Intercom vs Messagely

Messagely is an affordable Intercom alternative. It comes with all the features that Intercom offers (and more), and costs just a fraction of the price. Here’s why it makes sense to switch to Messagely today.

Intercom is one of the most well-known customer messaging platforms in the market, and it was founded back in 2011 by four Irish designers and engineers.

A bit of background history: the company received its first funding in 2012, when Twitter co-founder Biz Stone invested an undisclosed sum. Intercom quickly took off, and went on to announce a $6M Series A round in 2013. It raised several more rounds of funding between 2014 to 2018, with the most recent round being a $125M Series D led by Kleiner Perkins.

It’s clear the Intercom has grown from strength to strength, and they’re undoubtedly one of the biggest players in the customer messaging industry as of now. But is Intercom the best messaging platform of choice, or would it be wiser to jump ship to an Intercom competitor? Read on to find out more.

Should you switch from Intercom? Factors to consider.

Price

Support

Features

In this guide, we walk you through the pros and cons of Intercom and Messagely across three different factors: price, support, and features. After assessing both tools in these categories, you’ll have all the information you need to make a decision as to whether Messagely is a worthy Intercom alternative.

Price

While companies in the SaaS space are generally getting more transparent about their pricing, there’s still a select pool of SaaS vendors who aren’t 100% upfront about the prices of their products, or offer complicated plans with hidden costs.

While Intercom displays its prices clearly and prominently on its website, potential customers will have to sieve through a total of 12 different plans, depending on whether they want to use Intercom to acquire, engage or support visitors (there’s also an option that allows customers to access all the features under these three categories). As if that’s not enough, customers must then decide if they want to purchase add-ons, before being able to estimate the final price payable. As you might imagine, this creates added friction on the customer’s part.

Messagely, on the other hand, offers just three fixed plans (Basic, Plus, and Professional), and a customizable plan option (Enterprise) for larger businesses who want more flexibility with their tool. Messagely’s prices are also more wallet-friendly than Intercom’s. The highest-tiered plan at Messagely goes for $79; Intercom, on the other hand, charges $153 per month for their Pro “All of Intercom” plan.

The Verdict

Messagely Wins!

When it comes to pricing, Messagely beats Intercom, hands down. Compared to Intercom, Messagely is more affordable, transparent, and it doesn’t come with any hidden costs.

Support

When you sign up to use a new software or tool, you’ll want to get started with the tool as quickly as possible – not spend weeks or even months slowly migrating everything over. Here, it’s important to look for a vendor that offers great support and is committed to helping you resolve any issues you might face. This way, you’ll be able to get up and running quickly, and this won’t affect your operations or your availability to your customers. Here at Messagely, we’ve got our reps on standby to answer your questions, and we allow you to contact us through whatever method is easiest for you. If you’re on the Basic plan ($29), you get access to help guides, chat support and email support; if you’re on the Plus plan ($49), we also throw in priority support and 30 day onboarding. Finally, those on the Pro plan ($79) get a dedicated Customer Success Manager whom they can contact if they need anything. How does Intercom fare, when benchmarked against Messagely? As you can see, there are plenty of disgruntled Intercom customers complaining about the platform on social media, with key complaints being that the team is slow to answer customer queries.

The Verdict

Messagely Wins!

Intercom used to offer good customer support, but these days, its response time and resolution time is alarmingly high. Messagely, which has an average response time of just five minutes, definitely beats Intercom in this round.

Features

When it comes to features, you’re looking for a feature-rich platform that’s both powerful and intuitive to use. At the end of the day, it’s much better to have a single platform that takes care of all your customer acquisition, engagement and support needs, rather than jumping from platform to platform, and having your data all over the place.

First up, let’s look at Intercom. This platform does offer many useful features such as Business Messenger, Bots for Sales and Marketing, Bots for Support, and Product Tours, but note that many of these features have to be purchased as an add-on. Even if you opt for Intercom’s “All of Intercom” plan (instead of choosing a specific use case) and go for the pricier Pro plan ($153++ per month), this nevertheless doesn’t entitle you to use Intercom’s Sales Bots, Answer Bots, or Product Tours.

Now, let’s turn our attention to Messagely. With the $29 plan, you get Live Chat, Targeted Messages, Shared Inbox, Knowledgebase, Live View, iOS and Android apps, 750+ integrations, and more. With the $49 plan, you get all of the above, plus Automated Campaigns, Data Enrichment, Reporting and Analytics, and Multi-Brand Usage. Finally, the $79 plan gives you all these features, plus Sales, Support and Meeting Chatbots, Account Based Marketing, SAML/SSO, and more. With Messagely, there’s no need to pay extra for add-ons.

The Verdict

Messagely Wins!

Both Intercom and Messagely are powerful tools and offer plenty in terms of functionality, but you’ll have to pay through the nose to unlock features such as Sales Bots and Product Tours in Intercom. With Messagely, on the other hand, these features are included within your plan, so there’s no need to pay add-on fees.

The Verdict

Messagely Beats Intercom!

Intercom is one of the biggest players in the market, and it’s also a lot more established than Messagely. That said, Intercom definitely doesn’t offer users the best value and support. Its pricing plans are expensive and don’t include many essential features; when it comes to support, it’s also drawn plenty of flak online for taking two to four days to respond.

All in all, we’d say that Messagely is a worthy Intercom alternative. For those looking for a feature-rich, robust tool that won’t break the bank, Messagely is definitely the platform of choice.

Unlock your 14 day free trial. No credit card required.

Delight Your Customers And Win Them Over For Life.

Unlock your 14 day free trial. No credit card required.