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Drift vs Intercom (2026): pricing, AI and who each is for

Two enterprise chat platforms compared on published prices, billing models and fit, with the cheaper route for an online store.

Drift and Intercom solve different problems. Drift, part of Salesloft since 2024, is quote-only B2B revenue software reported at around $2,500 a month on annual contracts. Intercom is a customer service platform billed per seat ($29 to $132 a month, as of September 2026) plus $0.99 for every conversation its Fin AI agent resolves. Neither has a free plan, and both cost far more than a widget built for a store.

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01

The short version

Pick Drift if you sell to other businesses, your website's job is to turn visitors into booked sales meetings, and a five-figure annual contract is normal for your marketing stack. Pick Intercom if you run a support team that needs a help centre, product tours, email campaigns and an AI agent in one system, and you can budget per seat plus per resolution. If your website is an online store and the questions are about products, shipping, returns and orders, neither is the natural fit; the last section covers that case.

Prices below are the published figures as of September 2026. Both vendors change them; check their pricing pages before signing.

02

Pricing side by side

DriftIntercom
Pricing modelCustom quote on an annual contractPer seat per month, plus AI usage
Published entry priceQuote only; entry pricing reported around $2,500 a month on annual contractsEssential $29 per seat, Advanced $85 per seat, Expert $132 per seat
How AI answers are billedIncluded in the contractFin AI Agent at $0.99 per resolved conversation, on top of seats
Free planNoNo; 14-day trial
CommitmentAnnualMonthly or annual
Built forB2B revenue teams: meeting booking, routing leads to sales and the CRMCustomer service teams: helpdesk, help centre, product tours, email campaigns

The headline numbers are not comparable one to one. Drift's figure covers the whole contract; Intercom's grows with every agent you add and every conversation Fin closes. Work out a year of both for your team before comparing.

03

What a year costs at three team sizes

Intercom's cost is arithmetic; Drift's is a negotiation. Using the published Intercom prices and the reported Drift entry figure:

TeamIntercom Essential ($29/seat)Intercom Advanced ($85/seat)Drift (reported entry)
2 seats, Fin resolves 200 chats a month$58 + $198 = $256 a month, about $3,072 a year$170 + $198 = $368 a month, about $4,416 a yearAbout $2,500 a month, about $30,000 a year
5 seats, Fin resolves 500 chats a month$145 + $495 = $640 a month, about $7,680 a year$425 + $495 = $920 a month, about $11,040 a yearAbout $30,000 a year (quote)
10 seats, Fin resolves 1,000 chats a month$290 + $990 = $1,280 a month, about $15,360 a year$850 + $990 = $1,840 a month, about $22,080 a yearAbout $30,000 a year (quote)

Below roughly ten seats Intercom is the cheaper of the two on published prices, and it lets you start monthly. Drift only makes financial sense when booked meetings are worth thousands each; that is who it is designed for.

04

What each product is actually for

Drift is conversational marketing for B2B: the chat exists to qualify a visitor, book a meeting with the right rep and hand the lead to the sales team and CRM. Since 2024 it has been part of Salesloft, a sales engagement platform, which tells you where the roadmap points. Support tickets, order questions and a help centre are not the job.

Intercom is a customer service platform. The chat is one door into a helpdesk that also includes a help centre, product tours, outbound email and, since 2023, the Fin AI agent that answers from your help content and is billed per resolution. It is built for software companies with a support team of agents, hence the per-seat model.

If your visitors are shoppers, notice what is missing from both descriptions: a product catalogue, live order status, coupons and the store platform plugins that make those work.

05

How the AI differs

Intercom's Fin answers support questions from your help centre and the content you connect, and every conversation it resolves without a person costs $0.99. That is a clean, honest model for a support team, and it also means a busy month is an expensive month. Drift's AI is aimed at qualification and meeting booking rather than resolving support questions, and it is priced inside the contract rather than per conversation.

For a store, the question is narrower: can the AI read your products, stock, policies and orders and answer from them? Both platforms can be connected to store data with integration work; neither ships with a WooCommerce or OpenCart plugin that syncs the catalogue and looks up orders out of the box.

06

Decision rules

  • Choose Drift when marketing owns the website, the goal is booked sales meetings, deals are large and an annual contract is expected.
  • Choose Intercom when a support team needs helpdesk, help centre, tours and email in one place, and per-seat plus per-resolution billing is acceptable at your volume.
  • Choose neither when the site is an online store and the questions are about products, shipping, returns and "where is my order". A store widget that reads your catalogue answers those better and costs a fraction; see below.
  • Whatever you choose, price a full year including seats, AI usage and onboarding, and ask what happens at the cap.
07

The third option for online stores

Vatdi is a website chat widget for stores. The AI answers from your own catalogue, pages, policies and uploads, looks up order status through native plugins for WooCommerce, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Magento, Shopware, Joomla and Drupal, offers coupons, captures leads and hands over to your team with the conversation attached. Pricing is per store, not per seat: Free ($0, 15 conversations a month, every feature), Starter ($4.49 a month, 150 conversations) and Grow ($7.49 a month, unlimited conversations). Unlimited teammates on every plan.

What it does not do, so you can rule it out quickly: no meeting booking or CRM routing (Drift's job), no ticketing helpdesk, help centre or email campaigns (Intercom's job), no Messenger channel (WhatsApp works through your own WhatsApp Business number), and no live order lookup on Shopify yet. If you need any of those, the two platforms above are the serious options. If you need shoppers answered on your own site, start with the free plan and compare Vatdi vs Intercom or Vatdi vs Drift in detail.

Where it runs

Native plugin on your platform, widget on everything else

Install on your store in one click, or paste the one-line widget on any other site.

WordPress OpenCart Shopify PrestaShop Magento Shopware Joomla Drupal Any other site

Frequently Asked Questions

Usually not. Drift is quote-only, with entry pricing reported around $2,500 a month on annual contracts. Intercom publishes per-seat prices of $29 to $132 a month plus $0.99 per conversation its Fin AI resolves; a five-seat team resolving 500 chats a month pays roughly $640 to $920 a month. Prices are as of September 2026 and change; check both vendors.

No. Drift is sold on annual contracts through a sales process and does not publish a free tier or self-serve pricing. Intercom has no free plan either, but it offers a 14-day trial and monthly billing, so it is the only one of the two you can test without a contract.

Fin AI Agent is billed at $0.99 for each conversation it resolves without a human, on top of the per-seat plan price ($29, $85 or $132 per seat per month as of September 2026). Two hundred Fin resolutions a month add $198 to the bill.

Drift has been part of Salesloft since 2024 and is sold within its sales engagement platform rather than as a stand-alone chat tool. It remains focused on B2B revenue teams: qualifying visitors, booking meetings and routing leads to sales and the CRM, priced by quote on annual contracts.

Neither is built for stores. Drift exists to book sales meetings; Intercom is a helpdesk with an AI agent priced per resolution. A store needs answers from its catalogue, order status and returns policies. Vatdi does that from $0 with native plugins for WooCommerce, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Magento, Shopware, Joomla and Drupal; it does not do meeting booking, ticketing or messaging channels.

Intercom offers monthly billing after a 14-day trial. Drift is sold on annual contracts. If you want to test before committing, Intercom is the only one of the two that allows it, and a store-focused widget with a permanent free plan avoids the question entirely.

It depends on the job. For support teams that need a helpdesk, Freshchat, Zendesk and Crisp publish lower entry prices. For online stores that need product and order answers on their own site, Vatdi is $0 to $7.49 a month per store with every feature included. The alternatives pages for Drift and Intercom compare each option with its real limits.

Intercom, for most support teams — it has the stronger AI agent (Fin), a full helpdesk and email, and publishes its pricing. Drift is the better fit only for B2B sales teams that want visitor-to-rep routing and meeting booking. If what you need is a website chatbot that answers from your own content without per-seat or per-resolution fees, neither is the cheapest route; Vatdi starts at $0.

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