Why We Don't Replace Intercom (And Why That's Better for You)

You don't need another support platform. You need an Intercom translation add-on.

We know this because we've read the same Reddit threads you have. The ones where someone announces they're leaving Intercom, gets 40 recommendations, and ends up saying "my team still wishes we'd stayed."

Switching support platforms is painful. Your team knows Intercom. Your workflows work. Your integrations are wired up. The only thing missing? Your Help Center speaks one language.

That's exactly what TranslateDesk solves. Not "replace Intercom." Not "migrate to something else." Just: add multilingual Help Center translation to the platform you already use.

If you've been searching for an Intercom translation add-on that doesn't require a six-month migration, you're in the right place.

The Real Problem (It's Not Intercom)

Here's what we hear from support teams struggling with Intercom multilingual support:

The volume problem: "We have 50+ Help Center articles. Translating them manually feels impossible. French alone would take weeks."

The freelancer problem: "We tried freelancers. Formatting got destroyed. Updates fell behind. Nobody knows which translations are stale."

The feature gap: "Intercom's AI stuff is cool but it doesn't translate Help Center articles. It does chat, not documentation."

The switch trap: "We looked at switching platforms but that's a six-month project. And our team knows Intercom."

The pattern? Intercom works for what it does. Intercom help center translation is the gap.

How to Translate Intercom Help Center Articles (The Typical Struggle)

Here's what most teams try before finding an actual solution:

Manual translation: Export articles to Google Docs. Hire freelancers. Get translations back. Manually copy-paste into Intercom. Fix broken formatting. Repeat 50 times. Realize updates mean doing it all again.

Time estimate: 50 articles × 5 languages × 2 hours per article = 500+ hours of work.

Generic translation tools: Use DeepL or Google Translate directly. Copy source article. Paste into translator. Copy translation. Create new article in Intercom. Fix formatting. Upload images again. Lose all internal links.

The result: Most teams translate 2-3 critical articles. The rest stays English-only. Support tickets pile up from non-English speakers.

The Before/After Calculation

Let's get specific.

Before (Manual Process):

50 articles to translate into 5 languages = 250 translations
Average 2 hours per translation (copy, translate, format, QA)
Total: 500 hours of work
At $50/hour for skilled work: $25,000 in labor
Timeline: 3-6 months if someone works on it consistently

After (TranslateDesk):

Connect Intercom (5 minutes)
Select 50 articles + 5 languages
Click translate
Review translations (30 min total)
Total time: Under 1 hour for the same 250 translations
Cost: 250 credits = approximately $75

That's not an incremental improvement. That's 500 hours reduced to 1 hour. That's why we built this.

Why "Complement" Beats "Replace"

1. Your Team Already Knows Intercom

Every platform switch means:

Retraining your entire support team
Rebuilding workflows from scratch
Migrating years of customer history
Reconnecting dozens of integrations
Six months of "where do I find X?"

TranslateDesk adds to Intercom. Install in five minutes. No retraining needed. Your team keeps using the tools they know.

2. Full Replacements Overpromise on Intercom Multilingual Support

We've seen the comparison threads. Every Intercom alternative claims to be "just as good" until you dig in:

Freshworks: Teams switch, then miss Intercom's automation
Zendesk: Different learning curve, similar pricing headaches
Crisp: Great for startups, gaps at scale

The grass isn't greener. You don't have a platform problem. You have a translation problem.

3. Switching Doesn't Fix Translation

Here's the insight that changes everything:

Freshdesk has translation gaps too. So does Zendesk. So does everyone.

If you switch platforms without solving the translation problem, you still have the translation problem. Just on a new platform you're also learning. Now you've doubled your problems.

We've seen teams switch to Freshdesk, then realize they still need a translation solution. Now they're learning a new platform AND still have untranslated Help Centers. Six months later, they're no closer to serving international customers.

Solve translation first. Keep what works. Then decide if you need to switch anything.

What TranslateDesk Actually Does

We connect directly to your Intercom workspace. No exports. No file juggling. No middleware.

One-click translation: Select the articles you want translated. Pick your target languages. Click translate. DeepL handles the actual translation, which means quality you can trust.

Formatting preservation: Your tables, images, code blocks, and callouts stay intact. No manual cleanup. No reformatting. The French version looks exactly like the English version, just in French.

Stale content detection: When you update the original English article, we flag translations that need updates. No spreadsheets tracking "which German article is stale?" No guessing. Just a clear signal that translations need refreshing.

Review before publish: Every translation gets reviewed before it goes live. You control what gets published. Nothing automatic, nothing out of your control.

Works in your workflow: Edit in Intercom. Translate with TranslateDesk. Publish when ready. No new tools to learn beyond our simple interface.

Predictable Pricing (The Other Intercom Problem)

Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

Intercom's pricing has become... complicated. We've read the Reddit posts:

"$119 to $854 a month overnight"
"$1 per AI resolution adds up fast"
"Requires a Ph.D. to understand their pricing page"
"Hidden charges and add-ons add up real quick"

TranslateDesk uses credits. One credit translates one article into one language. You buy credits. You use credits. That's it.

No seat licenses
No AI resolution fees
No mysterious multipliers
No surprise bills

Check your article count. Check our pricing page. Multiply. That's your cost. You can do the math in 30 seconds. That's how pricing should work.

Intercom Multilingual Support: What Intercom Does (and Doesn't) Do

To be clear about where TranslateDesk fits:

What Intercom does well:

Live chat in multiple languages (agent responses)
AI Inbox Translation (real-time chat translation)
Multilingual workflows (customer routing by language)
Team collaboration tools

What Intercom doesn't do:

Translate your Help Center articles
Keep translations in sync when source articles change
Provide bulk translation for existing documentation
Integrate with professional translation APIs like DeepL

That last gap is exactly what TranslateDesk fills. We're the Intercom translation add-on for Help Centers specifically.

When TranslateDesk Is Right for You

Good fit:

You use Intercom and plan to stay
You have a Help Center with 20+ articles
You serve customers in multiple regions
You want translation without a platform migration
You value predictable costs

Not a fit:

You don't use Intercom (we're Intercom-only for now)
You need real-time chat translation (Intercom does that)
You want a different support platform anyway (switch first, then solve translation)
You have fewer than 10 articles (manual might work for you)

How Teams Actually Use This

The typical workflow:

Connect Intercom (5 minutes, one-time OAuth)
See all your Help Center articles in one dashboard
Pick target languages (Spanish? German? French? All of them?)
Select articles for translation (by collection, individual, or bulk)
Click translate (one click starts the batch)
Review translations before they go live
Publish when you're satisfied

For ongoing maintenance:

When you update a source article, TranslateDesk flags which translations are now stale. One click to retranslate. No spreadsheets tracking versions. No guessing what's out of date.