Intercom Fin is a powerful, full-featured customer platform with pay-per-resolution AI. Hay offers flat monthly pricing with included resolutions. The right choice depends on your volume patterns and budget preferences.
Hay vs Intercom Fin comes down to pricing models. Intercom Fin charges $0.99 per resolution, scaling with volume. Hay uses flat monthly pricing with included resolutions. For high-volume teams wanting predictable costs, Hay is typically more economical. For teams valuing Intercom's broader platform, Fin may fit better.
Understanding how costs compare at different volume levels
Pay-per-resolution means costs scale with volume. This aligns costs with value delivered but means higher-volume periods increase spending proportionally.
Predictable monthly cost. Even if you hit 3,000 resolutions, you pay $135 + $200 overage = $335. Still 86% cheaper.
Intercom Fin Cost
$5,445/month
$495 base + $4,950 resolutions
Hay Cost
$725/month
Growth plan with 20,000 included resolutions
Save $4,720/month (87% less) with Hay
Intercom Fin
Pay-per-resolution model ($0.99 each) means costs scale directly with customer demand. This approach works well for teams with variable volume who prefer paying only for what they use. It also means costs are directly tied to value delivered.
Hay
Flat monthly pricing with included resolutions means predictable costs regardless of volume. Overages are charged at a lower per-resolution rate than Fin's standard pricing.
For teams handling 5,000+ monthly resolutions consistently, Hay's model is typically more economical. Teams with unpredictable volume may prefer Fin's pay-as-you-go approach.
Intercom Fin
Fin uses 'Custom Objects' and a visual workflow builder. Powerful for complex logic, but requires significant setup time and often dedicated Intercom expertise. The 'Procedures' system is sophisticated but has a learning curve.
Hay
Plain English playbooks with @-mention actions. Write 'If customer asks for refund, @Shopify Process Refund' and you're done. No flowcharts, no custom object schemas.
Hay's approach lets support managers configure automation without engineering help. Intercom often requires dedicated implementation specialists.
Intercom Fin
Fin 3 introduced 'Procedures' for deterministic control and 'Simulations' for testing. However, by default Fin is autonomous - you configure guardrails after deployment.
Hay
Human-in-loop is the default. Agents draft responses that require approval until you're confident. Confidence thresholds automatically route uncertain queries to humans. Safety first, autonomy earned.
Teams nervous about AI making mistakes find Hay's default-to-human approach less risky during initial deployment.
Intercom Fin
Best-in-class for native Intercom ecosystem. Deep integration with Intercom's own CRM, Help Center, and Product Tours. Third-party integrations exist but Fin works best within Intercom's world.
Hay
Built to work with your existing stack. Native integrations for Zendesk, Help Scout, Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe, and more. We're the AI layer on top of tools you already use, not a replacement platform.
If you're already invested in Zendesk or Help Scout, Hay adds AI without forcing a platform migration.
Intercom Fin
SaaS companies, product-led growth teams, and enterprises who want an all-in-one customer engagement platform. Best for teams willing to adopt the full Intercom ecosystem.
Hay
Support leaders at e-commerce and SaaS companies handling 2,000+ tickets/month who want AI automation without platform lock-in. Best for teams who want to augment, not replace, their existing tools.
Moving from Intercom Fin to Hay doesn't mean abandoning your Intercom investment. Many teams use Hay as their AI execution layer while keeping Intercom for messaging and engagement.
Link Hay to your e-commerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce) and helpdesk. This takes about 10 minutes per integration.
Upload your existing help articles, FAQs, and policy documents. Hay indexes them in minutes, not days.
Translate your Fin procedures into Hay's plain English playbooks. Most teams complete this in an afternoon.
Start with Hay in 'approval required' mode alongside Fin. Compare responses and refine your playbooks.
Increase Hay's autonomy as confidence grows. Most teams are fully migrated within 2 weeks.
Timeframe: Most teams are handling live traffic with Hay within 1-2 weeks of starting migration.
Not necessarily. If you have very low volume (under 500 resolutions/month) and already use Intercom for other features, Fin might make sense. But once you exceed ~1,500 resolutions/month, Hay's pricing advantage becomes significant. At 5,000 resolutions, you could save $4,000+/month.
Yes. Hay can work alongside Intercom, handling AI automation while Intercom manages your messaging channels. This is a common configuration for teams who like Intercom's chat widget but want more predictable AI pricing.
For support automation, yes. Hay executes actions (refunds, order lookups, ticket creation), answers questions from your knowledge base, and escalates to humans intelligently. Where Fin excels is in the broader Intercom ecosystem - product tours, marketing automation, and engagement features that Hay doesn't offer (and doesn't try to).
Hay takes a different approach. Instead of simulating against historical tickets, we use 'approval required' mode for live traffic. You see real customer queries and approve/edit Hay's responses before they're sent. This trains the system on your actual traffic patterns, not historical data.
Both use state-of-the-art LLMs for understanding and generation. The accuracy difference comes from your training data and configuration, not the underlying AI. Hay's advantage is that our plain English playbooks are easier to refine, so you can iterate faster to improve accuracy.
Intercom Fin is a sophisticated AI agent built for teams who want an all-in-one customer platform and can tolerate variable monthly costs.
Hay is for support leaders who need predictable budgets, work with existing tools they like, and want AI that's easy to configure without engineering help. If your resolution volume is high (2,000+/month), Hay can save you thousands while delivering the same automation outcomes.
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