Intercom vs Crisp: Multilingual Support Comparison (2026)

Choosing between Intercom and Crisp for multilingual customer support? Both platforms claim to help you support customers worldwide, but they take different approaches to translation and localization.

This comparison breaks down what each platform actually offers for multilingual teams, where the gaps are, and which one fits your situation.

Quick Comparison

Feature	Intercom	Crisp
Starting Price	$29/seat/month	$95/workspace/month
Live Chat Translation	Via Fin AI (partial)	LiveTranslate (100+ languages)
Help Center	Multilingual hosting, no translation	Multilingual hosting, no translation
Auto-Translate Articles	No	No
AI Agent	Fin (responds in detected language)	AI Agent (responds in detected language)
Best For	Established SaaS teams	Startups and SMBs

Live Chat Translation

Crisp: Built-in LiveTranslate

Crisp includes LiveTranslate on all paid plans. When a customer messages you in French, Crisp automatically translates their message to your language. When you reply, Crisp translates your response back to French.

The feature covers 100+ languages and works in real-time. Agents see both the original message and the translation, so they can catch any awkward phrasing before responding.

Crisp also auto-detects the visitor's browser language and adapts the chat widget accordingly. If someone browses from Germany, they see the widget in German without any configuration.

Intercom: Fin AI Handles It

Intercom doesn't have a dedicated translation feature for human agents. Instead, Fin AI (their AI agent) can respond to customers in 45+ languages based on your English help center content.

For human agent conversations, you're on your own. Agents need to copy-paste into Google Translate or use a browser extension. Intercom's inbox doesn't include native translation.

The gap: If you route complex issues to human agents (and you should), those agents need to handle translation manually with Intercom.

Help Center Translation

This is where both platforms fall short.

What Intercom Offers

Intercom lets you host articles in multiple languages. You enable French in your settings, and every article gets a French tab. But here's the catch: you fill that tab yourself.

Intercom doesn't translate anything. You copy your English article, paste it into DeepL, copy the result, create the French version, paste the translation, then re-upload all your images and re-format everything manually.

When you update the English article? Your French version sits there, outdated. No sync. No alerts. Nothing.

What Crisp Offers

Crisp works the same way. Their multilingual knowledge base lets you "choose specific languages and articles to translate," but the translation itself is manual.

You decide which articles to translate. You do the translation. You maintain the versions.

Crisp does mention AI-powered workflows that can "push the right help article based on customer inquiries," but this assumes you've already translated those articles.

Neither platform auto-translates your knowledge base.

Pricing for Multilingual Teams

Crisp Pricing

Crisp uses flat workspace pricing, not per-seat:

• Free: Basic chat, 100 contacts
• Mini ($45/mo): 2 agents, 5,000 contacts
• Essentials ($95/mo): 10 agents, knowledge base, AI chatbot, LiveTranslate
• Plus ($295/mo): 20+ agents, ticketing, white-label

For multilingual support with a knowledge base, you need Essentials at minimum. That's $95/month total, regardless of team size (up to 10 agents).

Intercom Pricing

Intercom charges per seat, per month:

• Essential ($29/seat/mo): Help Center included, but no multilingual support
• Advanced ($85/seat/mo): Multilingual Help Center, Fin AI
• Expert ($132/seat/mo): Custom SLAs, advanced workflows

For a team of five agents who need multilingual help center support, you're looking at $425/month minimum (5 × $85). Add Fin AI conversations on top of that.

The math: Crisp costs $95/month for a 10-person team. Intercom costs $850/month for the same team with equivalent features.

AI Agents and Multilingual Response

Crisp AI Agent

Crisp's AI Agent pulls from your knowledge base to answer customer questions. It can respond in the customer's detected language, translating your English content on the fly.

The catch: AI translation quality varies. For straightforward FAQ answers, it works. For nuanced product explanations, customers might get confused.

Intercom Fin

Fin works similarly. It reads your English help center, understands the question, and responds in the customer's language. Intercom claims Fin supports 45+ languages.

Fin is more battle-tested than Crisp's AI (Intercom has been refining it since 2023), but you pay for Fin conversations separately. Heavy usage adds up fast.

When to Choose Each Platform

Choose Crisp If:

• You're a startup or SMB watching costs closely
• Your team is 10 people or fewer
• Live chat translation matters more than help center depth
• You want everything in one flat price

Choose Intercom If:

• You're an established SaaS company with budget for tooling
• You need deep integrations with your product (Intercom's API is robust)
• Fin AI performance justifies the cost
• Your team already uses Intercom and switching costs are high

Solving the Help Center Gap

Neither platform translates your knowledge base automatically. If you're on Intercom and tired of manual article translation, TranslateDesk solves exactly this problem.

TranslateDesk connects to your Intercom Help Center, translates articles using DeepL, and keeps translations synced when you update the English source. No copy-pasting. No format breakage. No outdated translations.

It's built specifically for Intercom teams who want multilingual support without the maintenance headache.

For Crisp users: you're stuck with manual translation for now. Crisp's knowledge base doesn't have third-party translation integrations at this level.

The Bottom Line

Crisp wins on price and includes live chat translation by default. Intercom wins on ecosystem depth and Fin AI maturity.

For multilingual help centers specifically, both platforms require external help or manual work. They host translations but don't create them.

Intercom, combined with a tool like TranslateDesk, lets you translate your entire help center in minutes.

If you're already using Intercom, you can start translating with 5 free credits today. No card required, no setup time.

If you're on Crisp and tired of the manual translation grind, switching to Intercom + TranslateDesk might pay for itself in time savings alone.

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Related Resources

• Does Intercom Support Translation? - Complete guide to Intercom's multilingual capabilities
• DeepL vs ChatGPT for Help Center Translation - Which AI translation engine works best
• Building a Multilingual Knowledge Base - Strategy guide for global support teams