricing). Fin sold on its own for another helpdesk has a minimum of 50 outcomes a month ($49.50, about €44 or £37).
• Copilot (AI help for human agents): $29 per agent a month billed annually, $35 monthly.

An outcome is counted when the customer confirms the answer solved the problem, leaves without a follow-up question, or completes a workflow. For more on this model, read our guide to per-resolution AI chatbot pricing. Our Intercom Fin pricing breakdown models higher volumes.

Worked example: 3 seats, 300 AI-resolved conversations a month

Assumptions: 3 human agents, annual billing on Intercom, and an AI agent that handles 300 conversations a month without a human. Euro and pound figures are approx., at the ECB rate of 23 October 2026.

Two caveats keep this fair. First, the units differ. Crisp counts every automated conversation against your credits. Intercom bills only conversations that Fin resolves, so failed attempts cost nothing. Second, Crisp Mini ($45) can also work for 3 seats, but its credits cover only about 90 AI conversations. Above that, you pay as you go.

VAT: these are list prices. Depending on the vendor and your VAT status, VAT may be added to the invoice: 20 % in the UK, 23 % in Ireland, 21 % in the Netherlands and 19 % in Germany. Most VAT-registered businesses can reclaim it.

AI Agents: Crisp Hugo vs Intercom Fin

Intercom has bet the whole company on its Fin AI agent, to the point of renaming itself Fin in 2026 (Fin about page). Crisp's Hugo is a solid AI agent inside a cheaper, broader messaging tool. Neither vendor publishes an independent benchmark, so test both on your own questions.

Intercom Fin: priced per outcome

Fin answers from your help centre and content, and can run workflows. You pay $0.99 only when it resolves a conversation. That is fair when Fin works well. It also means a good month costs more. At 1,000 resolved conversations, Fin alone is $990 a month, about €884 or £741.

Fin is also sold on its own. It plugs into Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshworks, Zoho, Front, Gorgias and other helpdesks. So you can keep your current inbox and add Fin on top.

Crisp Hugo: priced with credits

Hugo is trained on your web pages, knowledge base articles, files and Q&A. It can also act through your integrations, for example to check an order, within rules you set. You choose the model (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral or Crisp-hosted). This choice is useful if you want a European provider such as Mistral.

Costs stay low and predictable: credits are included in the plan, and pay-as-you-go starts only above them. Based on Crisp's own figures ($5 of credit for about 90 conversations), one automated conversation costs around $0.06. That is far below Fin's $0.99. But a Crisp credit pays for an attempt, not a confirmed resolution.

How to test AI quality before you buy

• Take your 20 most frequent customer questions, in English and in your other customer languages.
• Run them through both trials (14 days each) with the same help content.
• Score each answer: correct, partly correct, wrong, or handed to a human.
• Check what each tool does when the answer is not in your content. A good agent says so and hands over.

Who Should Pick Crisp, and Who Should Pick Intercom

The short rule: Crisp for EU-first SMBs on a budget, Intercom for scale-ups that want the strongest AI agent and can pay for it.

Crisp is the better choice if...

• You want EU hosting and a signed DPA without a sales call or an annual contract.
• You are a team of 2 to 20 and want a flat monthly bill.
• You run an e-commerce site and want chat, email and messaging channels in one inbox.
• You prefer to choose your AI provider, including a European one.

Intercom is the better choice if...

• AI resolution rate is your main goal and you have a large, well-written help centre.
• You are a SaaS company that needs in-app chats, banners, tooltips and complex workflows.
• You can sign an Advanced or Expert contract to get EU hosting, or the US region is acceptable to your DPO.
• You want to keep your current helpdesk and add Fin on top.

If neither fits, our lists of Crisp alternatives, Intercom alternatives for SMBs and European alternatives to Intercom cover more options.

A Third Option: an AI Chatbot on Your Docs, Without an Inbox

Some teams compare Crisp and Intercom only to get an AI chatbot that answers from their documentation. If you have no team working a live-chat inbox, you may not need either one.

Heeya is an AI chatbot layer, not a helpdesk. Be clear on what that means:

• What it does: answers visitors from your documents and website (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text, crawled pages), with an embeddable widget. It collects contact requests through a form, creates tickets, and on Premium sends leads to a webhook, HubSpot or Pipedrive.
• What it does not do: there is no live-chat inbox for human agents and no omnichannel messaging. If your team chats with customers in real time, use Crisp or Intercom.
• Price: Standard €19 a month (approx. £16) for 500 AI replies, Premium €99 a month (approx. £83) for 2,500 AI replies and 3 agents. Flat price, no per-resolution billing. 7-day free trial, no credit card.
• Data: Heeya stores conversations and knowledge bases in the EU (OVH, France); message content is sent to AI providers (Google, OpenAI) that may process it outside the EU under standard contractual clauses or the Data Privacy Framework, with no training on your data. A signed processing addendum is available on request.
• Languages: French and English only.

Note that Heeya counts AI replies, not conversations. A conversation often has 2 or 3 replies. The full plan details are on the Heeya pricing page.

FAQ: Crisp vs Intercom on GDPR, Hosting and Pricing