- The short answer
- Side by side
- What a small team pays
- Why mobile is different
- Where they're stronger
- Which one to pick
The short answer
DevReply does one thing: a native “message the developer” chat inside your app, answered from one inbox, with an MCP server so your own AI agent can read and work that inbox. It doesn't charge per seat or per AI answer, and the free plan includes the mobile SDKs. If you want a full customer-service suite with a help center, a built-in AI bot and many channels, Intercom is the stronger product, and you'll pay per seat for it.
Side by side
List prices from each company's own pricing page, in USD, before tax. Checked October 2026; prices change, so check the sources below before you decide.
| DevReply | Intercom | Crisp | Chatwoot | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Flat monthly or yearly plan. No per-seat fees | Per seat, per month, billed annually | Flat monthly plans, each with an agent limit | Per agent, per month |
| Free plan | $0: unlimited apps, users and teammates; 50 conversations a month; history kept forever; 500 MB of files, kept 90 days | No free plan; a 14-day trial | Free: 2 agents, 100 contacts | Hacker: 2 agents, 500 conversations, 30-day retention |
| Paid plans | Pro $49/mo or $490/yr (500 conversations). Scale $199/mo or $1,990/yr (5,000 conversations) | $29, $85 or $132 per seat per month | Mini $45/mo (4 agents), Essentials $95/mo, Plus $295/mo | $19, $39 or $99 per agent per month |
| AI answers | No per-answer fee: on Pro, your own agent works the inbox over MCP | Fin AI: $0.99 per resolution | Not compared here | Not compared here |
| Mobile SDK | Every plan, Free included: native SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose, React Native and Flutter wrappers, a web script | Not compared here | Paid plans only | Not compared here |
| Built for | Developers answering their own app's users | Support teams of any size, many channels | Websites first, with a free chat | Teams who want an open-source inbox |
Sources: intercom.com/pricing, crisp.chat/en/pricing, chatwoot.com/pricing, and our own pricing. Checked October 2026. DevReply prices are in USD, with VAT added where it applies. Scale's webhooks and in-app nudges are coming, not built yet.
What a small team pays
Take a team of three answering one app for a year, at the list prices above:
- DevReply: $0 on Free while you stay under 50 conversations a month. Pro is $490 a year for the whole team, with your agent working the inbox. Adding a fourth or a tenth teammate costs nothing.
- Intercom: from $1,044 a year on the cheapest plan (3 seats × $29 × 12), plus $0.99 for every resolution Fin handles.
- Crisp: $540 a year on Mini (4 agents, $45 × 12), the first plan with the mobile SDK.
- Chatwoot: $684 a year on the first paid plan (3 agents × $19 × 12). The free Hacker plan fits 2 agents and keeps 30 days of history.
None of this counts your time, which matters more. A tool built for a support department brings settings, roles and workflows a two-person app team never touches.
Why mobile is different
A website visitor can find your email. An app user who hits a broken purchase usually can't, and the App Store review box is right there. That changes what a support tool needs to do:
- Feel native. DevReply's chat is written in SwiftUI on iOS and Jetpack Compose on Android, with no web view. The React Native and Flutter packages open those same native screens. Photos, files, the keyboard and right-to-left languages behave the way the phone does.
- Arrive with context. Each message comes with the device, OS, app version and language, plus anything your app passes, like the user's plan. Open the chat from a paywall with a draft and an error code, and the conversation shows them as “Opened with”.
- Reach the user after they leave. Replies arrive live while the chat is open, then as a push or a bubble over the app, and by email on Pro if they left one.
- Handle accounts the way the stores expect. Log in with your own user id, log out on sign-out so the next person starts clean, and delete a user from the app, the inbox or your backend, as Apple requires.
- Speak their language. The chat follows the phone's language, 34 of them, including Hebrew and Arabic right to left.
And because it's built for developers, your coding agent can install it from the app's setup guide or over MCP. See the guides for SwiftUI, Expo and React Native and Flutter.
Where the others are stronger
- Intercom is far broader: a help center, Fin as an AI agent that answers on its own, and a platform built for support teams handling many channels at scale. If a support department will live in the tool all day, that breadth is worth paying for. DevReply has no help center, and it has no AI bot of its own: you bring your agent.
- Crisp is web-first and has a free website chat. If most of your users are on a website rather than in an app, it's a natural fit, and its flat plans include several agents.
- Chatwoot is open source, so a team that wants to own its inbox can, and its per-agent prices are low for very small teams.
- All three are older and bigger. DevReply is new, made by Code Axolot for our own apps first. Some things are still coming: webhooks so your agent answers around the clock, and in-app nudges, both planned for Scale.
Which one to pick
- Pick DevReply if your users are mostly in an iOS or Android app, you or a small team answer them, and you want your own coding agent to help without paying per seat or per answer.
- Pick Intercom if you run a support team that needs a help center, an AI bot that resolves on its own, and many channels in one place.
- Pick Crisp if your product is mainly a website and you want a free web chat to start.
- Pick Chatwoot if open source matters most to you.
Try DevReply free with your own app: no card, unlimited teammates, and the native SDKs on the free plan. Coding agents can read everything about it in llms.txt.