{"id":3557,"date":"2023-09-18T10:03:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T10:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helpcrunch.com\/blog\/?p=3557"},"modified":"2026-02-11T10:47:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T10:47:30","slug":"intercom-vs-drift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helpcrunch.com\/blog\/intercom-vs-drift\/","title":{"rendered":"Drift vs Intercom: Which Tool is Better?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019re evaluating Intercom vs Drift for your company, chances are you\u2019re working in marketing or sales. These tools are great for customer support but thanks to the features like demo booking, custom bots, and newsletters they are also famous for their sales and marketing capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though Intercom and Drift are leaders in their niche today, you must think twice before rushing into anything with either of the two. Both of them are very expensive options with all those advanced features costing even more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you really need custom chatbots that cost hundreds of dollars? Are you going to use built-in calendars for booking demos? Or maybe you would be better off with a more cost-effective solution like HelpCrunch<\/a> that offers live chat, chatbot, knowledge base, and email automation features? That is something to think about as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Intercom vs Drift: a comparison table<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Intercom is a great and well-balanced all-in-one tool that covers support, marketing, and sales tasks while Drift is way more sales-oriented. Both tools are famous for their highly developed bots and for being quite expensive and enterprise-oriented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/td>Intercom<\/strong><\/td>Drift<\/strong><\/td>HelpCrunch<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Main features<\/td>Live chat
Knowledge base
Email marketing
Customizable branding
Shared inbox
Meeting scheduler
Chatbots
Product tours<\/td>		Live chat
Knowledge base
Email management software
Customizable branding
Shared inbox
Offline forms
Meeting scheduler
Chatbots
Video messaging<\/td>		Chat software
Codeless chatbot
Knowledge base
Email marketing
Customizable branding
Shared inbox
Offline forms<\/td><\/tr>
Free trial<\/td>Available for 14 days, requires credit card details<\/td>Free account with limited functionality<\/td>Available for 14 days, no credit card required<\/td><\/tr>
Prices start at<\/td>$39\/mo per seat<\/td>$2500\/mo<\/td>$15\/mo per seat<\/td><\/tr>
All-in-one \u2018Premium\u2019 subscription starts at<\/td>Quotation based (it used to be $999\/mo)<\/td>Quotation based (it used to be $1,500\/mo)<\/td>$620\/mo\/unlimited seats<\/td><\/tr>
G2 rating<\/td>4.5 \/ 5 \u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50<\/td>4.4 \/ 5 \u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50<\/td>4.7 \/ 5 \u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50<\/td><\/tr>
Capterra rating<\/td>4.5 \/ 5 \u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50<\/td>4.5 \/ 5 \u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50<\/td>4.8 \/ 5 \u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you are a small or medium company that prefers a rational approach, then take a closer look at HelpCrunch. The software, compared to Intercom<\/a>, offers all the essential functionality for fluid support, sales, and marketing purposes but at a more attractive price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intercom vs Drift: introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Intercom was founded<\/a> in California in 2011 by four designers and engineers as a business messenger. The main idea was to create a new customer communication platform for businesses that want to talk with their clients faster and more efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You can talk to a client when they\u2019re in the product \u2013 much like when you\u2019re in a shop, someone will come up directly to you and talk to you there rather than send you an email or send you a letter in the mail.<\/p>\nEoghan McCabe<\/em><\/a>, Intercom\u2019s CEO & Co-founder.<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"intercom
Intercome landing page<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Basically, it\u2019s not that Intercom has invented live chat for websites and apps, it\u2019s just that they made it so much more than just live chat. Thanks to them, companies now use a chat feature not just for answering user requests, but also for attracting new leads, increasing conversions, onboarding, retention, and engaging with them at different stages of the funnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


That is why it\u2019s no surprise that other companies saw the potential value of business messengers and tried to duplicate the success. This was the beginning of a new era in customer communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about Drift?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere around this time, another business messenger\u2019s enthusiast David Cancel<\/a> had started his job as Chief Product Officer at HubSpot. Fast forward four years, he raised a $15 million Series A<\/a> for his own startup called Drift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drift is also a business messenger for real-time communication between businesses and clients or, as they call themselves, a \u2018revenue acceleration platform\u2019. After all those years at Hubspot, it was hardly surprising that the project was completely dedicated to a wide range of sales and marketing tasks right from the beginning.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Everyone has been using messaging for support, and no one has used it for sales and marketing. We thought that if everyone\u2019s default is now to use messaging in their personal lives, that would be the way we\u2019d buy online.<\/p>\nDavid Cancel<\/a>, Drift\u2019s CEO & Founder<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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\"drift
Drift landing page<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Summarizing the above, Intercom vs Drift are virtually business messengers (aka live chat tools) with numerous out-of-the-box features aiming to help marketing teams and sales experts with their daily tasks in boosting customer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And how\u2019s it going today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intercom vs Drift: features<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While both tools are titans of the customer support market nowadays, their features aren’t the same.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intercom features<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The company distinguishes three main use cases for its software \u2014 conversational support, conversational engagement, and conversational marketing. These packages include different combinations of Intercom\u2019s standard products:<\/p>\n\n\n\n