The short answer
- Moving from Intercom Advanced to Chatwoot cloud at 5 seats saves $3,060 in the first year, after setup and upkeep time (Stackcut's model: modeled, not measured).
- Chatwoot's official migration guide moves 2 kinds of data in full and 1 partly; 5 things stay behind. What moves
- 3 public accounts of making this switch: 2 switched, 1 evaluated. Read them
- Switching help: Chatwoot Cloud offers a 15-day free trial plus a permanently free Hacker plan: up to 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, 30-day data retention (voice and Teams features not included). chatwoot.com
What Intercom and Chatwoot cost
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, as stored in the Stackcut catalog. Each price links its source.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intercom Essential | $39/user/mo | $29/user/mo | Messenger live chat, shared inbox and ticketing, pre-built reports, public help center, basic automation; no Workflows builder, round-robin assignment or multiple team inboxes (Advanced). Fin AI Agent extra at $0.99 per outcome. 1 full seat minimum. |
| Intercom Advanced | $99/user/mo | $85/user/mo | Adds the Workflows automation builder, multiple team inboxes, round-robin assignment, a private and multilingual help center; includes 20 free Lite seats. Fin extra. |
| Intercom Expert | $139/user/mo | $132/user/mo | Adds SSO and identity management, HIPAA support, SLAs, multibrand Messenger and help center; includes 50 free Lite seats. Fin extra. |
| Chatwoot Startups cloud | $19/user/mo | not shown | All channels but voice (email, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, SMS, Telegram, API); help center; reports; 300 Captain AI credits a month ($20 per extra 1,000); no teams or automation rules; 1-year data retention; unlimited conversations under the fair-use policy. |
| Chatwoot Business cloud | $39/user/mo | not shown | Adds teams, automation rules, voice, SLAs, custom attributes and pre-chat forms; 500 Captain AI credits; 2-year data retention. |
| Chatwoot Enterprise cloud | $99/user/mo | not shown | Adds SSO/SAML, audit logs, agent capacity and branding removal; 800 Captain AI credits; 3-year data retention. |
| Chatwoot Premium Support self-hosted | $19/user/mo | not shown | Self-hosted with Captain AI, custom branding, agent capacity, roles and permissions, and priority email support. |
- Chatwoot free plan: Hacker cloud plan: up to 2 agents, 500 conversations a month, website live chat only (no email or help center), 30-day data retention. The self-hosted Community Edition is free. chatwoot.com
Moving from Intercom to Chatwoot
What Chatwoot's importer carries over, what it leaves behind, and any help it offers switchers.
To Chatwoot
Official guide chatwoot.com · Tools: Chatwoot built-in Intercom importer, Intercom private app + Access Token
Moves: contacts (full); conversations including message history (full); source timestamps and source details (partial). chatwoot.com
Doesn't move: file attachments; live channels (website widget, Messenger, other Intercom channels); File attachments; Intercom teammates, teams, assignments, routing rules, automations, apps and Messenger settings; Continuous sync - the import is a one-time migration. chatwoot.com
Watch out for:
- The import is one-time; new changes in Intercom are not continuously synced chatwoot.com
- Imported conversations are resolved and live in source-specific import inboxes, not in your live channels chatwoot.com
- Attachments are skipped, with only a count note added to the message chatwoot.com
Community guide github.com · Tools: intercom_to_chatwoot (Python script)
Moves: conversations and all messages/replies (full); contacts (full). github.com
Doesn't move: Empty messages (including some Fin bot messages) are skipped; Anything outside the conversation ID range given on the command line. github.com
Watch out for:
- The import sends initial email notifications to users and the assigned agent; the author strongly recommends disabling SMTP first github.com
- The code was largely AI-generated and worked around API limits, so review before running github.com
- Predates Chatwoot's built-in Intercom importer and remains useful for self-hosted or custom imports github.com
Switching help: Chatwoot Cloud offers a 15-day free trial plus a permanently free Hacker plan: up to 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, 30-day data retention (voice and Teams features not included). chatwoot.com
Switching help: Chatwoot offers the Startups plan free of charge to open-source projects and nonprofits; claim by emailing hello@chatwoot.com with details of the project. chatwoot.com
Switching help: 15-day free trial of full Chatwoot Cloud. Separately, Chatwoot gives the Startups plan free of charge to open-source projects and nonprofits on request. chatwoot.com
From each destination's own migration docs and switching pages, plus community write-ups where no official guide exists, each checked against its page. Confirm terms on the linked page before you rely on an offer.
People who moved from Intercom to Chatwoot
3 public accounts of leaving Intercom: 2 switched, 1 evaluated. Summaries are ours; each links the original, and each was checked against its page before it appeared here.
The automation studio explains why it moved its own support stack to Chatwoot after weighing it against Intercom, citing per-seat costs, WhatsApp pricing, data control and n8n integration; it concedes Fin's AI lead and self-host upkeep. Affiliate links disclosed. Achiya Automation
A developer wrote and published a Python script to move his organization's Intercom conversations and contacts into a self-hosted Chatwoot inbox, then closed the Intercom account. The README doubles as a field report on the API pitfalls (rate limits, Fin messages, SMTP notifications). GitHub
Hands-on-style evaluation concluding that self-hosted Chatwoot covers the core support-desk job for 2-10 agent teams with a technical person, at a fraction of Intercom's cost, while conceding real gaps in outbound engagement, reporting and mobile. ProvenLabs
How to leave Intercom
Export first, then cancel. Every step links the vendor's own help page, checked on the date shown.
How to leave Intercom
Export first
- Conversation data: Reports → Dataset export (CSV, JSON to Amazon S3). The CSV holds IDs, timestamps, attributes and metrics, not message text; exporting a single conversation from the inbox gives the full transcript. Data goes back up to 2 years. intercom.com
Cancel
- Export conversation data first (see export).
- Settings → Subscription → Billing → Payment details → Cancel subscription.
- On a contract, talk to your account manager instead of cancelling in the app.
- Takes effect
- You keep access until the end of the current billing period, then lose it.
- Refunds
- Annual subscriptions are paid upfront and aren't refunded pro rata if you cancel early.
- Notice
- Contract customers must give written notice at least 30 days before the renewal date, or the contract renews for another 12 months.
- After you cancel
- Cancelling doesn't delete your data, but you lose access to it once the subscription ends unless you restart a plan.
FAQ
Is Chatwoot cheaper than Intercom?
Modeled, not measured: moving from Intercom Advanced to Chatwoot cloud at 5 seats saves $3,060 in the first year, after setup and upkeep time at $50/hour. It depends on your plan, seats and usage. the math
Can I move my Intercom data to Chatwoot?
Chatwoot's official guide moves: contacts; conversations including message history; source timestamps and source details. It doesn't move: file attachments; live channels (website widget, Messenger, other Intercom channels); File attachments; Intercom teammates, teams, assignments, routing rules, automations, apps and Messenger settings. chatwoot.com
Does Chatwoot help people switch from Intercom?
Chatwoot Cloud offers a 15-day free trial plus a permanently free Hacker plan: up to 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, 30-day data retention (voice and Teams features not included). chatwoot.com
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