Intercom alternative

An Intercom alternative without seats, meters, or lock-in

Intercom is a powerful hosted messaging platform, priced by seat with usage-based AI on top. If what your team actually needs is live chat, an AI assistant that defers to humans, and full control of customer data, ZChat delivers that as software you install once and own.

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Predictable cost, forever

Seat-plus-usage pricing means the bill moves every time your team or your AI volume grows. ZChat is a one-time license from $299: agents are not billable units, and AI resolutions are not metered by us at all.

AI on your terms

ZChat's chatbot answers from your own knowledge base and hands off to a human with the full transcript. You choose the brain: run Ollama locally so conversations never leave your network, or connect OpenAI or Anthropic with your own API keys and pay the provider directly.

Your data, literally

Conversations, visitor records, ratings, and analytics live in your SQL Server database. GDPR export and erasure are built in, an audit log records admin actions, and nothing about your customer relationships sits in someone else's cloud.

Honest scoping

Is ZChat the right Intercom replacement for you?

Intercom bundles email campaigns, product tours, and a large app marketplace. ZChat deliberately does less: it is a focused live chat and AI-assist product. If your Intercom usage is mostly the messenger, the inbox, and the AI answers, and the invoice keeps growing anyway, that focus is exactly the point.

Great fit

Live visitor chat, AI first response with human handoff, departments and routing, transcripts, CSAT, webhooks into your CRM or ticketing.

Keep a hosted suite if you need

Outbound email marketing, in-app product tours, or a large third-party app marketplace as core requirements.

How does ZChat's AI compare to hosted AI agents?

The workflow is the same one customers expect: the bot answers common questions from your knowledge base, and when the conversation needs judgment the visitor is handed to a human agent with the AI transcript attached. The difference is control: you pick the model and provider, tune the prompts, and pay no per-resolution fee to ZChat.

Can ZChat talk to the rest of my stack?

Yes. HMAC-signed webhooks fire on conversation events with automatic retries and a durable outbox, with ready-made formatting for Slack, Teams, and Discord. There are public widget APIs, admin APIs, and direct SQL access to your own data for reporting.

What does migration actually involve?

Install the server (Windows or Linux), run the included SQL scripts, sign in to the dashboard, and swap the messenger snippet on your site for the ZChat widget script. Most teams validate everything on localhost first with the free evaluation; it is the full product with a trial license.

What happens after the first year?

Your license is perpetual. A year of updates is included; afterwards you can renew update coverage if you want new releases, or simply keep running the version you own. Nothing expires and nothing stops working.

One-time pricing

Three licenses, full feature set in all of them

Domain, 1 production domain$299

Small Business, up to 10 domains$499

Enterprise, unlimited domains and agents$999

All prices one-time. No feature tiers, no per-agent seats, no AI usage fees from ZChat. Source code license also available.

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Owned customer support software

Deploy live chat on your own terms, not on someone else's pricing model.

ZChat gives you the installable server, web dashboard, website widget, and desktop agent tools in one self-hosted product you buy once and keep. Run it on infrastructure you trust and connect AI only if and how you want it.

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Deployment

Install on Windows or Linux, behind IIS or Nginx, in a VM, or in Docker if that fits your stack.

Commercial model

One-time purchase, perpetual license, and no monthly per-agent bill attached to growth.

AI Flexibility

Use Ollama locally or connect OpenAI and Anthropic with your own provider accounts.